Fulton County: Prop 304 Won With 25% Higher CTR

Winning a ballot initiative is about way more than having good policy. You need a public engagement strategy that actually cuts through the noise and gets people to vote. Whether a proposal gets traction or just withers depends entirely on crafting a good story and running a targeted outreach plan. How do campaigns actually bridge that gap between a dry policy proposal and real public support?

In 2025, our team ran the public engagement campaign for Proposition 304, a local ballot initiative in Fulton County, Georgia, to fund public parks and recreational facilities. The prop was a modest property tax increase to pay for renovating community spaces like Candler Park and Piedmont Park, and to expand the BeltLine trail system. Our goal was simple: get a “yes” vote. The challenge was huge, though, voter apathy is always a problem with local tax measures, and we had a vocal opposition group screaming about new taxes. We had to run a campaign that was deeply persuasive and showed tangible benefits to a very diverse electorate.

The campaign had a $450,000 budget and a 12-week duration, from August to October 2025, leading right into the November election. Our primary goal was hitting a 60% approval rate among likely voters. To track this, we set up key performance indicators (KPIs): Cost Per Lead (CPL) on email sign-ups, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) for digital ads, Click-Through Rate (CTR) for our ads, total impressions, and most importantly, voter conversion rates in our targeted precincts.

Strategy: Building a Multi-Channel Advocacy Ecosystem

Our strategy for Proposition 304 focused on education, community building, and direct voter persuasion. We knew one message wouldn’t work for everyone. Instead, we segmented our audience into key groups, young families, active seniors, environmental advocates, and local business owners, and fed them messaging about the benefits that mattered most to them. Young families saw ads about safe playgrounds and expanded youth sports facilities. For seniors, we talked about accessible walking paths and community gardens. Business owners heard about the potential for more foot traffic and higher property values near the improved parks. This granular approach was everything.

We built a strong digital infrastructure with a dedicated campaign website, Prop304Yes.org, that became our central hub for information, volunteer sign-ups, and donation processing. The site had detailed breakdowns of the projects, cost analyses, endorsements from local leaders, and testimonials from community members. We also built out a complete FAQ section to address common concerns about the tax increase and project timelines head-on. Being transparent was the only way to counter the opposition’s narrative.

Our digital ad strategy was heavily concentrated on Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Google Ads (Search and Display), and targeted programmatic advertising through platforms like The Trade Desk, with about 40% of our budget going to these channels. For Meta, we used interest-based targeting (e.g., “Atlanta parks,” “hiking,” “community events”) and layered on lookalike audiences we built from our initial lists of supporters. Google Search ads targeted keywords like “Fulton County park improvements,” “Proposition 304 voting,” and “local tax initiatives,” while our display ads were placed on relevant local news sites and community forums.

On top of the digital work, we ran a strong ground game. We organized weekly canvassing events in key neighborhoods, especially those right next to the proposed park improvements, where our volunteers passed out flyers and had one-on-one conversations with residents. We also held town hall meetings at community centers across the county, including the Fulton County Central Library and the East Atlanta Library, giving people a direct line to ask questions and voice concerns. These in-person events were resource-intensive, but they provided invaluable qualitative feedback and built a level of trust that digital channels just can’t replicate.

Email marketing was a workhorse for nurturing leads and mobilizing our supporters. Using Mailchimp, we managed our subscriber list and sent weekly newsletters with campaign updates, calls to action (like “register to vote” or “share on social media”), and event reminders. Our email open rates were consistently around 28% with a 4.5% click-through rate, which showed strong engagement. We also segmented our email list by geography within Fulton County which let us send hyper-local messages about park projects in their specific neighborhood.

Creative Approach: Visualizing Community Impact

Our creative strategy was all about visualizing the positive changes from Proposition 304. We commissioned professional renderings of the proposed park improvements, showing off modern playgrounds, revitalized green spaces, and better recreational facilities. We plastered these visuals across every channel, digital ads, print mailers, and our town hall presentations. We made a point to avoid technical jargon, using clear, benefit-driven headlines like “Better Parks for Our Kids” or “Green Spaces for a Healthier Atlanta.”

Video content was a key piece of this. We produced a series of short, punchy videos that featured real local residents, parents, seniors, small business owners, talking authentically about why they supported the proposition. One video that really worked featured a small business owner near the future BeltLine expansion talking about how the increased foot traffic would help his café. We pushed these videos out on social media and embedded them on our website, finding that anything under 60 seconds performed best on Meta, hitting an average view-through rate of 65% for the first 15 seconds.

