Indian National Congress accused Facebook of favoring BJP (Bhartiya Janta Party) for lower costs to run ad campaigns. However, there are a few technical and non-technical factors that could be responsible for lower costs for BJP. Here are the top 5 reasons because of which the Facebook algorithm charged less amount from BJP for the election campaigns.
Reason 1 – High CTR (Click Through Rate)
Bhartiya Janta Party’s ads usually contain pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These pictures are intriguing to the user as the user feels connected with the advertisement copy. Because of the high number of clicks for the exact same number of impressions, BJP pays less for clicks.
For example: If an ad copy rate is 1$ for every 1000 impressions, BJP pays 1$ for 100 clicks generated from these impressions while Congress gets fewer clicks for the same money spent.
Reason 2 – Red Tape
Not just the Government, Congress party’s social media posts are significantly affected by the red tape mechanism in the party. While BJP was able to mint out every possible opportunity by running ads ahead of the news, it took approximately 3-4 days for Indian National Congress to get approval from Party Supremos for running ad copies.
For example: If there is an election in Ayodhya on 3rd March, BJP and AAP social media team was successful in getting ad approval from Facebook around 10 days back the D-Day. However, it has been observed that congress campaigns only kick off at the very moment.
Reason 3 – Engaging Ad Copies
Bharatiya Janta Party was successful in running engaging ad copies targeted to User Location. While Indian National Congress was running ads through creating multiple new pages and not monetizing the existing pages.
The ad copies used by BJP include a well-written description that uses the correct mentions and hashtags hence improving the overall ad quality. While you can see the type of ad copies used by Congress in Reason 4.
Reason 4 – Following Ad Guidelines
Even the most amateur social media managers know the fact that the text shouldn’t exceed 20% of the ad copy. However, this fact is repeatedly ignored by “experts” running social media campaigns for Indian National Congress.
Reason 5 – Asset Optimisation
While Congress focussed on creating new pages and new ad copies for every single ad during the last hour, BJP leveraged the power of optimization by using the assets owned by partners and supporters.
According to a Quartz India report, a news channel owned by the supporter of the Prime Minister helped him to optimize ad copies. While such a task doesn’t necessarily increase the reach of ad copy but it helps in achieving the optimization’s goals.
While Political parties were quick to play the blame game. It becomes essential to analyze the ad copy performance in real-time to achieve results in paid advertising.