The federal government has spent millions on online advertising since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power and is getting increasingly sophisticated in its ability to target its messages to Canadians.

A study by iPolitics of 682 pages of documents tabled recently in the House of Commons reveals that government departments spent more than $3.3 million between the time Trudeau’s government was sworn in and April 22, 2016. Of that amount, Google pocketed $1 million, with government promotions for everything from getting Canadians to help support Syrian refugees to recruiting candidates for the Canadian Armed Forces.

Government departments also “liked” Facebook, spending more than $904,822 to get their message out on the popular social media platform during that time frame. Yahoo was next at $406,920 followed by Twitter at $364,090. The government also spent more than $161,847 on YouTube, $96,051 on Bing and $17,608 on advertising on Huffington Post.

All six companies are headquartered in the United States.

The documents show the government is also using a variety of social media and digital techniques to reach its target audiences.

The environment department, for example, used Facebook to target journalists working for five specific media outlets.

Veterans Affairs’ Google campaign used a combination of positive keywords to promote Remembrance Day along with negative keywords including “lump sum payments” and “lifetime pensions” – an apparent response to criticism from veterans over the lump sum payments introduced by the former Conservative government.

Alex Marland, an associate professor at Memorial University who researches political communication and marketing in Canada, predicts government departments will likely take their lead from Trudeau’s social media-savvy administration. While Marland expects government spending on social media advertising to rise in the future, he said advertising is only one part of the government’s social media communications plan.

“The trend is clearly that more resources are being placed into digital media than was the case in the past. Often people in the government would look to the governing party and would say ‘What are its priorities and what would help inform decisions as well. We’ve clearly seen that the Liberal Party has put a lot more emphasis on digital media. The recent election campaign data that came out showed that their spending was heavy in this area.”

Digital media advertising can often be put together faster than ads can be created for other mediums like television, he added, pointing to the government’s spending on messages to support the Syrian refugee effort.

While the documents tabled in the House of Commons plus follow up queries from iPolitics shed light on how the government is targeting its message online and how much it is spending, it is a snapshot rather than a full picture.

For example, it is impossible to know the exact amount the government spent on Facebook and YouTube, since Parks Canada would only reveal the overall $42,363 that it spent on social media advertising but would not disclose the breakdown for its five ad campaigns, despite repeated requests from iPolitics.

It is also difficult to know exactly how the spending by government departments under Trudeau’s social media friendly administration compares with that of the previous Conservative government under Stephen Harper.

An order paper question answered in 2015 revealed the Harper government was on track at that point to spend $6.3 million that year to advertise on the four platforms outlined in the question the government was asked – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Xbox.

The question posed this time by Conservative MP Colin Carrie asked the government to reveal how much it had spent on six platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Huffington Post, YouTube and Bing. If the Trudeau government continues spending at the same rate throughout the rest of the year, it will spend $7.2 million for online advertising on the six platforms.

However, the rate of spending appears to have dropped with the change of government when it comes to the three platforms mentioned in both 2015 and 2016. In 2015, Harper government department spending on Facebook worked out to an average of about $7,999 a day versus $5,291 a day in 2016 for the Trudeau government – a 33.8 per cent drop. Departments flocked to Twitter in 2015, spending an average of $6,141 a day. In 2016, however, federal government advertising on Twitter dove 65.3 per cent to an average of $2,129 a day.

Government spending on YouTube worked out to an average of $3,377 a day in 2015 but dropped nearly 72 per cent to an average of $946 a day.

Marland, however, warns against trying to draw comparisons between the digital advertising strategies of the two governments – in part because the Trudeau government’s strategy is still emerging.

“They are vastly different circumstances. We have a completely different government in charge now and their approach to these things have changed.”

The highest spending department was Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada which spent $1.3 million for two campaigns – one on support for Syrian refugees and a second, larger campaign that targeted Canadian expats and travellers around the world, warning them they will need to get an electronic travel authorization in future to travel to or transit through Canada.

