The Trump campaign is spending big on Facebook, shelling out more than $4 million on the social media giant in the last week alone in an effort to raise money, broadcast President Trump’s message, and mobilize supporters.
Between July 7 and 13, Trump’s reelection effort spent $4,205,514 on Facebook campaigns for the president’s official public page, as well as pages for Vice President Mike Pence, campaign manager Brad Parscale, and Team Trump, which represents the campaign.
These latest publicly available figures show the massive outlay that Trump’s individual and joint Republican National Committee fundraising arms have committed to Facebook advertising for the president’s reelection, including spending more than $12 million on Facebook ads in the last month alone.
The campaign’s Black Voices for Trump, Women for Trump, and Latinos for Trump pages saw a smaller boost in ad spending, totaling $12,995 for the week. Facebook ads that featured the Team Trump Store were nearly double that, at $24,766.
The ads work by having these pages and their affiliated Instagram accounts display a message to users as they scroll through their social media feed, including to those who do not follow the pages.
The campaign has spent $183,018 in the last week on Facebook ads featuring Parscale’s page, more than the total lifetime spend on pages for Black Voices for Trump ($169,325), Latinos for Trump ($124,939), and Women for Trump ($416,538), first launched in June 2019.
Trump’s page has more than 28 million likes.
By contrast, Trump’s chief rival, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, spent $687,187 in the same week ending July 13 on Facebook ads that featured the former vice president’s public page. Paid for by two affiliated fundraising committees, the Biden Victory Fund and Biden for President, many called for donations.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A link to Parscale’s private consulting business, Parscale Strategy, was removed after an article by Mother Jones drew attention to it last month, noting that it was the only link in his “about” page, and unlike other Trump-affiliated pages, did not link back to the campaign. More than 90,000 people have liked Parscale’s Facebook page, and he has more than 50,000 followers on Instagram, a number the New York Times said grew by 10% in the last two weeks in June.
While Trump has criticized Facebook and other social media companies for bias, his campaign has used Facebook’s granular ad-targeting tools to great success. Known as “micro-targeting,” the platform allows ads to be matched precisely to a user’s interests, a cost-effective strategy that was credited with growing Trump’s reach online in 2016. A campaign could exclude users who are not registered to vote, for example.
Through a bidding system that determines cost, Facebook also privileges ads more likely to engage users. Parscale has called Trump “a perfect candidate” for the platform because of how users like to interact with the president’s content.
Ads featuring the president’s page that are currently appearing include calls-to-action prompting users to sign a petition to “FINISH THE WALL!” or to complete the “Official Democrat Corruption Accountability Survey.” The survey features images of former Trump opponent Hillary Clinton and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
The campaign’s big spend comes less than four months before Election Day as Trump looks to redress Biden’s persistent lead in head-to-head general election surveys.
In an average of polls, RealClearPolitics puts Biden ahead by 7.7 points.
