Who Targets Me? Political Advertising on Facebook in the 2019 Election

Executive Summary

Political advertising in federal election campaigns has increasingly shifted from television and radio to online platforms. After Google withdrew from political advertising for the 2019 election campaign, Facebook served as the election’s primary online advertising platform. Six in ten Canadian adults report using Facebook News Feed with 36% checking it every day — more than any non-Google platform. This study sought to investigate the effectiveness and compliance of Facebook with Canada’s new political advertising law. It also sought to determine the demographics of voters being targeted, as well as the methods and messages used to target them.

Based on the data collected, Facebook complied with Canada’s political advertisement law contributing to greater transparency. The study did not collect advertisements from registered political entities that were not included in Facebook’s registry, nor were any advertisements from political parties identified during the advertising blackout period required by the Canada Elections Act. 

In the week leading up to the election, approximately 13% of the Facebook advertisements observed were political. This overall picture masks considerable variation in political advertising by riding. The political parties deployed a variety of advertisement targeting methods to reach voters. Just under half of the Liberal Party’s advertisements targeted specific voters, either those that visited the party’s websites or lookalike audiences. The remaining half were targeted only by location. In comparison, the Conservative Party and the NDP targeted specific voters less often. Most of these advertisements targeted location or a combination of location and age range. None of the other political parties or major third parties were observed using custom or lookalike audiences, instead they were focusing primarily on location, age and interest. 

This analysis is the first in Canada to review how political entities are using Facebook’s targeting tools. This study is also the first attempt to better understand the impact of advertising in targeted ridings has on the frequency of political advertisements displayed on Facebook.