The mid-term elections had many interesting twists and turns in relation to how certain candidates delivered their message to the public. Perhaps the most interesting was the last minute PPC (Google ad words and Yahoo sponsored listings) campaign that candidates, such as Bob Casey used to swing voters to their camp. A study just released by The Rimm-Kaufman Group found several very interesting facts:

1. There were over 550 pay per click ads running in the weekend preceding the election.


2. Of those ads, only two ads linked directly to videos (against George Allen: "macaca" and prescription drugs).


3. The vast majority of the ads were found on the Google content network, or on Google itself, where Yahoo and MSN were rarely used.


4. Republican ads outnumbered Democrat ads two-to-one.


5. Democrats were three times more likely to use negative ads.


6. 58% of these ads did not support a political party, such as ads from news sites.

The study concluded the cost of search advertising is a fraction of the cost of television advertising, but it has equivalent reach. It is expected that the 2008 campaign will utilize paid search advertising much more, based on the success of this year’s swing vote campaigns.