The Electoral Commission’s 2019 election data says parties spend about 65% of their budget on “unsolicited material” and “advertising”.
Ever wondered how much of that would be on Google Ads?
Well, fear not! Thanks to the Google Ads Transparency centre, we have the answers! From the day the 2024 election was called on the 22nd May until the election day, we reviewed some of the biggest political party spends on Google Ads:
| Party | Google Ad Spend May 22nd – July 4th |
| Labour Party | £1.95m |
| Liberal Democrats | £133k |
| Reform UK | £124k |
| Conservative & Unionist Party | £116k |
| Scottish Labour Party | £103k |
| London Labour Party | £69k |
| Scottish National Party | £23.7k |
| Green Party | £12.1k |
The Labour Party topped the table, with £1.95m (this exceeds £2m if you add on the Scottish Labour Party and London Labour Party spending).
Working in digital marketing makes you rather fond of an acronym, so here’s a new one – CPMP. That stands for Cost Per Member of Parliament – the cost divided by the number of seats won in the election. The results of which are below.
| Party | Spend | Seats | CPMP (Cost per MP) |
| Labour Party | £2.12m | 412 | £5,150 |
| Liberal Democrats | £133k | 72 | £1,847 |
| Reform UK | £124k | 5 | £24,800 |
| Conservative & Unionist Party | £116k | 121 | £959 |
| SNP | £23.7k | 9 | £2,633 |
| Green | £12.1k | 4 | £3,025 |
The combined party spend phasing is interesting to review. Post election announcement there was an initial spike in spending and then a steady, low-investment period until ramping up again ahead of election day. What we didn’t see was an increase in spending when manifestos were being released around mid-June.
The mix of campaigns where this spend was utilised is available to view too.
If you have ever spoken to a paid media marketer, you will undoubtedly have heard the phrase ‘video content is king’. It appears that those responsible for political party marketing budgets share this sentiment with over 65% of budget being spent on video formats. The visibility, dates and spend for each is also available to view for each.
You can review these insights yourself, for free by visiting the Ad Transparency Center.
Visibility on political party ads has never been easier. But it’s not just political party insights you can get access to.
Here at 8MS, we utilise Google’s Transparency Centre to monitor competition, extract insight and analyse other advertisers ads in all formats which are served from the Google Ads Platform.
If you, or any ambitious political parties need help with PPC campaigns, get in touch with our team here.