Calibrate in Action

With Calibrate, our ad tracking and targeting tool, we helped Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur defend her seat and historic title as the longest-serving woman in the House of Representatives. In the 2024 election, her campaign faced record spending from out-of-state opposition groups in a district Donald Trump carried by more than 5 points. We used Calibrate to analyze internal polling, demographics, and past election data to pinpoint the key audiences to reach with our ads to help Kaptur win her race. By optimizing ad targeting and ensuring we reached rural, abortion policy swing voters, and voters of color, Kaptur outperformed the national party ticket by 1.5% while her opponent underperformed by more than 5%.

Using Calibrate, we analyzed public and private media data, cost and efficiency metrics, and custom targeting lists to find the most effective ways to reach key audiences. Among rural voters, polling showed Kaptur’s opponent carried little name recognition. This allowed the campaign to define him as a Republican Party puppet focused on culture wars instead of pocketbook issues. We used Calibrate to identify what channels would most effectively reach these rural voters, and the results were clear. Kaptur outperformed Kamala Harris by 3%, while her opponent underperformed by 6%. Polling identified that reaching Black voters would be a key to winning the election, so we used Calibrate to identify how Black voters are consuming media and how we could reach them given our budget and audience size constraints. The strategy paid off because in Lucas County, Kaptur won by 20% more than her opponent and received more votes than any other candidate on the ballot.

In Ohio’s Ninth District, Marcy Kaptur overperformed Kamala Harris on the national ticket by nearly every metric. Meanwhile, her opponent underperformed expectations despite a campaign of misinformation and millions of dollars coming into Ohio from anti-Kaptur opposition groups. Our evidence-driven strategy secured Kaptur’s victory, securing a victory in a hard-to-win seat.