February 29, 2016

Using Digital Marketing To Predict Super Tuesday Results

Digital marketing research is great for many things, but can it help us predict who will win the 2016 Super Tuesday results?  By researching how many people have searched online for each political candidate over the last year, we hope to gain insight into who might win.  Keeping our political views aside, we’ll let the data do the work for us.  Let the research begin.

Let’s define the parameters in which we will perform our research, because we plan to contrast each candidate in three different ways.  First, we plan to analyze how many internet searches each candidate received from January 2015 – January 2016 across the United States.  Next, we will look specifically at January 2016’s online searches to see which candidate had more people searching for them during this one month across the United States.  Last, we will look at each candidate’s search results across the Super Tuesday states during January 2016. 

First Analysis: Examining Searches For A Whole Year

Millions of people have conducted internet searches for each Presidential candidate over the last year, which is to be expected.  Here is the online search breakdown by candidate to see which one has received the most Google searches during January 2015 – January 2016.

Republican Side

  • Donald Trump – 54,593,420
  • Ben Carson – 16,687,810
  • Ted Cruz – 13,017,200
  • Marco Rubio – 11,330,580
  • John Kasich – 10,885,400

Democratic Side

  • Bernie Sanders – 35,416,670
  • Hillary Clinton – 24,388,800

Who would have thought that Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders would have so many searches.  It appears that Donald Trump, on the Republican side, and Bernie Sanders, on the Democratic side, have had more searches than anyone else.  They win our first round of predictions based on broad research.

Second Analysis: Studying January 2016 Results

Some might say that a few of these candidates had a higher profile than others before the election started.  So, let’s take a look at the candidates’ internet search volume for January 2016 across the entire United States.  This gives us a sample of data representing each Presidential candidates’ digital searches while running for the presidential office. 

Republican Side

  • Donald Trump – 7,993,300
  • Ted Cruz – 3,160,050
  • Marco Rubio – 1,749,410
  • John Kasich – 1,226,220
  • Ben Carson – 1,191,640

Democratic Side

  • Bernie Sanders – 6,775,570
  • Hillary Clinton – 3,591,790

Taking a look at the January results, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have more searches again.  They win our second round of research, but the best two out of three rule should apply here.  So, let’s research one more data set.

Third Analysis: Research From Super Tuesday States

Last, let’s look at each candidate’s January 2016 search results in the Super Tuesday states including: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia.

Republican Side

  • Donald Trump – 1,933,040
  • Ted Cruz – 772,830
  • Marco Rubio – 402,400
  • Ben Carson – 288,900
  • John Kasich – 274,950

Democratic Side

  • Bernie Sanders – 1,601,630
  • Hillary Clinton – 738,060

Looking at the search results for each Super Tuesday state, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders win again. I think we can predict that both of these candidates have a shot at winning their respective side of the 2016 Super Tuesday election.

This has been a great exercise in the power of digital marketing research.  We plan to keep an eye on each candidate’s search results over the coming months to see if there are any new trends we can provide.  Find this as interesting as we do?  Share this post with your friends on your favorite social media channel. 

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