Email & SMS
Ballot Signal + Scale to Win
What is Scale to Win?
Where a lot of Democratic peer-to-peer texting actually happens, and it inherits its consent posture from whatever VAN holds.
It sits in the Email & SMS category of a campaign stack. The channels that live or die on a defensible consent record.
Who uses it
Democratic lane. Predominantly used by Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations. Ballot Signal itself is nonpartisan — we build to whichever platforms our customers actually run, and the directory is filterable by lane so you can see only what applies to you.
How the Ballot Signal + Scale to Win integration works
Scale to Win integrates through NGP VAN rather than directly: it requests a VAN API key (Application Name + API Key), imports lists, and syncs results back as VAN tags and survey responses. So the practical mapping is supporter record → VAN person → Scale to Win list. If you run both, configure NGP VAN as your Ballot Signal destination and let Scale to Win read from VAN, rather than pushing to both and creating two sources of truth.
What syncs
- Imported lists
- VAN tags
- VAN survey responses
Field mapping
The supporter record is the same shape everywhere. What changes is where each field lands. The full record is documented on what you get.
| Supporter record | Messaging object | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| firstName, lastName | Subscriber / profile | Left empty rather than guessed when resolution is not confident. |
| Subscriber / profile — primary identifier | Primary match key. Lowercased before hashing. | |
| phone | Subscriber / profile — phone field | Included only when SMS-specific consent is present. |
| addressLine1, city, state, zip | Subscriber / profile — address fields | Third dedupe fallback. |
| consentTimestamp | Custom fields or merge fields | ISO 8601, UTC. |
| consentVersion | Custom fields or merge fields | The language in force at the moment of consent. |
| consentSource | Custom fields or merge fields | The exact page URL where consent was captured. |
| consentCategories | Custom fields or merge fields | Normalized from your consent platform. |
| intentSignals | Tags, lists or segments | Donate-page, volunteer-page, issue-page and any you define. |
| utmSource, utmMedium, utmCampaign, referrer | Custom fields or merge fields or source fields | Carried verbatim. |
| dedupeKey | Match key | Lowercased email hash. Match order: dedupeKey, then phone, then name + address. |
How to set it up
- 1
Set up the Ballot Signal → NGP VAN destination first.
- 2
In Scale to Win, connect your VAN account using an Application Name and API Key requested from inside VAN.
- 3
Build your Scale to Win list from the VAN saved list or Activist Code that Ballot Signal populates.
- 4
Confirm that results sync back to VAN as tags or survey responses.
- 5
Do not push directly from Ballot Signal to Scale to Win in parallel — you will create duplicate outreach.
Why it matters
Where a lot of Democratic peer-to-peer texting actually happens, and it inherits its consent posture from whatever VAN holds.
Related integrations
All Email & SMS →Mailchimp
Still the default email tool for local and county campaigns that have not bought a political-specific platform yet.
ActiveCampaign
Deep automation for small teams — the tag that arrives from us can start a whole nurture sequence without staff touching it.
EZ Texting
Low-cost texting many local campaigns already have a login for.
Tatango
Heavy political and nonprofit use, and strict about opt-in — which is exactly why a real consent record is the thing that makes a list usable here.
Ballot Signal + Scale to Win: questions
Is the Scale to Win integration available today?
Via webhook. Not a native connector. This works today through our signed universal webhook, and someone on your side (or your consultant) wires up the endpoint. Full supporter record, full consent record, no UI.
What authentication does the Scale to Win integration use?
NGP VAN Application Name + API Key. Credentials are stored encrypted and are never rendered back into the interface after entry.
Will this create duplicate records in Scale to Win?
No, assuming you leave deduplication on. We match on the lowercased-email hash first, then phone, then name plus address. On a match we update rather than create, and only the fields you have marked overwritable.
Does the consent record travel into Scale to Win?
Yes. Consent timestamp, consent version, consent source URL and granted categories are included in every push, by default, and there is no configuration that strips them. That is the point of the product.
Does connecting Scale to Win make a phone number legal to text?
No. Nothing does. We capture and preserve the consent evidence in the form platforms and carriers expect, so the consent you actually collected is provable. If you did not collect express written consent to send automated texts, we will not manufacture one. Read the TCPA page first.
See what your own website already knows.
Book a 20-minute walkthrough. We will look at your site's current consent posture first — that part is useful whether or not you buy anything.