An Unexpected Side Effect of Facebook’s Political Ad Rules: More Ads?

The computer knows what you did last summer

Could Facebook’s new rules for political advertising actually encourage more of it? This idea came up in a discussion with the team at DSPolitical a few weeks ago, and I explored it in detail in my most recent Campaigns & Elections piece.

The gist: before the new rules took effect, your opponents’ digital political advertising was mainly a mystery. Unlike TV ads, digital buys did not have to be disclosed. Campaign staff could only find out what the other side was doing if they or a supporter happened to come across a Facebook ad and remembered to screenshot it.

Under the new ad regime, the platform now retains “Ads Related to Politics and Issues of National Importance” in a searchable archive, along with a rough idea of the budget involved and the audience reached for each one. A great tool for opposition research! Plus, as campaigns and advocacy groups SEE that their opponents are spending money online, they’ll naturally consider responding in kind — if they have the budget.

I still can’t comprehend why campaigns lag so far behind commercial brands when it comes to allocating money for digital advertising. Democratic congressional campaigns were outspent 4:1 online in the last months of the 2016 cycle! Will pulling the curtain back on Facebook ads change the situation? Read the piece and see what you think.

cpd

Written by
Colin Delany
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