Facebook Says Trump Paid Slightly Higher Ad Prices Than Clinton
Photographer: Duncan Chard/Bloomberg
Facebook Inc. wants to set the record straight: presidential candidate Donald Trump spent slightly more per ad on the site than his rival Hillary Clinton did ahead of the general election in 2016.
The revelation comes after a former employee wrote an article for Wired that posited a theory: since Facebook ads are sold through a bidding system, and Trump was targeting people in more rural areas, he likely paid less per ad to reach those people. That prompted a tweet from Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign’s digital director in the 2016 campaign, who was quick to take credit for the efficiency and claiming that he was sure their ads were at least 100 times cheaper. Clinton said the unfair nature of the system needed to be analyzed.