TargetSmart Creates a Comprehensive National Voter Profiling Database Using Data Blending in Alteryx

• Analytics & Modeling - Data-as-a-Service
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms

• Business Operation
• Sales & Marketing

• Data Science Services

TargetSmart Communications, a political data firm, was tasked with building voter propensity models and scoring national files for political fundraising campaigns for the Obama for America Campaign. The company needed to process millions of records of data from dozens of data sources, including national, state, county, and city records, to identify voters, track their tendencies, and accurately count and call upon unregistered voters prior to an election. The company was using open source software solutions to merge multiple databases, two of which consisted of 200 million voters each. However, the lack of a universal format for government data for various voter categories and the need for continuous data aggregation, updating, cleansing, and enhancement with demographic profiling data presented significant challenges. The company's choice of data processing tools was leading to a troubling lack of efficiency, accuracy, and reliability.

TargetSmart Communications is a political data firm that specializes in providing leading information resources, database services, and communications solutions. The Washington, D.C.-based company supports a variety of political activities for campaigns and political organizations, including national party committees and the Obama for America Campaign. These applications include fundraising, voter registration drives, polling and political research, grassroots advocacy, and a variety of voter targeting and outreach services. TargetSmart operates as a small business, relying primarily upon three employees to handle data compilation and business intelligence needs.

TargetSmart used Alteryx to blend a multitude of data sources into a comprehensive national voter profiling database. The data sources included seven very large demographic data files, three companies' lists of phone numbers, millions of email addresses, and variously collected archives of regional and state voter file records. The built-in data-cleansing and geo-coding capabilities of Alteryx proved to be critical in enabling TargetSmart to combine all of this data into its proprietary national voter registration database, called VoterBase. The company was able to process decades of national voter information in three weeks versus three months. Using its newly constructed voter data powerhouse, TargetSmart successfully competed in a bid to win the Obama for America Campaign as its client, beating out two entrenched competitors in this market and raising the bar for the industry in the area of data blending and advanced analytics.

• TargetSmart was able to blend multiple, disparate data sources spanning decades of voter information into a comprehensive voter registration data warehouse in three weeks versus three months.
• The company was able to compile reports in a matter of minutes instead of several days, enabling clients to receive results with tight turnarounds.
• TargetSmart was able to update and geocode files five to 10 times faster than with its previous system.

• Increased market share and experienced 400 percent greater than projected revenue performance due to better, more accurate data delivered to customers.