Political campaign management
We have managed more than 50 election campaigns over 12 years, across eight states and Delhi, alongside a performance marketing business that has delivered over 21 lakh leads. Elections are not advertising. They are perception, narrative and position held under a deadline you cannot move, inside rules that can disqualify your client. This page tells you exactly what we run, how we target a constituency, and what we refuse to do.
Platforms we work onYouTube, Google Ads & 3 more
12years of political campaigns
50+election campaigns managed
Our core mandate. Single constituency, full stack: constituency read, candidate positioning, narrative, digital, local PR, reputation defence, booth-level content, polling day communication. The heaviest stretch begins the day the Model Code of Conduct kicks in, which is why the groundwork has to be finished before it does.
Six to nine assembly segments under one candidate, which means six to nine different sets of local issues under one message. Segment-wise creative, segment-wise spend allocation, and a single narrative that does not contradict itself across the seat.
City-wide contests where WhatsApp carries the campaign and paid media is at its least efficient. We run them as a single city mandate, with the mayoral message and the corporation slate working off one narrative.
Running the digital and narrative layer for a party unit rather than a single candidate: central message discipline, state-level content supply to candidates, opposition tracking, and a daily reporting line to the people making decisions.
The most valuable work we do and the least requested. A sitting MLA or MP who starts six months before the next election is buying attention at auction rates against an opponent who has been building for four years. Multi-year constituency presence, work reporting, grievance visibility and sentiment tracking cost a fraction of what a panic campaign costs.
Office bearers, youth wing leaders, aspirants who do not yet have a ticket. Positioning work with a 12 to 36 month horizon, aimed at the party's internal audience as much as the voter's.
Before any creative, a written read of the seat: last three results booth-wise, margin structure, swing booths, turnout behaviour, community and demographic composition as published, local issue map, and a plain assessment of where your candidate currently stands. If a ground survey is in scope, it is quoted separately and run on a sample size we will state in writing, not described as extensive.
One sentence a voter can repeat about your candidate, and one about the opposition. Everything else is downstream of this. We write the message architecture, the attack lines, the defence lines, and the lines your candidate must never say.
Platform-wise plan across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google and WhatsApp. Creative production, media buying, pre-certification handling, and daily spend reporting against your declared budget.
Follower growth, reach, engagement and share of voice in the constituency, tracked weekly against the opposition rather than against last month. Perception is the product. Reach is the input.
Negative content suppression, misinformation response, coordinated attack identification, and a response protocol with named decision makers so you are not drafting a rebuttal at 11 pm in a group chat. Rumours move faster than rallies in the last three weeks.
Local and regional media relationships, press notes, planned coverage, and interview preparation. In a constituency, two district reporters matter more than a national bulletin.
Short video, reels, posters, WhatsApp creatives, speech support, and the volume these need. A competitive seat consumes more creative in its last month than most consumer brands consume in a year.
A daily reporting line through the campaign, and on polling day a communication desk that handles turnout messaging, booth reports and incident response until polls close.
How a mandate is structured
Every mandate runs in the same five stages. The order never changes. Only the time available for each one does.
Request a confidential campaign assessmentStep 1
A written constituency read and an honest assessment of where the candidate stands. Nothing is produced until this is agreed.
Step 2
The message architecture: what we say, what we answer, and what we never say. Signed off by the candidate, not by a committee.
Step 3
Handles cleaned up and verified, platform authorisations and disclaimers completed, the constituency boundary built inside the ad platforms, the content bank produced, the response protocol agreed.
Step 4
From the announcement of the election to the silence period: certified creative released on a fixed calendar, daily spend reporting, weekly share of voice against the opposition, and same-day response to attacks.
Step 5
Dark on schedule 48 hours before polls close, the polling day communication desk, and the expenditure reconciliation handed over when it is done.
Most agencies say booth-level targeting and leave it there. Here is what it means in practice, including where the platforms stop you.
Meta and Google target by country, state, city, pin code and radius around a dropped pin. An assembly constituency is a legal boundary drawn around parts of towns, wards and village clusters. It does not match a city, and it rarely matches a pin code. Any agency that implies otherwise has not built one of these.
We construct a seat from layers: the towns and localities inside it, pin codes that fall wholly within, radius pins around settlements with the overspill calculated and accepted, and exclusions for adjacent areas we cannot avoid reaching. Then we measure the waste honestly and put it in the plan: the share of delivery that lands inside your boundary, stated for your seat before you spend. A compact urban seat holds tight. A rural seat spread across a district leaks far more. A plan that does not state this number is guessing.
