Reaching the Voters: Parties use of Google Ads in the German Federal election 2021

Abstract

Election campaigns during the pandemic showcased the increased use of costly digital campaigning by parties. While many studies focus on the use of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites (SNS) during elections, parties' use of Google Ads remains widely opaque (exception Medina Serrano et al., 2020). This is surprising given the fact that parties do spend substantial amounts of their budget on Google Ads and Google reports on these spending and other details of the ads in its Transparency report (Fitzpatrick 2023). Based on the equalisation vs. normalisation thesis we identify party factors (size, age, government/opposition statutes and electoral strongholds) affecting parties use of this instrument to a different degree in their campaigns (Garcia Lupato & Meloni, 2023). This contribution intends to shed light on parties' use of Google ads during the campaigns for the German Bundestag election 2021 relying on the official data provided via Googles Ad Library. It discusses both empirical work on the factors determine use of and conceptual work on the merit and perils of Google Ads in democratic elections and present exploratory findings of our deep dive into the archive of Google Ads.