Veterans Affairs was the second highest spender, paying $582,224 to publicize Remembrance Day. Its preferred platforms were Facebook ($178,957) and YouTube ($160,091).

National Defence, the third largest spender, shelled out $366,999 to attract recruitment. Eighty percent of that budget, $294,950, went to Google, using dozens of keywords to target people looking for jobs ranging from soldiers and pilots to cooks and computer technicians. DND also used geographic keywords, often linked to areas where bases are located and keywords focused on women, aboriginal candidates and immigrants.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police also used social media for recruiting but focused its spending more on YouTube, which got $259,570 of the $319,548 the force spent, or 81 per cent. Its 30-second video ad was designed to target adults between the ages of 18 and 34.

Like National Defence, the RCMP used dozens of keywords in its $56,278 ad campaign with Google, with phrases including women and aboriginal jobs.

The lists of positive and negative keywords government departments chose for their Google ad campaigns provide a fascinating glimpse into the government’s thinking, its priorities and its concerns.

Positive and negative keywords can be used to help advertisers better target their messages to what people are searching for on search engines like Google. On its website, for example, Google gives the example of someone who sells eye glasses using negative keywords to reduce the chance that someone looking for wine glasses or drinking glasses gets their ad.

For example, “lying about marital status on tax return” is one of the phrases the Canada Revenue Agency chose in the Google portion of its $113,182 worth of online advertising to help it reach one of its target groups – “people getting married, living together or separating/divorced.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada spent $110,000 to promote its flu season campaign online with dozens of keywords related to colds and flu. However, it also chose a series of negative keywords to steer people away from its messages – ranging from H1N1 flu, swine flu and avian flu to “sex, pornography, drugs, marijuana, cocaine, sexual, paranormal, criminal, volcanic and nightlife.”

The negative keywords chosen by Veterans Affairs for its Remembrance Day campaign also provide a glimpse into its concerns. While it chose dozens of positive keywords related to the armed forces and historic battles, the negative keywords to reduce visits to its Remembrance Day promotion included “alcohol, scandal, opium, Canadian holocaust, crimes against humanity, bureaucrats, low income, lifetime pensions and lump sum payments.”

Veterans Affairs has faced criticism from veterans upset with the previous Conservative government’s decision to replace the lifetime pensions enjoyed by previous veterans with lump sum payments.

On February 29, 2016, Environment and Climate Change Canada launched a $3,975 Facebook campaign to promote the St. Lawrence Action Plan’s website.

“It was used to raise awareness and drive interested parties such as journalists and other individuals interested in environment sciences to the website,” the department wrote in its answer.

Moreover, the department reveals that a target demographic for its Facebook campaign were journalists who worked at specific media outlets – LaPresse, ICI Radio-Canada, CBC/Radio-Canada, La Presse Canadienne and Bell Media.

Bell Media owns popular television network CTV, 34 specialty channels and 106 radio stations across the country.

The Canada Revenue Agency revealed it used more than just random keywords to direct its campaign to make Canadians more aware about online services and tax-related information.

“Behavioural and contextual targeting were also used,” the agency replied.

The Canadian Heritage department used geo-targeting to direct its ads to residents of specific areas. For example, its promotions on Facebook, Twitter and Google for Winterlude and for the Christmas Lights Across Canada events were geo targeted to residents of the National Capital region while its promotions in March via Facebook and Twitter for its Canada Day Challenge were geo targeted to the Quebec City, Rimouski and Trois-Rivières areas.

Tamara Small, who focuses on digital politics at the University of Guelph, says it is getting easier for governments to target messages to Canadians online – especially via Facebook and Google.

“That’s what these organizations are selling. We as citizens put so much out there every day through our social media trails, every time we use Google, every time we like something on Facebook, every time we look at a Tweet, that information is being collected and sold back and then it is being given back to us in very particular ways that can be very targeted.”

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Here are the details of the government’s digital advertising for each department:



