UK voters are set to face a surge of political ads over the coming months as campaigning intensifies for the upcoming general election.
Both the Conservative and Labour parties are currently spending more than ten times the amount on Facebook and Instagram advertising that they were this time last year, according to Sky News.
Mobile phones are set to be the key advertising battle ground between the two main political parties as they vie for the British electorate’s full attention in the run-up to polling day, with looser data regulations on political ads set to allow for even more precise targeting.
New rules coming in to force mean that parties can now spend up to 80% more than they had previously on campaigning, with may smaller parties pointing out that this will blatantly favour the Conservatives – who have traditionally had the most cash reserves.
Data collected by Who Targets Me?, a website set up to improve transparency around political advertising, reveals that spending by both the Tories and Labour this year alone is matching that of the final weeks of the last general election.
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“There’s a new data bill coming forward, and it’s quite close to being done. It will change the emphasis, I think, of the way that political parties can do their campaigning,” Who Targets Me? executive director, Sam Jeffers told Sky News.
“There is a new thing in this bill allowing for democratic engagement, and effectively it slightly loosens the rules, but they’ll be able to contact voters more easily. They’ll need less permission to do so and the probable result of that will be a lot more contact for political parties.”
The website also found that the Conservative party had been the biggest spenders on Facebook and Instagram ads so far, with 52% of the overall spend – closely followed by Labour at 45%.
Meanwhile, other parties have so far failed to make any significant online advertising investment, with the Lib Dems registering 1.6% of the total spend, followed by the Greens at 0.5% and Reform at 0.2%.
