Last week, the top ten political advertisers spent $134,136 reaching people across Canada. In today’s edition of Cost Per Canadian we’re taking a break from our regular insights to dive into the ads voters are seeing in Ontario, ahead of what may become a wintery snap election.

Frazer, Digital Director. Point Blank

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Seven-Day Ad Spend
(8th June - 14th June)

Seven-Day Ad Spend By Federal Party
(8th June - 14th June)

Noted:

It’s looking increasingly likely that our largest province will be joining the Provincial Election party, so what better time to explore the early strategies that each party has been deploying for their ads on Facebook and Instagram.

Ninety-Day Ad Spend By Provincial Party
(17th March - 14th June)

The Ontario PC Party has spent almost $300,000 in the last 90 days. Their targeting has been quite broad, focusing on all of Ontario with no specific age settings and no gender or interest-based targeting. They have made some efforts in Brampton, Mississauga, and Caledon, but this only accounts for about 20% of their spending, with the rest directed at the entire province. In terms of ad creatives, the PCs have shown little in terms of testing or innovation. They haven't launched a new ad since March 26th, focusing almost exclusively on attack ads against Ontario Liberal Party leader Bonnie Crombie. Given the significant investment, this "set-and-forget" approach is surprising.

By contrast, the Ontario NDP is running plenty of tests to see what’s sticking with their existing supporters (and people with similar online behaviour). Many of their ads follow a trend that we’re seeing nationally: faux “poll” and “share your voice” ads designed to capture email addresses for future contact and fundraising. Their targeting is focused almost exclusively on finding people within Ontario with similar interests and online behaviour to people already on their list (called a ‘Lookalike’ audience). An excellent evolution of this program would be testing what resonates outside of their existing audience spheres, to crack the nut on what messages are likely to swing moderates.

The Ontario Liberal Party is in a similar position; they’re testing many different messages and creative styles and using lookalike audiences (albeit less so), but they’re yet to spend significantly. They are doing something none of the other provincial parties have tried (at least recently), though: embedding a donation ask into their ad. There’s no way to know how successful this has been for them using publically available data, but conventional wisdom would be to save something like that for a follow-up text or email rather than risk putting people off.

Over this period, the Green Party of Ontario's ads have been issue-based, focusing mainly on animal welfare. They are not using lookalike audiences and instead targeting anyone in the province with an interest in “Animal Rights,“ “Dogs,“ or “Pets.”

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 hig-profile campaigns every week on Meta, keeping you in the loop with what the rest of Canada is seeing.

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