With the 21st May election looming, we’re in the thick of Australia’s election battle. Pathmatics, the digital marketing intelligence platform, has lifted the lid on our nation’s biggest political parties’ digital ad spend tactics in the hope to win last-minute votes.
Here’s what our major parties’ digital ad spend looked like last week:
Monday, May 9 — Saturday, May 14
• United Australia Party (UAP) well and truly out-spent Liberal and Labor, spending over $1M in digital ads last week (a 238% increase from the week prior), with its ads focusing on promoting its own policies as well as criticising the Government’s handling of COVID-19 with lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
• Liberal significantly reduced its digital ad spend to $156K (vs $602K the week prior)
• Labor’s spend remained fairly consistent at $695K (up from $620K the week prior)
• Liberal’s ads continued to attack Labor’s management and leadership, while Labor focused on promoting its healthcare plan.
Estimated ad Spend
Number of creatives by party *
*Creatives are counted as unique when text changes are picked up as different between ads even if they are part of the same campaign, changes in an advertisement’s creative ids which normally indicates changes in targeting on social media, etc.
Here’s what our major parties’ digital ad spend looked like the week prior:
Sunday, May 1 — Sunday, May 8
Labor
• Estimate overall ad spend: $620,000
• 78% increase from the week prior
Liberal
• Estimate overall ad spend: $602,000
• 312% increase from the week prior
United Australia
• Estimate overall ad spend: $304,000
• 38% increase from the week prior
Analysing data from the start of May, the estimated party spend on digital ads shows the following:
Eugene Du Plessis, Pathmatics ANZ regional director, says:
“With only a few days left until Election Day, the race for votes is well and truly on. In the last week, Labor has gone hard on its promises to combat the cost of healthcare, as well as focusing on the rise in the cost of living while the Liberal party has focused its efforts on questioning Albanese’s ability to uphold a strong economy.
“If we look at where these ads are appearing, Labor is continuing to use social media as its main digital media channel whereas the Liberal party appears to be taking a leaf out of the United Australia Party’s book with video ads, upping its YouTube ad spend dramatically. The United Australia Party slowed down spend at the beginning of the month, although, has come back strong in the last few days, spending over $1 M on digital ads last week. The Labor and Liberal Parties appear to be taking a different approach, with Labor’s spending only slightly increasing since last week and the Liberal party dramatically decreasing its spend. Could they be gearing up for a big final week instead now the Liberal Party has officially launched their campaign over the weekend?
“We’ll be keeping a watchful eye on elections ad activity over the coming days as our nation’s political parties make the final sprint.”