Donors hard or impossible to track in up to half of the ad spending
A new report from the Wesleyan Media Project, the Brennan Center and OpenSecrets sheds light on the scope of online ad spending this election cycle on the two largest online platforms, Google and Meta.
Among the report’s key findings are:
- In the 2024 election cycle through the end of August, advertisers who spent at least $5,000 on Google and Meta bought $619 million in political ads, with at least $248 million focused on the presidential race.
- Of spenders on Meta and Google known to advertise in support of a party, spending in favor of Democrats was more than three times the amount of spending for Republicans. Some Republican-aligned spending may have migrated to other platforms not included in this analysis, in part due to lack of public data.
- Almost half the total, $281 million, came from spenders that may hide some or all of their donors.
The full report is available here.
