Last week, the top ten advertisers in Canada spent $149,832 reaching people with their campaigns. In this edition of Cost Per Canadian, read about the two third-party advertisers who have finished their spending ahead of the upcoming election in British Columbia, check out a new run of ads in favour of higher-priced cars, and compare the new ad from the BC Conservatives that gave me deja vu.

Frazer, Digital Director. Point Blank

Seven-Day Ad Spend
(20th July - 26th July)

Seven-Day Ad Spend By Federal Party
(20th July - 26th July)

Noted

The official ‘Pre-Election’ period in British Columbia has begun, and the third-party advertisers have paused their ads. Over the last few weeks, “Project for a Strong BC“ and “West Coast Proud“ have collectively spent $130,708 on Facebook and Instagram ads, but as the upcoming election in British Columbia enters the final pre-writ phase both have paused spending, and in the case of the former, scrubbed Facebook of their page altogether.

This comes at an inopportune moment in terms of polling, though the actual outcome of the election is still likely to be a BC NDP sweep. The Conservative Party of BC has been slowly gaining ground at the expense primarily of BC United, who look set to lose all 24 of their seats.

Someone at the Conservative Party of BC owes the Conservative Party of Canada royalties. The BC Conservatives most recent ad, using a speech by Premier David Eby interspersed with clips from the Downtown East Side and recent violent attacks in Vancouver, is clearly very much inspired by essentially the same ad that the Federal Conservatives are currently running.

A new campaign by an auto industry lobby group is advocating for a tariff on vehicles made with subsidies from the Chinese government. The same page is also running campaigns against provincially run auto insurance in favour of a privatized model, though the ads for that campaign are spending less.

Their ads are running nationally using primarily interest-based targeting. However, they are focusing more on the interests we would typically expect to see from someone interested in cars or car purchase (people with an interest in “Tesla” and “SUVs” for example) rather than people who work in the auto industry (such as people in Ontario who work for Stellantis, Ford or Toyota who all have manufacturing plants in Canada). This audience mismatch between consumers who are likely price-sensitive and people who could be potentially impacted positively by introducing new tariffs is likely making this campaign less efficient.

The digital advertising landscape in 2024 is so precisely targeted that for many people, it’s impossible to know which ads your neighbours, friends and family are being influenced by. We track the biggest spenders and high-profile campaigns every week on Meta, keeping you in the loop regarding what the rest of Canada is seeing.