This piece suggests Meta is dragging its heels on reducing the (very large) number of scam ads on its services because they're concerned it will materially hurt revenue (the article estimates they make as much as $16bn a year from scam ads) www.reuters.com/investigatio...

Digital political ad spending in the US has crept up over the last two weeks, ahead of tomorrow's elections. Last year the peak day (Oct 30) saw almost $25m of political ads on Meta and Google. This year the peak spend is $3.8m (so far).

Research from Hungarian fact-checkers Lakmusz shows how Orban-aligned political actors are circumventing Meta's "ban" on political ads in the EU (in Hungarian, but auto-translates well): lakmusz.hu/2025/10/28/s...

Reform actually struggled with this in GE2024, over-spending in places they didn't ultimately win, and not spending at all in at least one seat they did. The jump from trying to win <5 seats to trying to win ~50 is a difficult strategic question.

This is quite different to last year's General Election, where they put a lot of money in, albeit to a small number of target seats. The challenge will be, as their appeal broadens, can they find the right places to invest?

One of the interesting things about the growth of the Green Party (particularly their membership) in the UK over the last several months is that it's happened (no pun intended) organically. They've barely spent anything on digital ads, and nothing at all from their main party accounts.

One of the interesting things about the growth of the Green Party (particularly their membership) in the UK over the last several months is that it's happened (no pun intended) organically. They've barely spent anything on digital ads, and nothing at all from their main party accounts.

Labour launched a new ad including a clip of Sarah Pochin's racist comments on black and asian people in TV ads, arguing Reform represents "division and grievance". Ad here: www.facebook.com/ads/library/...

New Tory digital ad campaign, going after Labour on (expected) tax rises.

Cuomo vs. Mamdani vs. Silwa digital ad spend (Google + Meta) over the last month. We've included the PACs supporting their candidacies (if we didn't, Andrew Cuomo would have spent <$1k - there's almost no positive advertising in his own name).

This is the data from the last month that social media ads were available to Dutch parties (ending Oct 4th). It can't tell you much about campaign effectiveness, but perhaps it does show that D66 and FvD were confident about improving their positions.

We've a new piece in @techpolicypress.bsky.social on the decision by Meta and Google to ban political, social and issue-based ads in the European Union. It's a seismic shift for European campaigning, but there won't be any winners: www.techpolicy.press/meta-and-goo...

We've a new piece in @techpolicypress.bsky.social on the decision by Meta and Google to ban political, social and issue-based ads in the European Union. It's a seismic shift for European campaigning, but there won't be any winners: www.techpolicy.press/meta-and-goo...

Reform running ads calling on people to sign a petition against local elections in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Surrey, East and West Sussex and Hampshire being postponed next year. So far, £2.5k spent, 500k people reached, 75k signatures. But there are two sides to this story...

Report on how the platform political ad bans boost far-right Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Good to see our dashboards and data used by the always-excellent Expert Forum in their analysis of political ads and finance during the Romanian presidential election campaign earlier this year: expertforum.ro/publicitatea...

Article on a single piece of attack content being pushed by one of the current Irish presidential election campaigns. With no ads to buy, they're getting aggressive to try and find some algorithmic juice. And it doesn't really seem to work. www.thebriefing.ie/fine-gaels-a...

This Facebook ad, from Reform's candidate ahead of next week's Caerphilly Senedd by-election, is potentially misleading (regardless of the result, Labour will hold the Westminster seat).

Check out Campaign Tracker NL, looking at the use of AI in the Dutch election campaign (and here are some particularly egregious examples from Geert Wilders' PVV and aligned pages) www.campaigntracker.nl/explore/

For years, Google defined "political ads" so narrowly as to be almost useless. The least they could do was make ads clearly designed to persuade people of a political view maximally transparent and accountable. They never did. A complete failure on their part. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

The new edition of @indicator.media is out, on the topic of ad libraries, and featuring our take on recent changes in the EU. indicator.media/p/the-indica...

A few notes on recent UK political ad spending: - Tory spend is high post-conference (i.e. over the last week), but lower than through the late summer - Reform spending has dropped off after a busy summer - Labour has YouTube to itself - Labour spends nearly 2x more than others

The Conservatives are running a number of new digital ads promoting ideas announced at their conference - leaving the ECHR, abolishing stamp duty, cutting tax by £5,000 for first jobs all getting an airing. www.facebook.com/ads/library/...

Europe's new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising rules kick in today. They set standards for ad labelling, spending disclosure and ad targeting. Unfortunately, thanks to Meta and Google deciding to leave the EU pol ads market, the effect of the regulation is very uncertain.

