Case Study
Details that Deliver:
The Gina Ortiz Jones Mayoral Campaign
Challenge
How do you break through in a field of 27 candidates when national elections have donors exhausted, and you’re racing against time? And Greg Abbot is spending millions on his handpicked candidate. Ah yeah, also, election day is on a Saturday during Fiesta, a weeklong celebration in San Antonio.
Hint: A really smart digital campaign that starts early and hits hard.
Solutions
First, it all starts with a great candidate. Gina Ortiz Jones isn’t just a great candidate – she is the future of the Democratic Party. Indefatigable, solutions-oriented, and ready for a challenge, from day one, she was ready to do what it took to win. An Air Force veteran who grew up in San Antonio and had run extremely competitive congressional bids in the area, Mayor Jones knew the lay of the land and had strong name ID.
But those advantages would melt away slowly if our strategy didn’t complement them. That’s why we proposed starting with a strong launch that clearly positioned Gina as the frontrunner. Our hope was that in a crowded field, we could prove our viability to donors and voters while other campaigns were still struggling to file and organize.
Finally, we had a simple mantra:
'Don't skimp on the details.'
We knew that in a crowded race, the candidate who did the small things well was likely the one who would finish over the top, so much of our program focused on extremely calibrated execution. Whether it was a news boost, emails that kept the pulse of the race, or search terms that were updated constantly, even when spends were low, we always ensured quality didn’t dip.
The Program
Video Production
On January 27th, we launched the Early Comms program with a 30-second video ad titled “No Time To Waste”. It highlighted Gina’s experience as Under Secretary of the Air Force, her San Antonio roots as a proud John Jay graduate, and her commitment to tackling top voter concerns. “No Time To Waste”, ran across desktop, mobile, and Meta platforms, engaging our universe of likely voters and donors early on. The video was produced effectively, utilizing prior campaign materials and Gina’s voice on VO, helping the campaign save precious dollars for down the road.
To complement this program and continue to build on our echo chamber of messaging, SBDigital designed corresponding GIFs that ran on the same platforms as the video but also included multiple news takeovers.
Both the video and the GIFs centered on Gina’s vision for San Antonio and helped the campaign define what sort of Mayor she would be, and solidified her as both the frontrunner in this race and the only alternative to Greg Abbott’s hand-picked candidate if Democrats wanted to win this crucial Mayoral election. Display & news, Boost Program & Google search
"No Time To Waste"
In January of 2025, voters and donors’ attention was focused on Washington. Trump was back in the White House, Republicans had majorities in Congress, and there was a lot of uncertainty every which way. This is to say that even if a campaign was able to get earned media, voters and donors most likely weren’t seeing it.
Similar to the “No Time to Waste” program, SBDigital designed and executed a display, search, and news boost program that reminded voters and donors of the various key campaign moments. The ads spotlighted key news headlines from Kens5 and Express News, directing viewers to the full stories in the local paper for deeper engagement. This validator strategy helped spread Gina’s strong media coverage while reinforcing credibility among key voter segments at the very start of the campaign.
Digital Fundraising
In tandem with the digital persuasion campaign, we ran a robust digital fundraising program that complemented our persuasion efforts. Because we had significant one-on-one time with Mayor Jones early on, we developed a deep understanding of her voice and were able to craft emails that authentically reflected her tone and priorities.
As mentioned earlier, this was a 27-way primary, which meant many of our donor prospects were also our voter prospects. That meant in addition to asking for money, we had to ask for votes, and craft a message that informed, educated, and motivated folks to action.
In addition to appeals directly from Mayor Jones, we accomplished this through a diverse roster of surrogate senders whose credibility and name recognition provided validation for the campaign. These included U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, and women’s health advocate Amanda Zurawski. Each brought unique influence, from national political leadership to grassroots advocacy, helping to broaden Mayor Jones’ reach and reinforce her values with different segments of the electorate.
Our fundraising strategy also capitalized on significant news moments that resonated deeply with constituents. For example, when Donald Trump and JD Vance yelled at President Zelensky, and the media environment was focused on Russia-Ukraine, we highlighted the fact that, as Under Secretary of the Air Force, Gina had been banned from Russia. One of our best-performing emails launched with the subject line “Why I’m banned from Russia”, which generated strong engagement and donations.
Overall, our digital fundraising program was incredibly successful and ultimately helped fund the program that got out the vote for Gina Ortiz Jones.
Targeting & Universe Development
Throughout this campaign, we messaged to a universe of approximately 50,000 voters that, based on modeling and prior vote history, we believed to be most likely to vote in this peculiar election. Our team leveraged these data sets to serve video and display ads that engaged voters at the right time, with the right message.
The Runoff Program
While we were the top vote getter, we did not cross the 50% threshold, so onto a runoff we went. But Greg Abbot was determined to make this election painful, spending millions to back his chosen crony. That meant we had to run a sophisticated runoff effort that re-engaged voters, and also used out-of-the-box tactics to reach audiences – many of which had no idea this election was happening.
We launched a
multi-platform digital
advertising campaign
to build on momentum
from the general election.
We relaunched the “No Time To Waste” GIF and video, and introduced a new set of display ads drawing on local news wins. These creatives ran across all Meta platforms, Connected TV, Programmatic Video, and YouTube, targeting a matched audience list of San Antonio voters relevant to the runoff. On Connected TV, we prioritized premium streaming platforms such as Hulu and Paramount+.
We also deployed a Google Search program targeting relevant San Antonio zip codes and high-intent keyword searches to boost name recognition and voter reach. Keywords included “San Antonio mayor,” “Gina Ortiz Jones,” and “Who is running for mayor.” In addition, we ran an opposition search program targeting individuals seeking information on “Rolando Pablos.”
The Runoff Program
To ensure voters saw us everywhere, expanded reach by launching the No Time To Waste GIF on Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) platforms, serving ads on digital billboards and within local businesses in targeted San Antonio zip codes. While traditionally reserved for large campaigns, we found the local inventory was both high enough density and unique enough to ensure our dollars meant as many eyes as possible.
In total, the campaign delivered more than 3 million impressions across six platforms, generated nearly 20,000 clicks, and achieved an average frequency of 17 impressions per targeted voter.
So, What Happened?
Gina won the 27-way primary with 27.2% of the vote, and we delivered more than 1.7 million impressions across all platforms, a 0.43% click-through rate, and a 77% full-view rate.
Against millions of dollars of spending, Gina won the general election, surging ahead of Rolando Pablos with 54.3% of the vote. Our runoff program got nearly 3 million impressions across six platforms, 20,000 clicks, and a frequency of 17 impressions per targeted voter.
Our digital media program drove our narrative, solidifying Gina’s early lead, and crucially won over voters with strategy and placement over millions of opposition dollars.
Gina’s win makes her the third woman ever to lead San Antonio and the first mayor to serve a four-year term following the 2024 city charter amendment. SBDigital is incredibly proud to have led her media and digital fundraising efforts and to have played our part in winning the last remaining blue Mayor’s office in Texas.