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Biden campaign outspending Trump and RFK Jr by 3:1 on Meta
An Equestrian Kid Rock Fan, An Idealistic Cheesehead and an Aspiring Comic Emerge
Biden campaign outspending Trump and RFK Jr by 3:1 on Meta
An Equestrian Kid Rock Fan, An Idealistic Cheesehead and an Aspiring Comic Emerge.
by World of DaaS staff
As the country enters the final 5 months of the 2024 presidential election, the particularities of the partisan divide, US Electoral College, and how each candidate views their base are laid bare when looking at the data on candidate Meta social media ad spend.
In 2016 the deciding factor for the Trump campaign was their reliance on Facebook’s ability to find and persuade the right voters. In 2024, the strategy seems to have changed with the Biden team outspending Trump by 5x.
By the Numbers - Ad Spend in the past 90 days.
Donald Trump | Joe Biden | RFK Jr. | |
Total Ads | 1,671 | 5,936 | 854 |
Dollar Spend | $1,421,302 | $7,556,068 | $806,602 |
Average Cost/Ad | $851 | $1,273 | $944 |
Granular Locations | NJ, FL,TX,MI,NC,WI, PA | PA,MI,GA,WI,AZ, NV,NC, FL,MN,NH | CA,MI,TX, NY |
Language | English | English | English and Spanish |
Top Performing Ads 2024 |
The Top 3 Ads
Biden significantly outspending both Trump and RFK Jr on Meta
The Joe Biden team has been the most bullish on Meta advertising, outspending both Donald Trump and RFK Jr. by a considerable margin, creating far more ads and spending more per each individual ad.
Trump targets horse riding, Biden targets football, and RFK Jr. targets comedy
Meta’s ability to select specific attributes allows the advertiser to zero in on their target audience. Combined with geographic parameters and age ranges - a Golem of the ideal voter comes into picture.
If you’ve ever wondered who each candidate thinks you are, look no further than the detailed audience each camp’s campaign team has decided to spend money on:
Donald Trump | Joe Biden | RFK Jr. |
Candidate, Horseback Riding, TV talkshows, Horse Care (a lot of equestrian pursuits),Elon Musk, Southern Living, Country Living, NASCAR, Fishing (Karp, Fly, you name it), Home Improvement, Trace Adkins, Hank Williams Jr, Kid Rock, Ted Nugent etc and finally: Chicken Goat Sheep | Social Change, Charity, Activism, NPR (multiple permutations), Football (with AZ, PA, MI, GA, NC, WI teams explicitly targeted) and rounding out the list: Julia Roberts George Clooney | Comedy…that’s it. Standup Sketch British Black Observational |
Exclude Social Issues, Social Change, Social Movement |
While the attributes the Donald Trump and Joe Biden camps ascribe to their prospective voting blocks read like a slow Tuesday night at a comedy club open mic… the real comedy is to be found in the interests of the ideal RFK Jr. supporter.
Ads to data primarily focused on fundraising
Most ads to date are driving dollars not votes – and we can see that by the geography they are running in – primarily Texas, California, Florida, and New York (mirroring the US population).
Donald Trump
Joe Biden
RFK Jr.
Geo-Specific Ads
As we get closer to the election, we expect the ads to focus on persuasion and GOTV in the seven states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) most likely to swing the election.
The Generational Divide
While Joe Biden and RFK Jr. have been equally weighting the age of target voters, the Donald Trump camp has a clear preference for reaching the older demos.
Although the majority of the ads follow the even distribution trend mentioned above - a few notable exceptions do come up:
RFK Jr.
Joe Biden
Donald Trump
The only candidate to completely eschew the under 30 audience is Trump, whose strategy seems to be doubling down on the 50+ audience.
As we enter the final months of the contest, we can expect the ad spend and number of targeted ads to only go up. It will be interesting to see if the Trump team will be able to close the ad spend gap, and how the ideal voter profile evolves.
Note: all data in this article sourced from Facebook’s open Ads Library.
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