In today’s political landscape, organizations need evidence that their campaign messages are changing the hearts and minds of their target voter bases. It’s why rapid, data-driven creative testing is essential—it enables advocacy organizations and campaigns to quickly validate the impact of their messages with the audiences they aim to reach.
Political ad tech company Electica, which provides digital strategy and ad targeting for campaigns and progressive organizations worldwide, uses Swayable’s creative testing platform to help confirm whether messages can mobilize voters. At the highest level, creative testing allows organizations that Electica works with to increase the impact of the stories they tell through messages that are honest, powerful, and persuasive.
In our recent webinar with Electica, Taylar Pompey Harrington, Senior Client Success Manager at Swayable; Aidan Hughes, Performance and Insights Manager at Electica; and Martina Orlea, Chief of Staff at Electica, explored how advocacy groups use Swayable and Advocate Creative Testing, a self-serve testing platform that layers in Swayable’s randomized controlled trial (RCT) methodology, to remove the guesswork from creative decision-making. Organizations are using test insights to quickly identify which messages persuade and deliver winning campaigns, such as that of Romanian president Nicușor Dan.
Watch the full webinar below and keep scrolling for key takeaways about making creative testing accessible for advocacy campaigns:
A central lesson from Electica and Swayable’s partnership is that a strong campaign strategy is driven by the right context and validation through test results. Organizations need a way to move quickly while still knowing their messaging reflects how voters actually think and feel. Swayable and Electica use rapid randomized controlled trial (RCT) methodology to test creative ideas—from ad stills to videos—among real people that will be headed to the polls.
This rapid, often iterative testing cycle allows teams to make real-time campaign decisions that are grounded in evidence. When organizations need to scale their electoral campaigns quickly, creative testing provides a way for them to be agile while knowing their messages will have a positive impact on target voters.
“With testing, we really want you to have evidence that your creative is working in the direction you want it to go,” said Taylar. “The goal is to make sure that you’re using those media dollars to their best ability.”
The outcome of Nicușor Dan’s independent presidential race in 2025 spotlights the power of iterative message testing in a high-stakes environment.
Creative testing of five ad stills helped Electica and the campaign identify “Honest Romania” as a unifying, credible slogan—one that reflected Nicușor Dan’s record and cut across voter segments. Later, in the runoff against a far-right opponent, additional testing revealed that messages emphasizing collective nation-building (“Let’s build Romania together”) outperformed sharper oppositional narratives, even when they seemed strategically better.
Despite trailing by nearly 20% in the first round, Dan won the second round by 7% and was elected after his campaign used the highest-performing messaging validated by Electica and Swayable.
“After we identified the winning message, we scaled that message to reach millions of people in a few days,” said Martina. “It completely changed our strategy and it was a decision we were able to make very quickly because we got the results in two days.”
Advocacy groups might lack the time, budget, or internal resources to rely on external consultants or traditional testing methods, such as focus groups. By making message testing faster and more accessible, campaigns can evaluate creative before committing significant media spend.
This shifts testing from a luxury for well-funded campaigns to a core strategic capability that more organizations can use early and often. One way Electica makes testing accessible for its partners is through Advocate Creative Testing, the company’s self-serve testing platform that layers in Swayable’s RCT methodology to deliver results in as little as 72 hours.
“We think it’s really important that campaigners worldwide have the ability to run their own campaigns directly,” said Aidan. “We want to allow organizations whose values are aligned with ours to make their stories and their campaigns as impactful as possible.”
Interested in learning more about how advocacy organizations use Swayable to build winning campaigns? Book a demo today.