Digital ads are now at the heart of election campaigns. For regulators, this makes monitoring them a key part of keeping elections fair. Who Targets Me’s Trends platform provides the data needed to check if campaigns are following transparency laws, staying within spending limits, and playing by the rules.
1. What does Trends cover?
- Platforms: We collect data from Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Google (Search and YouTube). We take the different ways these companies report data and put them into one simple format.
- Scope: You can track ads from political parties, individual candidates, and third-party groups.
- Countries: We cover over 60 countries. If you are overseeing an election in a country not on our list, get in touch and we can usually add it.
The data includes:
- Spending: Our spend tracking shows the biggest (and smallest) accounts trying to influence the election
- Targeting: Data on the age, gender, and location of the people seeing the ads. In many countries, we also track other targeting criteria, such as the “interests” of the people ads are being shown to
- Timing: Exactly when ads started and stopped, which is vital for monitoring “silence periods”
- Messaging: Our tools automatically translate and summarise political ad content, and identify their themes and goals
2. How to use Trends for oversight
- Track spending in real-time: See how much parties are spending across different platforms to ensure they don’t go over their legal limits.
- Audit disclaimers: Quickly check if ads have the required “paid for by” labels and if the person paying is actually allowed to.
- Double-check against official records: After the election, you can compare the spending data in Trends with the numbers candidates report in their official returns.
- Ensure enforcement of “blackout” periods: Use our timestamps to see if any ads were active on election day or during other prohibited times.
- Spot outside influence: Identify spending from foreign sources or unregistered groups trying to influence local voters.
3. Custom tools for your team
- Custom and local dashboards: We can set up dashboards to follow specific actors or groups or any combination of these
- API access: If you have your own monitoring system, you can pull our data directly into it via API or file exports
- Historical data: Look back at recent elections to help with long-term audits, comparisons or legal cases.
4. Things to keep in mind
- Data lag: Platform data usually lags by 24 to 48 hours (and sometimes up to 4 days). This is important to remember if you are monitoring the final days of a campaign.
- What we can’t see: We can only show what the platforms disclose. If a platform doesn’t reveal data about an actor or their activities, we won’t have it either.
- Compare against other data: Trends works best when you use it alongside other evidence, like bank statements or field reports.
Summary
Trends helps you see how and where political groups are using social media ads. It’s built to help your team move from guessing to knowing, ensuring digital campaigns are held to the same high standards as any other form of campaigning.