The Liberals starting spending before the poll was called: Was it too early?

An analysis of data relating to election advertising shows the Liberals started spending early, while Labor went hard after the poll was called.

The spend between Clive Palmer and the two major parties was closest in the first week of April.

Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots party dwarfed the combined federal election spending by the Liberal Party and ALP over the past six weeks, driving a quadrupling in political advertising this year.

In each week Trumpet of Patriots outspent all other parties, according to data supplied to The Australian by Nielsen and RCS Media Monitoring.

The total spend for Palmer in these weeks was $16.3m. Neither of the major parties went close to that with the Liberals outspending Labor, $5.9m to $5.5m.

The expenditure gap between Palmer and the two major parties was smallest in the second week of April with less than a month to go until the May 3 election day.

Each party was booking ads worth close to $2.5m. The Liberal Party is expected to ramp up spending again this week ahead of Saturday’s election.

An examination of data shows the Liberal Party went hard early in March before the election was called.

Labor kept its powder dry until later in March, spending big after the campaign kicked off.

Year-to-date data from Standard Media Index, shows the overall spend in the Political Parties/Industry Association/Unions category quadrupled to $43m.

While social media and digital platforms are growing share, traditional media such as TV and radio still commands attention from the major parties.

SMI data shows more than half of that spend this year has gone to TV, with radio benefiting from an extra $6.6m.

The ALP kept its powder dry until the official start of the campaign, only breaking above $500,000 before then in the week the prime minister visited Government House.

For the first full two weeks of the campaign the Labor spend surged to around $2.3m each week.

The Liberal Party on the other hand was spending considerably more than Labor right across March. Labor only outspent the Liberals in the week commencing March 30.

The Greens didn’t figure much in the Nielsen data with a total spend of $469,000 across the six weeks, with the tap not fully turned on until April with spends of $223,000 and $137,000 in the first two weeks of the month.

Another set of data looking at the number of ads run across metro radio around Australia shows how important traditional audio is for the major parties.

Looking at the four weeks since the election was called through until April 23, the data from RCS Media Monitors is telling about campaign strategies. The only sign of any radio ads for the Greens was in the Wollongong market.

Similarly, teal candidates find other ways to push out their messages.

The only teal candidate to spend on radio that was picked up in the monitoring was Perth’s Member for Curtin Kate Chaney who ran 365 ads in Perth in the last four weeks.

That was slightly less than the Labor Party and almost a third of the ads bought by the Liberals.

Looking at the accompanying table of activity across the five metro radio markets, the Liberal Party bought the most ads in any one market – 1128 aired in Melbourne.

The Liberals also aired more ads than any other party in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

Radio wasn’t as critical to sharing the Labor Party’s messaging, with Adelaide the only market where it went hardest. Liberal ads nearly doubled those from Labor in Melbourne, while the two parties were neck and neck in that medium in Sydney.

Clive Palmer had a presence in all markets, running just under 200 Trumpet of Patriots ads everywhere, except Melbourne where they pushed a little harder with 250 spots.