Booth classification, panna level worker allocation and voter list work happen on the ground and in your CRM. Digital supports it: content supplied by booth cluster, WhatsApp groups mapped to booths, worker apps reporting back. The two layers feed each other. They are not the same thing.
Targeting rules for political ads are lighter than people assume, and the transparency rules are heavier: Meta's own documentation says the audience options for political and social issue ads are not restricted the way housing and employment ads are, so the targeting itself is largely intact. What you give up is privacy: every political ad you run carries a Paid for by disclaimer and sits in the public Ad Library for seven years, with its budget range, impressions and audience breakdown visible to your opponent and to every journalist. We plan on the assumption that the opposition reads your ad library daily, because we read theirs.
Not in demographic filters. In message-to-micro-market fit: the right issue, in the right dialect, for the right cluster, at the right week of the campaign. A seat with twelve distinct micro-markets needs twelve message variants, not one creative with twelve audiences behind it.
We run lead generation for developers, education groups, interiors and automobile brands. That business taught us media buying. It did not teach us elections. These are the differences that matter, and they are why a generalist digital agency fails a candidate.
| What changes | A developer or brand | A candidate |
|---|---|---|
| The deadline | A launch can slip a month and nothing breaks | Polling day is fixed, and electronic campaigning stops by law 48 hours before polls close |
| Second chances | A weak first month gets fixed in the second | One result. Work that only comes good in week nine is a failure |
| What success is | Cost per qualified lead | Vote intention, which nobody can measure directly. We track what moves with it: share of voice against the opposition, sentiment direction, message recall on the ground |
| The opposition | Competitors do not attack your family | Personal attacks land within hours, and the answer has to as well |
| The money | A marketing budget | A legal filing under Section 77 of the Representation of the People Act, with disqualification as the downside |
| Creative approval | A review call | A government committee, before a rupee goes into media |
| The audience | A market you can widen | A constituency you cannot. Only the people on the roll in that seat count |
| Who is watching | Customers | Voters, the party high command, local workers and whoever decides tickets next time. Four audiences, one public feed |
Any agency that reports a political campaign in cost per lead is selling you the wrong product.
We would rather lose a mandate than have a client answer a notice because of our work.
MCMC pre-certification
Since the Election Commission's March 2026 directive, no political advertisement may be released on any electronic or internet-based platform, social media included, without prior certification from the relevant Media Certification and Monitoring Committee. Candidates and individuals apply to the District MCMC; parties headquartered in a state apply to the State MCMC. It covers television, radio, public audiovisual displays, e-papers, bulk SMS, voice messages and social media. Recognised parties and contesting candidates must apply at least three days before the planned release, everyone else at least seven days before, and the committee is expected to decide within two days. If a committee rejects an asset, there is a state-level appellate committee headed by the Chief Electoral Officer.
What this does to your calendar
Creative is locked days before it runs, not hours. Every paid asset is submitted, tracked and filed with its certificate. A campaign that plans to decide its creative on the day it goes live cannot run legally, and a paid ad answering this morning's attack will not be certified by this evening.
Paid versus posted
Under the ECI's standing instructions, content a candidate posts on his or her own accounts is not treated as an advertisement and does not go to the committee. Paid promotion does. The Model Code of Conduct governs both. That is why rapid response runs through your own handles and the press, and paid media runs to a calendar.
Platform verification
Google requires election ads in India to come from a verified advertiser with a valid ECI or MCMC pre-certificate submitted for every single ad. Meta requires identity authorisation and a verified Paid for by disclaimer before any political ad can publish. Verification takes time and cannot be done in the last week. We start it before the mandate begins.
Permanent public record
Political ads sit in Meta's Ad Library for seven years with budget, impression and audience data attached. Nothing you run is private.
Expenditure reporting
Payments to platforms, content production costs and the operational cost of running a social media presence are all reportable. Candidates must declare their authentic social media accounts in the nomination affidavit. Parties must file internet and social media campaign expenditure with the ECI within 75 days of the conclusion of assembly elections.
The silence period
Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act prohibits displaying election matter by electronic means in the 48 hours before close of poll. Our campaigns go dark on schedule. We do not run anything through a third party page or an unverified account during that window, and if you ask us to, the engagement ends.
Our invoices are raised so your chartered accountant can put them straight into the statement you file, and we hand over a reconciliation that matches platform billing to invoices.
Candidate expenditure ceilings are a planning constraint we work inside, not a problem we help you hide. A mandate that is larger than a single candidate's ceiling can carry is contracted at party or state unit level, in the open, with the right entity signing. We do not split, backdate or disguise invoices to make a number fit, and we will tell you in the first meeting if what you want cannot be bought legally within what you are allowed to spend.
