The 2005 elections confirmed that there are no templates for a successful online political campaign and that there’s more to websites than blogs and fundraising power, reported three senior-level campaign officials during a Center for American Progress panel Friday.

The discussion, held in a gleaming 10th floor conference room at the Center’s DC offices, featured lessons learned from the 2005 electoral cycle and included perspectives from two of the year’s most high-profile campaigns—Republican Michael Bloomberg’s New York City mayoral campaign and Democrat Tim Kaine’s Virginia gubernatorial race—as well as the AFL-CIO’s campaign to defeat Proposition 75, an anti-union referendum in California.

Jonah Seiger of Connections Media LLC, the firm that ran Bloomberg’s expansive and expensive web operation, explained that the organization relied on three online pieces in its successful efforts: The campaign’s public website, a highly customized constituent relationship tool for online activists, and a broad (and expensive) online advertising campaign. According to the New York City Campaign Finance Board, the Bloomberg campaign paid Connections Media a little over $1.7 million for its web campaign services.

Seiger said the campaign frequently weighed tactical concerns in creating its online content: For instance, to avoid creating a resource for the press and opponents, the Bloomberg camp did not create an online media center where site visitors could download or watch copies of the campaign’s television ads.

He also argued that candidates shouldn’t immediately jump at creating a blog. “Your opponents are going to be your main audience,” Seiger explained. Much as they did with the media center, the Bloomberg campaign specifically avoided launching a blog—a choice, he said, that was reinforced when the campaign found a blog entry on Fernando Ferrer’s website incorrectly claiming the Democratic candidate attended New York public schools. That posting led the New York Post to publish a front-page illustration of Ferrer in a dunce cap, helping to knock Ferrer off-message.

John Rohrbach, internet director for the Kaine campaign, which made extensive use of its blog and relationships with Democratic bloggers and also had a podcast, explained that blogs certainly weren’t a perfect fit for every candidate.

Seiger said that the Bloomberg campaign worked to avoid the problems that plagued Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2003 when, according to him, it allowed the grassroots activists to run the online campaign instead of harnessing them to more appropriate activities. The Bloomberg campaign’s army of volunteers—54,000 by the end of the race—was key to demonstrating that Mayor Bloomberg had connected with ordinary New Yorkers, he said. While the online campaign primarily played to the more wired regions of Manhattan and Brooklyn, it also involved outreach to the other boroughs, and outer borough offices allowed activists to do offline volunteering near their homes.

All three campaign organizers shared strategies for recruiting new faces. Rohrbach said the Kaine campaign had its greatest success with an online “Request a Bumper Sticker” button, which helped to bring in 8,000 names to the campaign email list and also spread bumper stickers throughout Virginia.

The Bloomberg campaign had success, meanwhile, with an SMS campaign where online ads featuring the mayor saying “Text me” encouraged people to sign up by texting a specific number. Those who registered received a reminder to vote text message on election day. In fact, Seiger, who downplayed the “fad” of podcasts, predicted that SMS would be one of the most useful trends for activists and campaigns going forward.

In both the text message and the bumper sticker campaigns, Seiger and Rohrbach said that they believed the novel efforts spurred nontraditional people to join the list and become involved in the races. “No one has to knock on their doors to get them involved in the campaign,” Rohrbach explained.

Christine Kenngott, the AFL-CIO’s mobilization manager, who repeatedly emphasized the importance of aggressive email list building, specifically cited the online network Care2 as the best source of outside activists. While it is expensive to recruit names, the quality of activists Care2 petition drives bring in are well worth the cost, she said.

“The number one best activist is someone who comes to the website,” said Kenngott, whose union-driven coordinated mobilization drive was ultimately successful in defeating Prop 75. The AFL-CIO largely used its online campaign to pass out fliers and disseminate information to members and union activists throughout California.

Interestingly, the power these campaigns saw in their online efforts during the 2005 cycle belonged primarily to the campaigns and the candidate rather than their grassroots supporters. Throughout the discussion the campaign representatives focused on how they had harnessed online support and interest for tangible offline action—primarily volunteering, canvassing, and fundraising. Rhetoric about the online “two-way street” made famous in the Howard Dean campaign and other strong online efforts, whereby supporters were able to take ownership and the campaign used blogs and emails to increase transparency of decision-making, was noticeably absent from the discussion.

Garrett M. Graff is the editor of fishbowlDC.