Labour and Lib Dems dwarf Tories in online spending battle

Labour and the Liberal Democrats are pouring hundreds of thousands of pounds into Facebook and Instagram ads, dwarfing the Conservatives’ spending as the opposition parties fight to close the gap on the UK’s governing party ahead of next month’s general election.

Labour spent more than £165,000 on advertising across the two social media platforms in the week up to November 23, according to data published by Facebook. That’s nearly half of the £340,000 the party has spent on Facebook ads in the most recent 30-day period.

With just over two weeks to go to the vote, polls indicate that while Labour may be experiencing a slight uptick in support, they still lag by an average of 13 percentage points, according to the FT’s election poll tracker.

Mr Corbyn features in few of Labour’s recent Facebook ads, perhaps underlining concerns over his unpopularity with the public. Instead the party has focused on driving home key messages and policy proposals, such as free prescriptions and “giv(ing) people the final say on Brexit”.

By contrast, pictures and videos of Conservative leader Boris Johnson feature prominently in the vast majority of the party’s recent ads.

The Conservatives, though, spent little more than a tenth of what Labour has spent in the most recent week for which there is data, at just over £17,500. Even though the campaign is now entering its latter stages the Tories have wound down their spending on Facebook ads. In the 30 days to November 23, the party had spent almost £180,000.

The party could yet make a late ad spending push. In the run-up to the last general election, in 2017, the Tories spent more than £2m on Facebook — four times as much as Labour.

“It makes a lot of sense to keep your powder dry and save anything you have up your sleeve, or any cash reserves you have, for a last blitz in case anything changes, or to hammer home your point at the end,” said Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford university.

The Lib Dems are currently the biggest spenders, with the party splashing out more than £190,000 to take out ads in the same period, while the Brexit party spent just under £100,000.

The Conservatives have in recent days been directing adverts at voters in key marginal seats, such as Keighley, Kensington and Milton Keynes North, warning them that “a vote for anyone else risks a hung Parliament — with more chaos, more indecision, and more delay”.

Labour, meanwhile, ran an ad on Sunday on Facebook and Instagram showing a clip of Mr Johnson being questioned on the BBC’s Question Time about offensive comments he has made in the past, under a banner headline reading “Not fit to be prime minister”. The ad, which Labour spent between £1,000 and £1,500 on, was seen more than 150,000 times.

“One of the things you notice about social media advertising is it’s much more negative than traditional advertising; you really find that people have embraced the idea of the American attack ad,” said Sam Jeffers, co-founder of Who Targets Me, a campaign group that monitors online advertising.