That price difference wasnt an anomaly.
Trumps price advantage in swing states disappeared in September, when the campaigns paid roughly similar prices.
In October, Facebook began charging Biden slightly less than Trump.
Federal laws require TV stations to charge candidates the same pricethe lowest that they charge any advertiserfor ads.
Some states forbid newspaper publishers to charge one candidate a higher price.
The Markupsanalysisis based on ads published by FacebooksAd Library APIand provided to The Markup by theNYU Ad Observatory.
Neither presidential campaign responded to The Markups requests for comment.
Facebook defended its fluctuating ad pricing to The Markup.
This article reflects a misunderstanding of how digital advertising works.
All ads, from all advertisers, compete fairly in the same auction.
Osborne did not dispute any of our findings.
Facebook, however, publisheda chartthat it said showed Trump paying slightly higher prices.
(The company didnt respond to a request for comment.)
Our analysis found instances where identical ads targeted at different audiences had very different prices.
Facebook showed it for an estimated price of $2.30 per 1,000 views.
It was one of Bidens most expensive.
In 2018, a Facebook executivetweetedthat the benefit of the subsidies was on the order of +/- 10%.
But Facebooks opacity doesnt stop the campaigns from guessing what is inside the black box.
Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, has noticed a trend.
The ads perform better if they drive more engagement and interaction on the platform, Wilson said.
Facebooks ad quality algorithms also analyze an adscontent, not just users reactions to it.
Some digital strategists have called for tighter regulations on advertising on digital platforms.
Thats the real scandal of all of this.
In every other industry, candidates pay the same rate.
For now, charging candidates different prices for online ads is legal.
The calls for regulation go beyond price disparities in advertising.
Wilson, the Republican strategist,has proposed thatFacebook change its rules for candidates.
He told The Markup, Ensure that theyre paying the same amount to reach the same voters.
This article wasoriginally published on The Markupby Jeremy B. Merrill and was republished under theCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeslicense.
