13 votes

The Trump campaign is currently spending $5.4 million per week on Facebook ads, almost assuredly making it the platform's largest advertiser

@Judd Legum:
The Trump campaign is currently spending $5.4 MILLION PER WEEK on Facebook That's a $280 million annual rate.The Trump campaign is almost certainly Facebook's largest advertiser In 2019, Home Depot was the largest advertiser, spending $178.5 million pic.twitter.com/4BjWknL73H

5 comments

  1. [5]
    skybrian
    Link
    A snarky way to put it might be that Republicans are giving a lot of money to (mostly) Democrats. And I doubt it's doing Trump much good since everyone has taken sides already. If you could spend...

    A snarky way to put it might be that Republicans are giving a lot of money to (mostly) Democrats. And I doubt it's doing Trump much good since everyone has taken sides already. If you could spend your way to success, Bloomberg would be the Democratic nominee.

    Also, annualizing a weekly rate doesn't make much sense since advertisers don't spend at the same rate all year.

    6 votes
      1. [2]
        skybrian
        Link Parent
        Finding one Republican doesn't change the trend. Political contributions by Facebook employees are mostly to Democrats: https://www.govpredict.com/blog/political-contributions-by-facebook-employees/

        Finding one Republican doesn't change the trend. Political contributions by Facebook employees are mostly to Democrats:

        https://www.govpredict.com/blog/political-contributions-by-facebook-employees/

        1. [2]
          Comment deleted by author
          Link Parent
          1. skybrian
            Link Parent
            I don't know about leadership. According to Wikipedia, Zuckerberg has never revealed his political views. But the money still goes to pay the salaries of the rank and file. In that sense it's...

            I don't know about leadership. According to Wikipedia, Zuckerberg has never revealed his political views. But the money still goes to pay the salaries of the rank and file. In that sense it's flowing to mostly Democrats. Also, Facebook is in Silicon Valley which has a heavy tilt towards Democrats, so at headquarters they probably buy services from mostly Democrats, and they pay California taxes to a government controlled by Democrats.

            As policy, Facebook is trying to be nonpartisan. This is a common corporate policy since it doesn't make business sense to alienate half your customers. Also, companies and their PACs regularly give money to both sides so they can get politicians on the phone whoever is in office. But maintaining official neutrality when your employees increasingly don't see things that way gets increasingly difficult.

            You might be thinking of this Washington Post story. However, the "political shift" it talks about is appeasing Republicans.

            “Facebook does not speak Republican,” said a former employee of Facebook’s Integrity Team, which was created to ensure safety and trust on the platform, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about a former employer. “This is what they know about Republicans: Tell them ‘yes’ or they will hurt us.”

            That is, Republicans are "them," not "us," from most tech employees' point of view.

            Although, apparently this isn't working all that well. The big tech companies have few friends in Washington these days.

            4 votes
    1. [2]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. skybrian
        Link Parent
        That was hyperbolic, sorry. But I'm under the general impression that most of the game is increasing turnout for your own side?

        That was hyperbolic, sorry. But I'm under the general impression that most of the game is increasing turnout for your own side?

        3 votes