The Democratic Alliance (DA) is currently spending ‘much more on digital advertising’ than any other political party in South Africa, with an estimated R2.7 million being spent to advertise on Instagram, Facebook, Google and YouTube last month.
The EFF and ANC, however, haven’t spent a single cent, as reported by News24.
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It should be noted that digital advertising is still a small portion of campaign spending for the DA party.
The only big tech platforms that are maintaining up-to-date dashboards that disclose ‘how much different entities are paying to boost the reach of content’ on the platforms remains Google and Meta.
The Google Ads Transparency Centre and Meta Ad Library were launched, respectively, in response to new transparency measures that were required by European regulators.
Other platforms have followed suit, such as X, TikTok, and LinkedIn, which have also launched similar transparency tools.
In April, the DA was the biggest advertiser on both platforms, spending ‘more than 20 times the amount’ allocated by Rise Mzansi, the second-biggest spender.
The DA spent an estimated R2.1 million on Meta advertisements and R600 000 on Google ads between 4 April and 3 May, which included adverts on YouTube (that’s owned by Google) for the party’s official Instagram and Facebook accounts, both of which are owned by Meta.
On 2 May alone, the DA spent R116 000 on advertising for its official Meta account, which is slightly less than the R125 000 Rise Mzansi spent between 4 April and 3 May last month.
Both the EFF and the ANC did not allocate any money towards digital marketing through the platforms.
The DA’s spending towards digital advertising can be credited to the party having an ‘astronomically higher’ engagement on social media when compared to 2019.
‘For us, the digital war is an augmentation to and not in place of the ground war. Those things are important. The ANC and the EFF are very strong on the ground, so I wouldn’t say that they are not keeping with the times,’ said Ashor Sarupen, the deputy federal campaign manager for the DA, told News24.
‘But I think it would be useful for them if they were playing in the digital space,’ Sarupen added.
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