Australians will for the first time be able to see how much political parties are spending on their online ads, after Google announced plans to bring its political ad reporting feature down under.
ABC News, reported that the feature will arrive in Australia “early next year”.
Google has offered the transparency service in the United States from 2018. The company says: “Our goal is to provide greater transparency in political advertising on Google, YouTube, and partner properties. To help everyone understand the ads they see online, this report includes information about verified advertisers’ spending on ads related to elections.”
Google's political ads transparency program is coming to Australia. Advertisers can register now, and we'll start publishing ad creative, spending and views in our transparency report next year. See what it looks like: https://t.co/RtZe4T5SrM. Get verified:https://t.co/7yBH8Lbp9T
— Hannah Frank (@hannahfrankau) November 17, 2020
The feature will likely be welcomed in Australia, given the high ad spend that has accompanied recent elections.
Last year it was revealed some $82 million was spend on the 2019 election across TV, print and radio.
Of this $82 million, $53.6 million was from Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, while Labor spent $14.4 million and the coalition spent $13.3 million.
The total ad spend for the major parties would have likely been far higher, however, if figures for online ad spend were included.
With the United States Presidential Election having recently come to a conclusion, Google is now showing the total amount each candidate spent on the platform in the leadup to the final vote.
According to the data, Biden spent $US79.3 million just on Google and YouTube ads, while Trump spent $93.4 million.
