As polling for the General Elections came to a close on 19th of May, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has emerged as the single largest spender on digital including Google, Facebook and their sister platforms, according to data sources from Facebook Ad Library and Google Ad Transparency Report. BJP has spent over Rs 20 crore through its official accounts. BJP’s spent on Google went up to Rs 17 crore on May 15, from about Rs 14 crore on May 14.

While Congress spent a total of about Rs 2.7 crore across Google platforms, while DMK emerged as the second largest spender with an ad-spend of Rs 4 crore. The data further stated that BJP’s ad spend are 500% more than Congress on Google.

The total political ad spend so far on Google, YouTube and the search giant’s partner properties is about Rs 27 crore.
Moreover BJP, spent Rs 4 crore on Facebook between February to May 11. This is 200% more than what Congress has spent, revealed the data. Congress’s ad-spend stood at Rs 1.3 crore, during the same period.

Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat, My First Vote with Modi and Nation with NaMo are the other top-spending accounts on Facebook, having paid about Rs 4.5 crore, since February this year.

Industry observers pointed out that the gulf between BJP’s spending and that of the main opposition party is expected to get wider this week, with the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Varanasi, going to polls, this week.
Source: The Economic Times