The Effects of Campaign Advertisements: Results from 43 Randomized Trials

• In Event: Effective Campaigns

Abstract

Campaign advertising is ubiquitous -- whether on television, the Internet, or social media platforms. In this paper, we leverage data from 43 randomized trials and 35,000 subjects in order to estimate the effects of campaign ads in the campaign context in which they were originally aired. Experiments were conducted during 2015-2016 and ads were tested during the week the campaigns ran them on television. We test more than 50 unique presidential campaign advertisements and find variability in the estimates of each ad's effectiveness and average treatment effects that are small, but appreciable.

Authors

• Alexander Coppock, Yale University

• Lynn Vavreck, University of California Los Angeles