Parties spent over 100,000 euros on online election campaigns last week

Political parties spent more than 100,000 euros on internet advertisements last week for the first time in the campaign for municipal elections. PvdA and GroenLinks invested the most money, according to an analysis of data from Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

The analysis examined spending by national and regional departments, local parties and individual candidates. It showed that, between Feb. 20-26, political political parties together spent more than 140,000 euros on advertisements on Google, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. A week earlier, this number was still at about 85,000 euros.

During the 2021 parliamentary elections, political parties spent much more around this time to stand out online: in the same week, they spent more than double. Also in the weeks before that, municipal election spending this year was not as high as during the national elections last year.

CDA, D66, Forum for Democracy (FvD) and SP are especially cutting back on spending compared to the previous elections. CDA spent about 130,000 euros on internet advertisements in 2021 in this week, contrasting with around 13,000 euros this year. D66 also spent more than 10 times less last week, about 6,400 euros. FvD spent six times less and SP three times less.

PvdA spent more than 24,000 euros on internet advertising last week, the highest of all parties and slightly more than during the same week in the national election campaign. GroenLinks followed at more than 20,000 euros. As usual, PVV spent almost nothing on online advertising. All regional parties together spent an estimated 26,000 euros.

The previous campaign showed that political parties will only spend heavily on internet advertisements when the elections are approaching. In the last week before the elections to the Tweede Kamer, they together spent more than a million euros, compared to many hundreds of thousands in the weeks before.

The amounts mentioned are an estimate, because Meta does not mention precise amounts if parties or departments spend less than 100 euros on internet advertisements. Expenses are estimated at 50 euros in such cases.