Political data mapping – United Kingdom

You can map your supporter data to data relating to some of the contact (target) databases that you have available in your account using the Political data mapping tool. You can then use this information to get a better understanding about which political area your supporters live in, for example their MP constituency.

Using this newly mapped information, you can send segmented emails to your supporters. For example, if your mapping found out that you had 1000 active supporters in the constituency of Vauxhall and it was important for your campaign to email the Vauxhall MP, you could ‘filter’ your email list to only send these supporters an email as opposed to everyone. Localizing campaign actions could help to get your message across.

Quick guide – How to map a supporter to database

To access the Database to supporter mapping, go to Data & Reports > Political Tools > Database to supporter mapping.

Press + New Mapping and select the database in which you wish to map a supporter to and press next.

Here you can map a database value to a field you have created in your account data structure.

Please see the ‘Before you start’ section below to see how you can create extra database fields.

In the example below, you can see that the database value of ‘Party’ has been mapped to a custom field titled ‘MP Party’, this will allow you to target your supporters based on their constituency and is just one example of how you can use this tool to ensure you are getting the most out of your data and reporting.

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Which databases can be mapped against?

You will be able to map your supporter data to any of the following databases, provided they have been included in your subscription:

• UK/English: Westminster MP – the “Region” column (AKA Organization) contains the constituency

• UK/English: MSP Constituency Only

• UK/English : ICB Chairs (England only)

• UK/SPECIAL: UK Region Lookup – the “Region” column (AKA Organization) contains one of East Midlands, Eastern, London, North East, North West, Northern Ireland, Scotland, South East, South West, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber

• UK/SPECIAL: Council Areas Lookup – District/Unitary Only

• UK/SPECIAL: Council Areas Lookup – County Only

• UK / Special : District Council Ward Lookup

If you are an Australian client you can also map supporter data to the Australian MP database.

Before you start

Before you start mapping your data, you will need to create the extra database fields in your Account Data Structure (previously known as the Default supporter record), if you haven’t done this already. For example, if you want to map MP data to your supporter data, you will need to create up to 5 extra columns, for MP title, MP first name, MP last name, MP constituency, and MP party. When adding the data fields, set the field visibility as ‘Not visible’ because this information does not need to be pulled into supporter form fields.

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You’ll need to go to the menu Hello YOURNAME > Account settings, then Account Data Structure to add the additional data fields. Please see the separate help file on adding data fields to your Account Data Structure.

Note: If you have mapped, for example, MP data previously and now want to map local councillor data to your supporter records, create an extra database field in your Account Data Structure (previously known as the Default supporter record) for council name. If you use the same data fields for the mapping, the political data will simply be overwritten.

Note: You can also match the contact ID of the politician/target. This information can be used for filtering supporters based on their constituency (in the list builder, this method is more efficient than using the full constituency names).

Note: If you are mapping Members of Scottish Parliament, then you will only be able to map the contact’s ‘organization’ (or constituency), so that would be the only additional data column you would need to create in your default user record. Mapping all the individual names to your database could cause inconsistencies in your data structure, because there is no set number of contacts per area.

Setting up data mapping

When you have added the extra data columns to your supporter database, go to Data & Reports > Political Tools.

Select the + New Mapping button option to create a data mapping. Select the relevant database from the dropdown list that you want to map your supporter data to, and select ‘Next’ to continue.

Then match the contact data fields to your newly created user data fields. If you leave any dropdown blank, this contact data will not be mapped.

Please be sure to click ‘Save’ to apply all mappings selected. 

What happens next?

The mapping settings will be saved and the mapping will run on a regular basis (every day at 3am GMT / BST). You will be able to access the first set of mapped data the following day.

Managing mapping settings

Updating a data set that is being mapped

By default, every time the mapping runs it will pick up only the new records that haven’t been mapped before.

You can re-map the entire database at any point by updating the settings for the specific mapping.

To do that, go back to the Data & Reports > Political Tools > Database to supporter mapping page.

Any data mapping that is currently running in your account will be displayed on the page.

Click on the name of the mapping you would like to update to preview the current settings.

The mappings can also be modified by selecting the gear icon alongside the saved mapping you’re looking to update on your account, or delete the mapping completely using the red X icon.

To remap, you may update the Processing Options below the mapping editor to select to either: ‘Only run for new and modified supporters’ or ‘Run over the entire database.’

Note: It is recommended that you revert to the default settings after the mapping re-runs the entire data set. So please return to the page the following day, deselect the checkbox, and save the settings.

Recreating the field mapping for a database

If you decide to delete an existing database mapping (using the red X icon), that database will be added back into the dropdown list on the ‘New mapping’ tab. You can now create a new mapping for that database.

Reviewing the data

To view your mapped data, go to Data & Reports > Export (under Data) or Data & Reports > Lookup supporter. You can now search supporters based on ‘form data’ and when you export the data or view it online you will be able to see the newly mapped information in the additional data columns. Similarly, if you search by ‘campaigns’ you will find details of who has taken an action and appended to their data record will be the details of the relevant political contacts.