BJP spent more than ₹103 crore on Google Ads since May 2018, maximum expenditure on videos

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has crossed ₹100 crore in political advertisements on Google and its video platform YouTube. The party has spent more than ₹103 crore since May 2018, when Google started publishing the Google Ads Transparency report.

In terms of ad formats, 68.2% of BJP’s spend on Google ads published between May 31, 2018, and April 27, 2024, was on video followed by 31.8% on images.

Google’s definition of political ads includes ads placed by news organisations, government publicity departments, and even commercial ads featuring actor-politicians.

Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are the states that top the list in terms of ads expenditure on states for the BJP.

Congress takes the second spot with the party spending ₹49 crore in the period.

Tamil Nadu’s DMK is the third-biggest political advertiser on Google platforms with maximum ad spends of ₹25 crore since May 2018.

But if you look at the much shorter period, during the second phase of campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections, almost all political parties spent around ₹15 crore on promoting their manifesto, policies, and achievements on Google alone.

BJP’s Google Ads expenditure since 2018 is below

In terms of spends over time, there has been a very clear spike in ad spends on Google platforms in 2024 and compared to all the past years with maximum amount of spends dedicated to video at 80.6 percent

And in terms of states where the maximum ad spend were dedicated, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh topped the charts.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow