The secret election battle - how much and where are Scottish Labour, the SNP and Tories spending on digital advertising

It is the digital frontier of the general election campaign in Scotland, but while parties have rushed to the battle’s frontline, others appear to be reluctant conscripts.

An analysis by The Scotsman of the digital offensives launched by Scotland’s leading political parties shows Scottish Labour has stepped up its efforts to woo the electorate ahead of next month’s vote, spending extensively on major platforms.

In a sign of how Anas Sarwar’s party has prioritised its online campaign compared to political rivals, Scottish Labour has so far spent nearly eight times as much as the Scottish Conservatives and well over 20 times the SNP expenditure as it seeks to bolster Sir Keir Starmer’s push to become the first Labour prime minister in 14 years.

The insight shows several parties are funnelling money into targeting key constituencies ahead of the election, with a digital advertising blitz focusing on closely fought seats such as East Renfrewshire and Cumbernauld & Kirkintilloch. At least one party, meanwhile, is employing closely targeted ads, aimed at voters whose interests include football and, curiously, the Eurovision Song Contest.

With less than a fortnight to go before the public goes to the polls, no one has come close to rivalling the spending of Scottish Labour, with the party drastically ramping up its digital campaign in the days after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a summer election.

Whereas the party’s entire Google advertising campaign across search, display, YouTube and email amounted to just £3,950 for the entirety of last year, it has spent more than that on at least two days since the election race began in earnest. Since Mr Sunak called an election on May 22, its Google spend stands at £42,000, with high-profile ads targeting Glasgow, Edinburgh, the wider Central Belt, and the Western Isles in particular. On May 28, it ran ads costing £5,650, with a £4,200 spend recorded the next day, according to data compiled by Google’s political advertising transparency centre.

The focus on Google echoes the approach by Labour at a UK level, where the party’s spending has run to around £970,000, with its digital campaign team buying ad space for negative search results connected with the party, such as Tory claims about its taxation policies. Such a sophisticated approach has yet to translate to Scottish politics, where no other party has – so far at least – spent a penny on Google advertising during the campaign.

Scottish Labour has been significantly outspending its political rivals in its use of Meta and Google advertising during the election campaign. Picture:Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Instead, Meta’s platforms – Facebook, Instagram and Messenger – remain the most favoured online arena. Here, too, Scottish Labour’s spending is outstripping its rivals, with the party running around 630 ads at a cost of more than £36,500 in the 30 days to June 14.

The analytics provided by Meta’s ad library also shows the seats the party is focusing on, with Falkirk, Glasgow, Johnstone, Edinburgh, Eaglesham and Strathaven all featuring prominently. In an attempt to appeal to as many voters as possible, the party has been running as many as 120 variations of the same advert, which incorporates a variety of text, images and platform-specific preferences.

The ad that has had the greatest impact for the party so far was one detailing Labour’s ‘Six Pledges for Change’, featuring a photograph of Sir Keir alongside Anas Sarwar. While men and women across every age range saw the advert, the largest proportion of impressions came amongst those aged between 25 and 34. In total, the ad, which had 101 versions, received over one million impressions at a cost of around £10,000 to £15,000.

The Scottish Conservatives, meanwhile, have spent around £9,850 on close to 150 Meta ads, with voters aged 45 and above targeted more than younger members of the electorate. The party also used custom audience lists for more than three quarters of its ads.

The SNP has been targeting voters with interests in football and the Eurovision Song Contest. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

While several ads have been trained on the likes of Blairgowrie and Brechin, the Scottish Tories, like their Labour counterparts, are taking a keen interest in East Renfrewshire, with ads targeting postcodes in Barrhead, Neilston, Giffnock and Newton Mearns. The constituency, once regarded as the safest Conservative seat in Scotland, was won by the SNP at the last election. But the Tories, who are standing Dr Sandesh Gulhane, and Scottish Labour – represented by Blair McDougall, the head strategist of the Better Together campaign during the 2014 independence referendum – both harbour hopes of gaining power.

Over the same 30-day period, the SNP has spent around £3,370 on about 122 Meta ads, according to the firm’s ads database. Like Scottish Labour, it has been focusing on specific postcodes where it hopes to find success, such as Cumbernauld, Irvine, Dalrymple, and the Pollokshields, Townhead and Carntyne areas of Glasgow.

Although Scotland’s governing party’s spend is minimal, it is unique in how it is running its campaign, with detailed targeting being employed to refine its audience thanks to information like demographics, interests and behaviours. For example, the SNP has targeted ads at people interested in Scottish football, parents, those in high school and college, Guardian readers, and, despite the fact EU citizens resident in Scotland cannot vote, those with an interest in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Elsewhere, neither the Scottish Liberal Democrats nor the Scottish Greens have spent their campaign funds on Meta adverts. Only a handful of individual candidates have used ads on their own Facebook profiles, with the page of Patricia Ferguson, a Scottish Labour councillor running in Glasgow West, spending the most at £1,270.

However, among the Facebook pages of individual politicians, the one who has spent the most is not even standing. Anas Sarwar’s page has run around 190 ads at a cost of over £10,000.