The total spend on Google and Meta from 3,649 political advertisers was $36,951,401.
The Labor Party spent $9,135,794, followed by the Liberal Party ($8,930,148) and Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots ($6,627,935).
Climate 200 and independent candidates spent around half the amount ($5,203,001) of the Labor Party’s combined pages.
Belinda Noble, founder of activist group Comms Declare, said that while the major parties are spending the most on ads, third parties and front groups are playing a huge role in trying to persuade voters, often with misleading information, hidden agendas and deep pockets.
“Information trench warfare is underway in marginal seats and new astroturfing groups (hiding the origin of ad messaging) are still being created on Facebook, days out from the election," Noble said.
Top spenders are calculated by adding together the many pages controlled by, or known to be funded by, one party across Facebook, Instagram and Google. It does not include other platforms such as TikTok or LinkedIn or pages whose funding sources are not known.
Combined spending by unions and Advance in "others" does not include all their known pages, but only those in the top 20.
“The spending data we found is only the tip of the iceberg but gives an important indicator about the overall trend,” Noble said.
Top spenders
1. Australian Labor Party: $9,135,794
2. Liberal Party: $8,930,148
3. Trumpet of Patriots: $6,627,935
4. Others: $5,387,689
5. Independents: $5,203,001
‘Others’ top spenders
1. Unions: $1,230,953
2. Advance: $813,034
3. Hothouse Magazine: $407,055
4. Nuclear for Australia: $260,856
5. Clean Energy Council: $191,245
Who Targets Me captures spending, targeting and messaging information from the ads of nearly 70,000 political and issue advertisers worldwide, from more than 650 parties in more than 50 countries.
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