Arena

Facebook & Instagram Ads

Paid Social Media

The Facebook ad platform, which taps into inventory on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook Audience Network*, allows advertisers to reach and engage users across the leading social networking platforms directly in their feeds. Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns can be designed to drive towards many objectives, including reach, video views, brand awareness, engagement, traffic, conversions, leads, and more. Thanks to the broad reach across Facebook and Instagram, as well as an environment that makes it easy for users to take actions (like donations or sign-ups), Facebook is widely utilized to accomplish a variety of goals.

**Currently, political ads can’t run on the WhatsApp, Messenger, and Audience Network placements.

Skill Level Needed to Buy Ads

Newbie Friendly

Typically Managed By

Communications & Digital Staff, Ad Agencies

Resources

Who Is It For

All groups that want to tap into the platforms’ powerful reach, targeting capabilities, and available campaign objectives.

Use Cases

A campaign with a small digital budget might use Facebook Ads to boost their organic posts to potential supporters in their district or area to increase awareness.
A campaign with a mid-sized digital budget might rely on Facebook for its fundraising efforts.
A campaign with a large digital budget might run a targeted video campaign to persuade undecided voters.

Strengths

Ability to build effective campaigns on any budget
Intuitive user interface is easy to learn
High potential reach
Powerful targeting capabilities
A combined ad platform for Facebook and Instagram means more inventory, reach, and efficiency.
Relatively low cost for many objectives, especially considering the platform’s reach and other abilities
Measure real-time performance based on engagement, organic reach, or conversions
While Facebook definitely skews older, access to Instagram helps expand reach across age groups

Drawbacks

Often nonsensical decisions from Facebook leadership have created an overall environment that favors the conservative content machine
Complicated, multi-level political verification process
Unclear at times why the algorithm prioritizes certain ads over others
Constantly evolving policies on political advertisements that impact both planning and execution
Busy environment that can make it harder to break through and impact, particularly with issue or candidate messaging

US Political Ad Policies

Facebook’s political ad policy is quite broad, covering everything from ads about “social issues” (ie: “civil and social rights, crime, economy, education, etc.) to ads about a candidate, election, or ballot referendum.

In order to run political ads on Facebook, you must be personally authorized and the organization or candidate paying for the ads must be verified and set up a disclaimer.

Individual authorization requires submitting an official form of identification to Facebook and verifying you live in the US via a code that’s mailed to you. This process can take up to 2 weeks or longer to complete, so we recommend getting certified ASAP to prevent campaign delays.

All pages running ads related to politics or issues of national importance must be verified by a Facebook authorized admin and claimed by a Confirmed Page Owner, which is a business or organization that has completed Facebook’s verification process. Once a page is verified, only Facebook authorized advertisers will have permissions to publish ads from a page, and all ads must have an appropriate disclaimer associated with them.

Aside from authorizations and disclaimers, Facebook also has some additional restrictions on ads about social issues, elections, or politics; political ads can’t run on the WhatsApp, Messenger, and Audience Network inventory.

All political ads and ad spending are publicly available in Facebook’s Political Ad Archive.

Common Goals

Acquisition, including both fundraising and list building
Awareness
Persuasion
Mobilization

Available Creative Formats

Videos (6s, 15s, 30s, 60s, 60s+)
Static Graphics
Gifs
News Articles
Platform-specific creatives (ie: Carousel Ads, Boosted Organic Posts)

Average Costs

Typical pricing model: CPM
Reach or brand awareness objectives: $6-20+ CPM
Video views, conversions, or traffic objectives: $16-35+ CPM

Notable Targeting Capablities

Demographic targeting
Geotargeting
Behavioral targeting
Retargeting
Custom list audience
Lookalike audience

The Digital Ads Playbook is produced by ACRONYM+ and powered by Arena.

We need your support.

Republicans have spent decades cultivating talent and investing for the long run, and right now we’re paying the price. Republicans control 30 state legislatures, 28 governors mansions, and are just a few seats away from regaining control of Congress. Together with an activist Supreme Court, they’re enacting policies that turn back progress on everything from abortion to voting rights to climate change.

Arena is building a new generation of political leaders who will lead the fight to save our democracy and build progressive power for the long run. It’s going to take all of us to make change. Join us in this work.

Paid for by Arena Summit, a section 501(c)(4) organization, and Arena PAC.

Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Arena

Arena

Facebook & Instagram Ads

Skill Level Needed to Buy Ads

Typically Managed By

Resources

Who Is It For

Use Cases

Strengths

Drawbacks

US Political Ad Policies

Common Goals

Available Creative Formats

Average Costs

Notable Targeting Capablities

We need your support.

Thanks for checking out our paid media assessment.

Stay up to date with news and resources from the Arena community

Stay up to date with news and resources from the Arena community