The U.S. Census Bureau had a lot on their plates going into 2020. They'd spent more than a year carefully planning the launch of the first-ever online census survey, which would make it even easier for people to be counted. However, 2020 had other plans. 

In a year like no other, the Bureau was met with a difficult challenge: finding a way to drive awareness around their inaugural online survey in the midst of a pandemic. Fortunately, Twitter had a solution that would encourage everyone — from younger people to those in underrepresented communities — to participate in one of the most important census surveys of our time.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau Public Information Office, #Census2020 participation increased from previous years and reached 99.98 percent response rate by the end of the self-response and field data collection operations. In fact, the Bureau was the largest government advertiser of 2020, surpassing all performance benchmarks.

The numbers speak for themselves. Click-through rate for the campaign surged — 63 percent higher when compared to the industry benchmark. This was largely propelled by the ArtHouse influencer campaign, which generated a 3.3x higher click-through rate.³

The Bureau also broke ground as the first government advertiser to run an Amplify Sponsorship with Live Nation. This led to 738K #RapsodyLive live-stream views, 5.7M unique visitors reached and pre-roll video view rate that was 58 percent higher than the government benchmark.⁴

By using real people who shared their real stories — and by explaining why participation this year was so crucial — Twitter provided the Bureau with a way to knock at people’s digital doorstep. Hear more from the Deputy Chief of the U.S. Census Bureau: