6. Ensure Everything Is Fully Functional Before The Candidate Announces

CFB Strategies began work on the fundraising and grassroots infrastructure six to eight months before Cruz formally launched his presidential bid.

"It needed to run smoothly on launch day, or you lose a tremendous amount of donations and a tremendous amount of data," Anderson said.

CFB worked closely with Cruz's finance team prior to the campaign's launch, Anderson said, determining what they wanted out of a bundling program -- a form of political fundraising in which one person or more people convince others to write checks to a candidate -- and creating interfaces and graphics for the public-facing portion of the applications. 

Overall, Anderson said Cruz's team was very forward-thinking in the way it used data.