Over ₹40cr spent on Meta, Google for poll ads in Nov

The top twenty political advertisers spent ₹5.98 crore on 7,901 ads on Meta’s platforms in the month of November, while 15,405 political ads worth ₹36.31 crore were published through Google Ads in the same duration. On comparing the top twenty political advertisers for November on Google and Meta, HT found that Congress outspent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

- Aditi Agarwal

Direct and indirect advertisements on Meta platforms in favour of the BJP by the party itself, its state units, and those advertising on its behalf accounted for 43.2%, or ₹2.58 cr of this pie while Congress contributed ₹2.24 crore for 37.48% of the pie.

On Google Ads, on the other hand, ₹14.3 crore was spent by Congress, ₹12.1 crore was spent by Bharat Rashtra Samithi while ₹4.16 crore was spent by BJP.

Most of the online ad money on Meta — which includes Facebook and Instagram — was spent in Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for the month of November. Spends for Mizoram, the other state that went to elections in November, however ranked 17th on the list.

Almost 80% of the ad spend on Google, that is, ₹28.9 cr was spent on video ads while 20.4% was spent on image ads. Maximum amount, ₹2.27 cr was spent on November 27, three days before the poll in Telangana. The eves of the four polling days --- November 6, November 16, November 22 and November 29 did not see any spikes in ad spends on Google.

The ministry of information and broadcasting’s Central Bureau of Communication also ran ads worth ₹1.15 crore on Google Ads in the month on November.

Google’s Ad Library has data since February 20, 2019. Since then, 73,246 ads worth ₹206.2 crore have been placed. The BJP accounts for almost 24% of this ad spend at ₹49.4 crore while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) accounts for ₹21.3 crore, or 10.38%. Congress has spent ₹14.6 crore on Google ads since 2019.