Spending big to support the American Jobs Plan
Also inside: Final NYC Mayoral spending data, Instagram pushes ads to Reels
Happy Friday, and we hope everyone except for these fourteen people is taking the day off as we celebrate our newest federal holiday, Juneteenth. FWIW, the top-performing post across all of Facebook mentioning tomorrow’s holiday is this one by President Biden’s page - getting over 300,000 interactions in less than 24 hours.
Elsewhere in the news: Democratic and progressive groups are spending big to boost the American Jobs Plan, the Democratic primary for Mayor of NYC wraps up on Tuesday, and Facebook just added advertising to some of its most popular products. We’ll dig into that below, but first…
By the numbers
Here are the top 10 political ad spenders on Google platforms in the past week:
Last week, the DSCC continued to spend an unreal amount of money on Google acquisition ads last week, almost hitting the $1 million mark. 😱 In last Friday’s issue of FWIW, we broke down the committee’s spending and how Democratic Senate candidates continue to outspend their Republican opponents online.
On Facebook, the DSCC is also a significant spender. Here’s how much 💰 political organizations and campaigns spent on Facebook and Instagram last week:
Rep. Val Demings’ U.S. Senate campaign against Marco Rubio led political ad spending on Facebook & Instagram last week, dropping over half a million dollars on fundraising ads in seven days, and more than $150,000 on her campaign’s launch day alone. By comparison, Rubio spent around $8,000 last week. 👀
...and finally, here’s how much money political groups have spent on Snapchat advertising, year-to-date:
Infrastructure week is getting expensive... 🔨
Congress is still hashing out what exactly goes into President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan, but at least five progressive outside groups have been running Facebook and Google ads for several months in support of the massive infrastructure proposal. Combined, these groups have spent over $1.7 million on digital ads over the past 90 days, supporting the infrastructure package using a variety of messages and tactics. Although we only can analyze publicly available spending data from Facebook, Google, and Snapchat, we know some of these groups are live on other digital platforms too.
Top spenders backing the proposal include the NRDC Action Fund, League of Conservation Voters, Climate Power, Building Back Together, and For Our Future. Read more to see their ads, what messages they’re using, and who they’re targeting.
Digital spending in the NYC Mayor’s race 🗽
The chaotic Democratic primary for Mayor of NYC concludes next Tuesday as voters head to the polls to rank their top candidate. Here’s how much money each candidate has spent on Facebook advertising to reach voters over the past 90 days:
What messages are the frontrunners using to persuade voters and get them to turn out on Tuesday? We took a comprehensive look at their ads, messaging, outside spending, and more here.
🚨 Bonus: New ad inventory just dropped
Beginning this week, Instagram has officially added advertising to its popular Reels feature, which was launched last year to compete with TikTok. Reels are an enormously popular feature on the app, which allows users to endlessly swipe through short, curated videos. We personally haven’t seen any ads yet, but if you’re the first to spot a political ad in Reels, let us know on Twitter!
Meanwhile, striking terror in the hearts of VR users worldwide (ourselves included) Facebook announced that it is in the early stages of testing advertising in its popular virtual reality Oculus Quest headsets. Will this mean we’ll be inundated with immersive ads by Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis in 2024? Only time will tell.
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