To back up what Anthony said, I wrote a lot about Obama and McCain’s google ads would crop up to the point that I set my adsense settings to block them.

For example, you could target the entire state of Ohio, or a specific zip code in Ohio, but not a list of zip codes in Ohio. This limits its effectiveness for ads for local campaigns in counties like Medina or Lake where there are a bunch of zip codes.

Another problem is that for myself, at least, it is not easy to figure out how much money to spend on an ad campaign. Google offers the concept of paying by clicks on the ad, but there is some link to how much you are willing to spend and how often your ad appears when people do a search, or at least, that was my conclusion when I looked into this.

Ads on traditional media are much easier to figure out because you are dealing with more finite numbers, IE, a candidate knows how often the PD appears and how many subscribers it has, but doesn’t know how many times an Ohioan will do a search using terms that trigger the candidate’s ad.

Having said all that, though, I am, like yourself, intrigued by what Portman is doing and I hope that Democrats follow suit. Thanks for noting it.

I wonder if Redfern was referring more to banner ads on blogs and media sites as opposed to content generated Google ads like the ones Cordray and Portman used. It does make a lot of sense to do these types of ads. They’re pretty inexpensive and give you a way to stick your nose into your opponent’s press coverage. Every time I mention Ryan, Fisher, etc on OhioDaily, Portman shows up in the Google ads.

PS: By making your night, you made my night

Do you have knowledge or recollection about that? I’m not sure what info we can get access to to check – I’d love to see, did Cordray have anything up? Or any of the judges?

It’s this use by a candidate before he’s even the nominee, and the fact that it’s a statewide and not presidential that interests me. Clearly the cost-benefit has got to be worth it.

Thanks for reading! That made my night.

Not to refute your story but I did see a lot of internet advertising this last election cycle on my site and in 2006 one as a matter of fact. The funny thing was in the ’06 one was that the election was over and there was still some spots up well after the vote had come in.

Interesting that Portman is already throwing big money in the race when he is the only one who seems to be openly pursuing the seat so far.