WASHINGTON — Type in a Google search for the words “immigration reform,” and in the split second it takes for your results to pop up, the president’s re-election campaign might begin courting you. Up comes an ad for barackobama , next to the search results.
If you take the next step and click through to the campaign’s website, ads for the president’s re-election might start following you around the Web.
The Obama campaign, and to a lesser extent its GOP rivals, has fully embraced the potential of the Internet age to reach possible supporters this campaign season.
The president’s campaign has bought Google advertising space next to all sorts of searches, including “Warren Buffett,” “Obama singing,” “Obama birthday” and, for basketball fans, “Obama bracket.”
The assumption is that people interested in those topics might also fit the profile of potential Obama backers.
The president is not alone on this. Mitt Romney has bought advertising space next to his father’s name, and Rick Santorum has gone for the term “Rush Limbaugh,” according to Hitwise, a company that samples Internet traffic.
But the Obama campaign is by far the most aggressive in trying to reach voters online, so far spending more on Internet advertising than on television, radio and telemarketing combined.
And his campaign has spent five times more on online ads — jumping from $2.3 million to $12.3 million — than at this point four years ago, when he was running against Hillary Rodham Clinton, federal disclosure records show.
The president’s campaign, which would not discuss its Internet strategy, also is more aggressive in using technology that can track and target people based on the websites they’ve been browsing, a practice commonly used in corporate advertising.