Our ad copy was direct. For example, a Meta ad targeting young families would read: “Imagine new, safe playgrounds for your children. Vote YES on Prop 304 for better parks in Fulton County!” For environmental advocates, it was: “Protect and expand our green infrastructure. Prop 304 invests in a sustainable future.” This kind of tailored messaging made a huge difference in relevance and engagement with our diverse audience segments.

Targeting: Precision in a Diverse Urban Field

Fulton County is incredibly diverse, so our targeting strategy had to be complex. For digital ads, we dove into granular demographic data, using income levels, age groups, and parental status to get our messages in front of the most receptive people. We also used geofencing around major community hubs, parks, and schools in the final weeks before the election, delivering targeted mobile ads to people in those specific areas. This reinforced our message in contexts that were already relevant to their daily lives.

We also invested in voter file data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, which we cross-referenced with our digital ad platforms to create highly specific custom audiences. This let us target registered voters who had a history of voting in local elections but were likely undecided on Prop 304. At the same time, we built exclusion lists to stop wasting ad spend on known opponents of the measure. That level of precision is often skipped in bigger campaigns, but it’s where you find the real efficiencies.

What Worked: Data-Driven Successes

The campaign had some big wins. Our digital advertising efforts produced a Cost Per Lead (CPL) of $3.80 for email sign-ups, which was much better than our $5.00 projection. This was mostly thanks to our highly targeted Meta campaigns and compelling visuals. All told, our digital ads pulled in over 12 million impressions with an average CTR of 1.8%. Some of our best video ads on Instagram even hit CTRs of 2.5%, which just goes to show that authentic storytelling works.

The email campaign drove a ton of traffic to our website, bringing in over 45,000 unique visitors during the 12-week run. On the site, the conversion rate for volunteer sign-ups was 8%, and for donation pledges, it was 3%. This told us our content was actually getting people to do something. Even our direct mail component, which was only 15% of the budget, was effective with older demographics, pulling a 2% response rate on mailers that had a QR code linking to the website.

The biggest success was the measurable swing in voter intent. Our pre-election polling in the last two weeks showed support for Prop 304 jumping from an initial 48% to 57%, putting us right near our 60% goal. The ground game was especially instrumental in that shift. Exit polling on Election Day showed that voters who had been contacted by our campaign, either online or in person, were 15% more likely to vote “yes” than those who hadn’t seen our messaging. This proves how important it is for digital and traditional, personal outreach to work together.

In the end, Proposition 304 passed with 58.5% of the vote, a clear win for Fulton County’s parks. The overall Cost Per Conversion (which we defined as a supportive voter) came out to an estimated $7.50. For a project this size, that’s a highly efficient use of campaign funds.

What Didn’t Work and Optimization Steps

Not everything worked out of the gate. Our initial Google Display Network campaigns were struggling with relevancy, giving us a low 0.5% CTR and a high CPL of $7.50 for the first three weeks. The broad targeting we started with was just too wide. We pivoted fast, narrowing our display placements to a pre-approved list of local news sites and community blogs where we knew our audience spent time. We also tested different ad formats and found that animated GIF banners beat static image banners by 15%. That one adjustment improved performance and dropped the display ad CPL to $4.20.

Our initial social media content strategy also needed a rethink. We started by posting a lot of policy details and legislative language. While it was all accurate, it was boring, and our early Facebook posts had a dismal 1.2% engagement rate. We quickly switched to more emotional content focused on personal stories and visuals (like kids playing in parks or seniors enjoying nature). The change was immediate: engagement rates jumped to an average of 3.5%, and our posts started getting shared, which expanded our organic reach. It’s a classic lesson, people connect with stories, not statistics.

We also had some trouble with volunteer recruitment using only digital channels. The website generated interest, but turning an online sign-up into an active canvasser took more work. So, we set up a follow-up call system. A campaign coordinator personally called every new volunteer within 24 hours to explain the next steps and answer their questions. This personal touch increased our volunteer show-up rate for canvassing events by 20%. Sometimes there’s no substitute for a human voice.

Initially, our ROAS for digital ads was 1.5x, for every dollar we spent, we generated $1.50 in value (based on tracking voter intent shifts and leads). After our optimizations, that number climbed to 2.1x. The process of constantly testing, measuring, and refining was key. We held weekly performance reviews and shifted ad spend based on real-time data. If a particular ad creative was bombing, we’d pause it and get a new version up within 24-48 hours. That agile approach is what let us maximize our budget and our reach.

The success of Proposition 304 shows that a well-run public engagement strategy, one that combines precise digital targeting with authentic community outreach, can get a win for even challenging ballot initiatives. When you really understand your different audience segments and adapt your messaging for them, you can turn a complex policy proposal into a compelling community story that voters actually connect with. This kind of integrated approach is the future of advocacy.