Wyrwane z kontekstu – How data analysis helped Obama win

The campaign rigorously tested donation-related words such as Donate Now, Please Donate, Why Donate, Donate and Get A Gift, Contribute. They found that “Why Donate” was by far the poorest performing phrase. “Donate And Get A Gift” worked best for those who had not yet signed up for the campaign. “Please Donate” worked best for those who had already signed up. “Contribute” worked best for those who had signed up and already made at least one financial donation.

If the 2008 campaign was rigorous, the 2012 campaign was scientific. As one official told TIME magazine, the era of “guys sitting in a back room smoking cigars, saying ‘We always buy 60 Minutes’” is over.” As TIME summarized, “In politics, the era of big data has arrived.” If the worst way to try to win a political campaign is to have five smart people in a room smoking cigars and pontificating, then the worst way to manage an online presence if to have five smart people in a room drinking lattes and opinionating.

“We are going to measure every single thing in this campaign,” campaign manager Jim Messina said after taking the job. According to TIME, “He hired an analytics department five times as large as that of the 2008 operation, with an official “chief scientist” for the Chicago headquarters named Rayid Ghani, who in a previous life crunched huge data sets to, among other things, maximize the efficiency of supermarket sales promotions.”