Today there is a new, effective and inexpensive way that every progressive organization can get their message out: buy online search advertisements. As Americans pay increasing attention to the elections over the next month, many will research issues, campaigns and candidates in the same way they do cars or electronics, by going to their favorite web search engines. Buying search ads is an efficient and powerful way to reach these people with timely and targeted information.

Buying an online search ad is quick: it can be done in less than an hour. It’s easy: you can do it all through the web in a step-by-step process. It’s cheap: you usually pay a fraction of a dollar for every interested person who clicks through to your website, and you pay absolutely nothing for people to just see your ad. It can be geographically targeted: you can choose to have the ad only seen by people in a particular state, city or even neighborhood. Most importantly, it’s effective: everyone who comes to your website is actively looking for political information. Unlike more passive forms of media such television or direct mail, you only pay for search ads when people come to you.

Even if your organization or campaign hasn’t yet invested in search, there is still real benefit in doing so over the next month. This memo gives an overview of why and how to use search, and gives simple pointers about getting started.

Download the PDF version if you want text and visual graphics, or click on read full report for text only.