Proving Which Campaign Ads are Most Effective

Sasha Issenberg notes that political campaigns used to guess which ads were most effective, but the Obama re-election campaign is trying to prove it using random tests.

“To those familiar with the campaign’s operations, such irregular efforts at paid communication are indicators of an experimental revolution underway at Obama’s Chicago headquarters. They reflect a commitment to using randomized trials… designed to track the impact of campaign messages as voters process them in the real world, instead of relying solely on artificial environments like focus groups and surveys.”