$100K Russian Money Going to FaceBook to Target Up to !00,000 Americans
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| Scott Livelly~Alt Right and Russian admirer |
Facebook just disclosed that a Russian agency tied to the Kremlin spent over $100,000 on Facebook Ads between June 2015 and May 2017 to promote divisive issues such as LGBT matters, race issues, immigration, and gun rights.
At first glance, that amount of money seems insignificant. But Facebook’s advertising ecosystem, with its advanced algorithms and targeting options, gives anyone — including Russians engaging in “active measures” — significant reach and engagement for that kind of money.
I’m a former US Army officer who now consults for companies looking to expand their reach and growth through the use of Facebook advertising with my company, This is Growth. And for this article, I’m going to pretend to “consult” for Russia to show you just how far that $100,000 could potentially go.
As you may have been asking yourself: What can you do with $100,000 in Facebook Ads during an election season?
The short answer is a lot.
The Strategy
Before I show you exactly what’s possible with that budget, there are three things to know about how we operate on social media.
We’re more likely to engage with content that makes us angry.
We share nearly 60% of articles without clicking through to actually read the article.
Facebook rewards engaging content. Therefore, content that receives shares, comments, likes, and clicks will rise to the top of your feed. It doesn’t matter if the engagement is an angry comment or a smiley face.
So if I were spending my ad dollars on divisive topics, I would choose a Post Engagement campaign and focus my targeting on people who are likely to get angry when they see the content.
As the content gets more engagement, it will take on a life of its own and I won’t need to spend money to promote it anymore.
The targeted community who I initially paid to access will begin sharing the story organically and I can move on to targeting a new audience with a different story or seed a new story into this audience again.
With a strategy promoting content that isn’t divisive, I’ve seen campaigns get engagement for as little as two cents. So I imagine a campaign with very divisive content would get even cheaper virality.
People Living In America
With a daily budget of $140, I could put messages in front of 17,000 to 100,000 people living in America each day. With the full $100,000, that reaches 12 to 73 million which is up to 22% of the entire US population.
For perspective, 114 million people watched the Super Bowl last year and it costs at least $5 million for an ad this year. That’s only 13% more of the population for 50 times the cost.
And you can’t click your TV to share Super Bowl ads.
Targeting all users who live in the United States for $140/day Facebook/screenshot
But I’m sure they weren’t targeting everyone in America. To spread a divisive message, it’s better to get it in front of far more targeted groups.
Conservative Men in the Swing States
Facebook has some pretty deep targeting. It not only keeps track of activity on Facebook but also collects browsing data from across the internet and buys additional data from sources like Oracle Data Cloud, Epsilon, and credit card companies.
This helps it know things about you such as the fact that you told someone you’re interested in donating to a particular political party, like the 4 million Americans below.
Amplifying Racial & Immigration Issues
Maybe Russia wants to divide the country. Racial issues are one of our favorite things to fight about in America so I could target African Americans, Asian Americans, or Hispanic Americans.
Gun Rights
Maybe I want gun owners to fear that the Second Amendment is in jeopardy.
I can reach over 1 million Second Amendment supporters for $10,000 according to the $140 per day targeting below.
But how did Russia use the $100,000?
We honestly may never know. Facebook hasn’t made the ads public or said how many people saw them.
But by evaluating the detailed targeting and reach that’s possible with Facebook ads, it’s not unlikely that over 100 million Americans were influenced by these Russian ads either directly or indirectly.
That’s over 30% of the country.
With today’s person by person targeting, global reach, and ease of sharing, $100,000 can literally change the world.
A savvy marketer could win an election, divide a nation, or destroy a movement for as little as a dollar a day while reaching thousands of targeted readers.
Aaron Saari is the CEO of This Is Growth, a digital marketing agency that specializes in cross platform marketing strategy and long term brand building. He is a West Point graduate, former Army officer who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and Facebook marketing expert.
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