Trump and Biden double advertising on Facebook

This past election was, as evidenced by the highest popular vote ever recorded, very important to many people. Of course, no one cared more about the election results of President Trump and former Vice President Biden. Even though the average voter seemed very motivated to get to know the candidates again this year, as evidenced by the high marks achieved in the presidential debates.

One of the many ways Trump and Biden have tried to communicate with their supporters and win over the undecided has been through social media, especially Facebook. I’m not talking about all the free attention that Trump and, to a lesser extent, Biden, have received from their own Twitter posts, but rather the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on paid social media advertising reaching all ages, sex and compete in the US through social media giant, Facebook. In fact, every candidate hit all-time highs in Facebook’s ad spend.

In the past 22 months, Eyewitness News of ABC 7 Los Angeles reported that both Trump and Biden in this election have spent more INDIVIDUALLY on Facebook advertising than Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton together spent in the election. of 2016. Biden reportedly spent over $ 94 million on Facebook ads in this election, and Trump spent even more, reporting $ 107 million spent on Facebook ads.

Not only were the 2020 elections very positive for Facebook, but overall Facebook rebounded strongly from the lower ad revenue generated in the first months of the pandemic. There is no doubt that social media and overall digital advertising spending is now rivaling TV advertising in importance.

The Wesleyan Media Project, a venture run by Wesleyan University (full disclosure, I am an alumnus), collected and analyzed extensive data on the advertising spending of presidential, senatorial and congressional candidates.

In the case of the presidential race, they estimated Trump spent over $ 426 million on advertising for his candidacy and Biden spent $ 564 million. While Trump has less to spend on advertising, he has spent too much Biden considerably on digital spend, directing over $ 201 million to digital advertising, versus Biden’s digital spend of $ 166 million. The same pattern existed in terms of TV advertising with Trump’s spending on TV amounting to $ 222 million compared to $ 376 million spent on Biden’s TV advertising.

This year has obviously been a very difficult time for most people from an economic, social and psychological point of view. But thanks to the presidential spouses, at least television advertising and digital advertising activities have gotten huge impulses (political stimuli one might say) since the 2020 elections.