There's a month to go (yikes!) to #GeneralElection19 , and the online campaign is in full swing. Today, we're looking at 'reach' -- as in: how successfully are UK political parties' @Facebook ads at reaching actual voters? In the end, that's what it's all about.

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First thing you have to understand is that paid-for FB messages aren't *alone* going to win you an election. Traditional canvassing/leafleting are still important, as is "organic content" on FB shared/written by activists and followers

I've argued that FB political ads are, actually, a small part of a bigger digital campaign in which the goal is to build up online communities around specific issues (gender, geography, etc) and then slowly splice in political messaging along with normal content. But, I digress

So how good is the political parties' spending at actually getting in front of voters' eyeballs? As with everything in this campaign, it's a mixed bag, and the political parties are using very different tactics, some better than others

Let's start w/ the party in power. The @Conservatives are running a very presidential campaign in which @BorisJohnson is front and center. But they are spending a lot £ to get in front of voters on FB. To get almost 1m "impressions," the Tories had to spend up to £10k

That's a bucket load of £ to reach, to be fair, a large chunk of UK voters (side note: FB doesn't break down geography or money spend, so it's difficult to really get accurate figures/data/insight on political ad buys)

Contrast @Conservatives spending with that of @brexitparty_uk, which is equally running a presidential campaign around @Nigel_Farage but got a sizable better bang of their buck in terms of number of impressions vs money spent (caveat: it's a significantly smaller figure)

Ditto for @UKLabour which arguably is getting even more bang for its buck on these types of ads -- one where £1.5k of ad buy got then 350k of "impressions," of views on FB. My guess is that their supporters' networks shared the political ad to get more reach (for free)

And then there are the @LibDems, who have taken a very different approach to FB, involving buying lots of mini ad buys to target micro-constituencies across the country in the aim of talking to fewer voters per ads. Goal: make things more personable/local

It's hard to say that a large number of FB impressions means that the ad broke through to voters, or that it changed their minds. But in the digital world, eyeballs are king. So maximizing your reach w/ the least amount of money possible is the name of the game.

So far, @UKLabour & @brexitparty_uk are doing that better than @Conservatives, while @LibDems are taking a very different "micro-targeted" strategy, possibly to make better use of their smaller electoral war chest

What is still unclear: will any of this change voters minds

Rant over, thoughts appreciated.