Facebook offered Trump lower ad rates than Biden: report

A ban on political ads on the platform went into effect Tuesday.

Oct 29, 2020

Joe Biden paid more on average than President Donald Trump to run ads on Facebook between July 1 and Oct. 13, 2020, according to the nonprofit newsroom The Markup.

In August, when Trump wanted to warn older voters in Arizona that “The RADICAL Left has taken over Joe Biden and the Democratic Party,” Facebook charged his campaign an “estimated $14 for each 1,000 times the advertisement appeared in people’s feeds,” The Markup writes.

A few days later, when Biden targeted that same demographic with a message about his plan to expand Medicare and cut drug prices, Facebook charged his campaign more than six times what Trump paid, “an estimated $91 per 1,000 views of his ad,” per the report.

New: We analyzed Trump and Biden Facebook ads and found Facebook charged Biden more than it charged Trump on average.

The gap was especially wide for ads targeted to swing-state voters in July and August, when Biden paid, on average, double Trump's rate. https://t.co/QHu30iEuAw
— The Markup (@themarkup) October 29, 2020

According to The Markup’s investigation, “the price difference wasn’t an anomaly.”

In July and August, Biden’s campaign paid more than double Trump’s average to run advertisements aimed at Facebook users in swing states.

“Their platform allows political campaigns to have broad reach into demographics like seniors and suburban women that are particularly valuable audiences in 2020,” political consultant Regan Opel told The Markup.

Facebook has defended its ad pricing during this election season.

“This article reflects a misunderstanding of how digital advertising works. All ads, from all advertisers, compete fairly in the same auction. Ad pricing will vary based on the parameters set by the advertiser, such as their targeting and bid strategy,” Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesperson, told The Markup in an email statement.