Digital political ad spending for the week of March 7th - March 13th

How much did campaigns spend on Facebook, Google, and Snapchat ads last week?

Another week in the books! Outside groups and political campaigns continued to ramp up their online spending this week on ads advocating for or against the Biden administration’s policies.

Here are the top spenders on political Google ads from March 7th to March 13th:

The conservative American Action Network was briefly online running ads against swing-district House members who voted *for* the American Rescue Plan. (Weird flex, but ok.) From March 9-10th, they spent $13,000 on YouTube and Google Search ads criticizing these members’ support for the ARP, but the limited digital spending makes us think this was mostly for show.

Not for show, however, are a host of new ads from Democratic committees, campaigns, and affiliated groups touting the ARP. The DCCC has launched a new set of ads thanking vulnerable members for their votes, along with some on Facebook from Health Care Voter.

FWIW, here are the top spenders on political Facebook ads from March 7th to March 13th:

While it’s still pretty early in most states to have frontrunner U.S. Senate candidates, or any candidates at all, John Fetterman’s 2022 campaign in Pennsylvania has hit the ground running. The election he’s running in won’t take place for another 21 months, but that hasn’t stopped their campaign from being the biggest political ad spender on Facebook since ads resumed on March 4th.

And to the credit of Fetterman’s campaign and their supporting team at Middle Seat, their digital paid media campaign is pretty . They’re running some adorable fundraising and acquisition ads right now featuring the candidate’s dog, taking the boop-the-dog’s-nose tactic from their website and mapping it onto their fundraising ads. Another thing we love about their online approach so far: a Messenger integration on their website that puts you into direct contact with their virtual organizer. 

Finally, here are the top spenders on Snapchat so far this year: