Digital ad spending data for the week of June 27th - July 3rd
Top spenders last week include Volvo, NRDC, API, EDF, and Earthjustice
While Facebook ad spending by climate groups has held steady, spending by polluters has dropped by about 30 percent from previous weeks. Let’s take a look, starting with the top 25 spenders on climate-related Facebook ads last week:
While Shell was still a top spender on Facebook ads, they’ve ended their net-zero emissions campaign that began in mid-May. Shell terminating - or at least, pausing - their Facebook ad campaign is the biggest reason why total ad spending by polluters has significantly decreased over previous weeks. Overall, here’s how much polluters, climate groups, and other pages have spent on climate- and energy-related ads.
American Petroleum Institute, under Energy Citizens, and America’s Plastic Makers are continuing their Facebook ad campaigns from last month, Exxon has launched new campaigns, even if they remain in-line with messaging tactics they’ve picked up from Big Tobacco.
The gas giant’s latest ads claim that “American energy will plan an important role in revitalizing the economy - and funding our schools, hospitals, and roads,” and that oil and gas will have provided over $1.6 trillion in tax revenue between 2012 and 2025. Another set of ads tries to highlight how they’re “helping meet the world’s growing energy needs while planning for a low-carbon future,” asserting that Exxon and other oil and gas companies are essential to addressing climate change - despite the fact that they themselves are among the root causes.
They’re targeting both campaigns nationwide, but the campaign focused on tying community investment to fossil fuels are mostly targeted at young women, while the ads focused on their research and development are mostly targeted at older men.
Among climate groups investing in Facebook ads, the Environmental Defense Fund has joined other national groups in using the platform to push for clean energy and sustainability in the huge infrastructure package being negotiated in Congress. They appear to have invested over $20,000 so far in a two-track campaign that’s pushing to “make historic climate progress through bold infrastructure investments,” and they’re using a message that follows messaging cues from the White House and Congressional Democrats: “Infrastructure is more than roads and bridges.”
In their new ads, EDF is tying clean energy and sustainability investments to quality of life improvements, like more resilient power grids, cleaner water and water, and lower power bills. They’re targeting these ads mostly at young adults in Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Florida, and Georgia, while the second set of this campaign is a nationwide email acquisition push.
EDF isn’t alone in the new push, though: Sierra Club has launched a similar, albeit smaller, campaign to push Congress to go “as big as the crises we face.” Their two video ads, on which they’ve spent around $10k so far, are mostly targeted at older women nationwide.
The new ads from EDF and Sierra Club also coincide with the NRDC Action Fund putting much more money in their YouTube ad campaign advocating for the American Jobs Plan, increasing their spending by about 1,000 percent (e.g., from $1,700 the previous week up to $18,000 last week).
On Snapchat, there are no new political ad campaigns from either climate groups or polluters. All the same, here’s how much climate groups have spent on the platform so far this year: