Get Insights Into Facebook Advertisers With These Tools
We hear a lot about the Facebook advertising issue – whether it’s user information being tracked for targeted ads, or suspicious groups using ads to spread misinformation. Just look at how this affects our political landscape: we have voters and politicians who spread false information, often simply because they saw it on social media. Facebook ads are especially egregious as the website collects personal data and adapts the ads you see based on your online behavior. This leads not only to eerily specific targeted advertising, but also to a greater likelihood that those who do not properly verify the facts will be fooled by advertisements that contain false or misleading information.
To combat this, most people raise their privacy settings or leave Facebook entirely . If you are not ready to give up Facebook, but also not in the mood to be lied to, there is another alternative: you can now get information about every organization that advertises or promotes content on Facebook.
Facebook Political Ads Database
In 2018, Facebook created a searchable database containing all political ads running on the platform since May 2018. Ads will remain in the database for seven years. Everything in the database is searchable and viewable by all users, which means that you won’t only be shown ads aimed at you. Search results include any ad, organization, page or description of which matches the search keywords, and users can filter by country for active and inactive ads, and display ads on related pages. By clicking on the ad details, you can see who paid for the ad, how many times it was viewed, how long it ran, and other metrics.
Facebook also compiles a publicly available, downloadable weekly ad report detailing which ads were placed on the platform this week, who paid for ads, and the total spend.
According to these reports, over 3 million political ads were placed on Facebook between May 2018 and April 20, 2019, costing advertisers more than $ 547 million. The long list of advertisers is largely unsurprising, such as the Beto group for Texas or the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, followed by a long list of other political campaigns, special interest groups and lobbyists. This transparency makes it easy to see who is paying to share their content on Facebook and how many people see it.
However, there are some strange inclusions. Since the database contains any advertisements related to politics, even those that do not have an inherently political message, for example from news organizations and politically unaffiliated pages, are added. Because of this, unexpected names are appearing on Facebook’s list of political advertisers, such as Cindy Lauper, who advertised t-shirts made in solidarity with Time’s Up Movement , and ads for Funny or Die content , which often counterfeit and ridicule the real world. Events. The database even has ads from Microsoft or Stella Artois highlighting pollution and access to drinking water :
I wish we did not live in a world where the desire for clean drinking water and healthy marine environments is considered political, but transparency is important nonetheless.
Check active ads on the page
While the ability to search across all political ads is useful and a wise decision on the part of Facebook, there are a lot of non-political ads popping up on Facebook as well.
With a few clicks, users can see any currently active ad from any page. On any public Facebook page, click Info & Ads at the bottom of the page’s left menu. This will open a new page that will display all active ads posted on the page on Facebook, Instagram and / or Facebook Messenger (whether those ads are directed to you or not). You will also find links to advertisements posted on linked pages and if the page has hosted political advertisements, and if so, it will link to the ad library referenced above.