Merritt Google ad targets DOT

It sheds a little light into the campaign's thinking.

Maybe, but if so the thinking is more Freudian than strategic.

No doubt Mr. Leslie Merritt will try to use words to his personal advantage as partisan attacks, but he'll only get a couple thousand impressions before Google weeds him out as irrelevant to the search term.

You don't really get to pick the words, since Google will kill (or price you out of) the words that don't perform well. You only get to pick the words Google will select from. So the vast majority of us who aren't SEO experts will just throw everything against the wall to see what sticks.

I'm not sure it's a very successful ad, but I thought it was interesting that he was trying it. Anyway, one reason why I point these out is because they are so transient. It sheds a little light into the campaign's thinking.

— RTB 

Ryan you should invest like $10 or $20 in google ads so you can better understand how they work. This ad for Merritt won't exist in a couple of weeks because the google system will figure out that it isn't generating any revenue.

At least, not unless when people search "Department of Transportation" they are actually looking for info on our corrupt Auditor.

Merritt can continue to bid $1, $5, $10, $20 per click for these ads, but eventually even if he bids $100 per click, Google won't display them, because nobody is clicking them. Or, if people do click them, Merritt is likely to be unwilling to continue paying such a high price per click.

Since it costs virtually nothing to start playing with, you ought to go ahead and try out some Google Ads. It's not too complicated, but I think it's one of those things that's easier to understand if you actually do it.