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Presidential Campaign Emails: Post Labor Day Check-in

Article by John Landsman CATEGORIES: News & Updates TAGS:

With Labor Day two weeks behind us, nastiness increasing and polls tightening, 2016’s bizarre Presidential race now enters its final phases. This seems like a good time for another update on presidential campaign emails, activity and performance.

Trump’s email program still underdeveloped and spam filled, but has it mattered?

Due to spam issues that had previously hobbled Trump’s own email domains, but have evidently since resolved, Trump has resorted to sending many of his campaigns through a Republican party email domain (gopteam.gop). He has even leaned on Chris Christie, for use of his domain from his own long suspended presidential bid. The basic data for the September 5-16 period appears in the table below and includes data for all domains we see Trump using over this period of time.

[table id=2 /]

clinton-iconHillary: Extending a consistent pattern we’ve noted over many months, Clinton has dramatically out-mailed Trump in both the number of campaigns and emails deployed. Clinton’s overall email audience is many times bigger than Trump’s. Her inbox performance is also substantially better. However, her read rates were slightly less than the best of Trump’s. One of the best performing Clinton campaign emails of this period was sent on September 13 (Subject: “A quick thank-you”), acknowledging concerns about Clinton’s health scare. It drove a 24% read rate.

hillaryclinton2

trump-iconEven including his “borrowed” domains, Trump’s email audience size remains a small fraction of Clinton’s, and his overall activity level continues sharply lower. Deliverability remains a continuing challenge, especially within Trump’s two borrowed domains, although it appears to be in somewhat better shape than we’d seen earlier. Read rates in the Trump domains are respectable; the borrowed domains don’t do as well.

donaldtrump3

gopteam2

chrischristie2

As a New Hampshire resident on Trump’s email lists, my sense is that his mailing contact cadence has intensified. However, of 22 Trump emails sent to me in the past two weeks, eight (36%) went directly to my spam folder. In addition to fund solicitations from Trump himself, he periodically sends “surveys”: (Question: “Is she: (a) unbelievably corrupt, or (b) utterly incompetent?”). His daughter Ivanka has invited me for coffee, and son Eric wants my volunteer time. Other surrogates send messages about local events (“Join Us in Laconia Tonight!”). One of Trump’s best performing emails arrived on September 12th (Subject: “Latest polls: We’re winning!”), and shared polling results from key battleground states. It drove a 27% read rate.

And perhaps an even more interesting observation when it comes to subject lines: In Trump’s, “Hillary” appears almost as frequently as “Trump” (and almost as frequently as in Hillary’s own email subject lines). Except that in Trump’s emails, Hillary’s name often appears in subject lines with certain other words like, “concerns,”accountable,” “damaging” and “docs.”

The bottom line

To sum up, it isn’t clear that Trump’s weakness as an emailer has adversely affected his campaign. Through a combination of other digital means, and his ongoing manipulation of earned media, he doesn’t seem to have suffered in either communication or fundraising.

Yeah, can’t wait for the first debate on September 26th!