Labour has launched a number of attack ads targeting Reform and Nigel Farage. Goes after the party on health costs, racism allegations and being "recycled Tories".

In Hungary, it looks as if Meta's decision to end political advertising in Europe (announced late July) led to a significant increase in activity by Fidesz and its supporters/allies.

Meta ends (at least for now) political ads in the EU today. Per their ad library data, they've run nearly 11,000,000 different political, social and issue ads in the EU since 2018 and made around €800m from them.

The SPOLU alliance were the top spending digital advertisers for the election in Czechia. Winner Andrej Babiš' ANO 2011 party only the third biggest buyer.*

Google just wiped EU data from its political ad library. Meta’s ban on political ads in the EU starts soon and we're worried they might do the same. We need a backup of the EU Meta Ad Library now. If you have data (2018–present) or skills to help, let us know: ir96l7a6vsf.typeform.com/to/fIk9XMZT

Dutch political parties, particularly the smaller ones, don't much seem to like the platforms' decision to ban political ads in Europe.

Both the Conservatives and Reform have launched digital ads and data capture petitions calling for a stop to the government's plans for a national digital ID scheme.

UK political party conference season always throws up a few unusual digital ads. Here's some from "The Freedom Association" (who seem to be pro-tobacco and are probably breaking Meta's policy against this) and the "Free Market Conservatives" (who haven't run an ad in six years).

Google just wiped EU data from its political ad library. Meta’s ban on political ads in the EU starts soon and we're worried they might do the same. We need a backup of the EU Meta Ad Library now. If you have data (2018–present) or skills to help, let us know: ir96l7a6vsf.typeform.com/to/fIk9XMZT

The folks @democracyclub.org.uk provide an invaluable service to democracy in the UK. They're such an important part of national democratic infrastructure. They've just started looking for a new Chair for their board. Read the spec and see if you're a good fit: docs.google.com/document/d/e...

Expat/diaspora wings of Moldova's pro-EU PAS party bought ads across the EU in recent days, targeting people with an interest in Moldova and speaking Romanian or Russian.

An interesting side-effect of Meta's decision to ban political ads in the EU is that it will ban itself from running ads like these, which lobby against significant further regulation of social media for under 16s in the EU.

In Moldova, in the week to the 25th Sept (the latest we have data for), the pro-EU PAS party and civil society organisations together bought nearly 50% of political advertising on Meta. The pro-Russian Patriotic Bloc bought just under 2% of the total.

Despite Google deleting its EU Ad Library in recent days, our Trends tool continues to preserve the ad spending of thousands of political advertisers during election campaigns in Europe over the last several years. E.g: trends.whotargets.me/dashboard/co...

Google has removed its political ad library in the EU, including historical data. A big loss for transparency and accountability. Shameful.

I didn't expect that they would also clear the whole public bigquery database at bigquery-public-data.google_political_ads I wanted to make a copy, but I'm too late

Google has removed its political ad library in the EU, including historical data. A big loss for transparency and accountability. Shameful.

The Pro-EU PAS party are by far the biggest spenders on Meta ahead of Moldova's critical parliamentary election tomorrow. Our dashboard tacking all the parties across hundreds of pages here: trends.whotargets.me/dashboard/co...

On what the American takeover of US TikTok could mean for online political ads: whotargets.me/en/does-us-o...

On what the American takeover of US TikTok could mean for online political ads: whotargets.me/en/does-us-o...

Despite the fact that Meta is poised to ban political ads on their platforms by October 10th, Dutch parties are ramping up spending, about 160k Euro in past 30 days 🇳🇱 As always I will be tracking targeting (w/ @whotargets.me) as long as ads run. Ex.: D66 is heavily trying to reach younger people!

So, is this a good Facebook ad for a German travel agent? Or a bad ad for a German travel agent?

Interesting divergence in ad spend strategy by Norwegian parties for election day last Monday. Everyone's went down (which is normal/logical - as the day passes, there are fewer and fewer voters to reach) except for the Arbeiderpartiet (Labour) whose spend went dramatically up (they also won).

Ben Guerin, whose agency has contributed to multiple winning election campaigns in the UK and beyond, on why the EU's political ad regulation seems to be turning into an own goal.

Rupert Lowe's "Restore Britain" party is the fourth biggest political ad buyer on Meta in the UK over the last month, just ahead of Nigel Farage's page.

The Norwegian election is today. We've tracked about 11m Krone of spending on Meta (around €1m) over the last month. The incumbent Labour Party have spent most, followed by the Conservatives, then the right-populist Progress Party. Charts and leaderboards here: trends.whotargets.me/dashboard/co...