We do not run unattributed or proxy pages. We do not produce deepfakes, manipulated audio or video of any candidate, or AI-generated content portraying a real person saying something they did not say. We do not create content targeting any religion, caste or community. We do not buy followers or engagement. We do not run paid news. We do not fabricate survey results. We do not run uncertified ads and then argue about it later.
We do not name political clients publicly, we do not publish political case studies, and we do not run competing candidates in the same seat or against an existing client in the same election. What we do for you stays with the team on your account.
| Mandate | Ideal start | Minimum viable |
|---|---|---|
| Assembly seat, full mandate | 9 months before poll | 4 months |
| Parliamentary seat | 12 months before poll | 6 months |
| Mayoral and municipal | 4 months before poll | 8 weeks |
| Party or state unit | 18 months before poll | 9 months |
| Incumbency and non-election | Now | Ongoing |
Below the minimum, we will say so and quote only for what can realistically be built in the time left.
Last updated:November 2026
Seven states are due to elect new assemblies in 2027, 940 seats in all.
| State | Assembly seats | Expected polling |
|---|---|---|
| Uttar Pradesh | 403 | February to March 2027 |
| Punjab | 117 | February to March 2027 |
| Uttarakhand | 70 | February to March 2027 |
| Manipur | 60 | February to March 2027 |
| Goa | 40 | February to March 2027 |
| Gujarat | 182 | Late 2027 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 68 | Late 2027 |
These are expected windows based on when each assembly's term ends. The Election Commission announces the actual schedule.
If your seat polls in February or March 2027, the ideal starting point has passed and the minimum window for a full assembly mandate is closing now. What can still be built properly: positioning, a verified and compliant paid media setup, a content bank and a response protocol. What cannot be built in the time left: four years of constituency presence. We will tell you which side of that line your seat is on.
If your seat polls in late 2027, this is the right time to start. Candidates in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh who begin now get the full runway.
Where we have already worked. We have managed campaigns in three of the five states voting in early 2027: Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand. In Uttar Pradesh we are headquartered in Noida with an office in Lucknow, and in Uttarakhand we have an office in Dehradun, so we are already on the ground in both.
We work as political consultants and campaign managers for candidates and parties across India, and for the aspirants and office bearers who will be candidates. Our campaigns so far have run in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan. We work across party lines and take one client per seat per election.
We are not a fit if you want a creative vendor rather than a campaign partner, if the mandate starts weeks before polling, or if your plan depends on work we have listed above as work we will not do.
The first conversation is confidential, costs nothing, and ends with an honest answer on whether the seat is winnable with the time you have.
FAQ
As a fixed-duration mandate with a fixed end date, not an open retainer. Scope is set against the election level, the number of constituencies and how much time is left before polling. Pricing is discussed in the first call once we know the seat, because a compact urban assembly segment and a nine-segment parliamentary seat are not comparable pieces of work.
Assembly and parliamentary elections, mayoral and municipal corporation elections, party and state unit mandates, non-election incumbency work, and leadership positioning for aspirants and office bearers.
Yes. Since the ECI's March 2026 directive, no political advertisement may be released on any internet-based or social media platform without pre-certification from the relevant MCMC. Google additionally requires a valid ECI or MCMC pre-certificate for every election ad and completed advertiser verification, and Meta requires identity authorisation and a Paid for by disclaimer.
We build the constituency from layers of towns, localities, pin codes and radius pins, with the overspill measured and declared rather than hidden. No ad platform recognises a constituency boundary, so some delivery always lands outside it. We tell you how much for your seat before you spend.
Four months before polling for an assembly seat, eight weeks for a mayoral or municipal election. Later than that, we will tell you what is actually achievable rather than take the mandate and underdeliver.
Both. Perception management, narrative control, reputation defence and media relations are part of the mandate, not add-ons. For political clients this is usually the larger half of the work.
Yes, and it should. Payments to platforms, content production and the running cost of your social media presence are reportable. We invoice so the figures go cleanly into your statement and hand over a reconciliation against platform billing.
No. One client per seat per election, and we do not work against an existing client in the same election.
Twelve years. In that time we have managed more than 50 election campaigns across Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan, alongside a performance marketing business founded in 2014 that has delivered over 21 lakh leads.
Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur are expected to vote in February and March 2027, and Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh late in the year. We have already run campaigns in three of them: Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand. We take mandates across India, one client per seat.
Recognised parties and contesting candidates must apply at least three days before the planned release of an advertisement, and others at least seven days before. The committee is expected to decide within two days of receiving the application. We plan every paid asset on that clock.
Under the ECI's standing instructions, content a candidate posts on his or her own accounts is not treated as an advertisement, so it does not need pre-certification. Paid promotion of that content does. The Model Code of Conduct applies to both.
