Election 2016 ad tracker: How much are the parties spending?

Updated

The Liberal and Labor parties have spent millions of dollars on advertising during this election — but who spent what, where did they spend it and when?

And did the parties run positive ads to promote their own causes or negative ads to attack their opponents?

Use our ad tracker to find out.

Overall ad spending

The Liberal Party outspent Labor in the major metropolitan TV markets, according to estimates put together by ad analytics company Ebiquity.

Most of the spending was right at the beginning of the campaign — and right at the end. Both parties' spending was relatively low-key in the middle of the campaign.

Ebiquity chief executive Richard Basil-Jones said the high spending in the first few days could not realistically continue throughout an eight-week campaign.

"What we've seen in previous elections, both 2010 and 2013, is a bit of noise at the beginning, then quietly, quietly, still presence there. Then the last two weeks the accelerator flat to the floor," Mr Basil-Jones said.

This has proved to be the pattern of this campaign as well.

The Labor Party spent an estimated $4.7 million on advertising spots on free-to-air television, radio and press — just in the biggest capital cities.

The Liberal Party maintained its reputation as the wealthier party with $6 million spent.

The Greens have spent about $480,000.

Positive versus negative ads

Ebiquity also counts how much the parties are spending to air positive versus negative campaign ads.

The data shows the Liberal Party did not spend money on negative TV advertising spots on television until half way through the campaign.

However, this doesn't take into account the online space.

Mr Basil-Jones said the Liberal Party was sharing a range of negative ads about Labor and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten exclusively through its online and social channels.

Ebiquity does not track how much is spent on social media but keeps a log of all the new campaigns — and social has a smorgasbord of negative advertising from both the Liberal and Labor parties.

Advertising creative Dee Madigan said negative ads worked better to attract people to follow the parties on social media or visit their websites.

"The reason why negative ads are particularly good online is because negative ads drive people to find out more information and positive ads don't tend to," she said.

Where does this data come from?

This data has been provided to the ABC by advertising services company Ebiquity, which monitors free-to-air channels, newspapers, magazines, and radio for their advertising content.

The figures do not count what it costs to make the ads; nor do they count mail-outs, outdoor ads, subscription television, or any of the social media videos the parties are distributing online — including by paying to get them into Australians' feeds.

The up-to-date figures can only be estimated, as the parties negotiate rates just like any other brand advertising a product.

Ebiquity uses computers to track the media and recognise the digital fingerprint of the TV or radio files.

If the computer has heard the ad before, it counts the incident. If it's a new campaign, a person views it and categorises the commercial before filing it in Ebiquity's database.

"If you wanted to find an ad with, literally, Tony Abbott holding a baby, we've written that in. It'll find that ad where Tony Abbott is holding a baby," Mr Basil-Jones said.

The content data is then matched up with estimates of how much the ad spot cost to air.

Topics: federal-election, government-and-politics, federal-government, advertising, political-parties

First posted