I've thought about "big data" quite a bit. In fact, a couple years back I authored a telecom industry report on the trend. And big data is enormously useful in things like search engines, fraud detection, market analysis, network traffic analysis, etc.
But as far as campaigns to raise money or change minds, I techniques is abused to the point of becoming a negative. Cruz bragged about using big data, but his fund raising campaigns via email were irritating and it was hard to "unsubscribe" from those.
The other thing is the tendency to micro-segment the message -- tell some people one thing and other people another. It's a real quick way to lose credibility.
Now in the telecom industry, there seems to be a move away from analytics (big data) when it comes to driving personalized emails, SMS messages and the like.
The new approach is to have a personal webpage where the mobile subscriber can see his account balance and view the latest promotion tuned to his orojected "preferences".
If you get people used to going to that web page, then you can dispense with sending all the little begging messages -- which seem more and more like spam.
Back to the campaign... I wholeheartedly agree that Trump has found the right combination of media outreach and a judicious use of personal email.
Interesting...a few years ago I sat thru a presentation by some data wizards at a State GOP meeting about how we GOP...needed the data they were collecting...ie...personal preferences on EVERYTHING FROM magazines to phone bills and so many of life’s details...my friend and I found it way too personal. People want their privacy even as they give it up, but especially want it from POLITICAL parties!