Exclusive:'Lookalikes', postcodes, and musical theatre - how parties are using big tech to target Holyrood voters

Although the Holyrood election campaign only began in earnest on Friday, Scotland’s political parties have been expending considerable time, effort, and money trying to steal a march on their rivals on social media.

From microtargeting cohorts of the electorate to funnelling key campaign messages through party leaders, the approaches being taken vary, and are likely to ebb and flow. So far, however, the main parties have spent more than £160,000 on digital advertising campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, with Scottish Labour accounting for the lion’s share.

An analysis by Scotland on Sunday of the political ad databases maintained by Meta and Google shows that between 22 December 2025 and 21 March this year, its expenditure stands at £104,792 - more than all the other main parties combined.

The majority of that spending - some £79,689 - has been directed to 87 campaigns across Anas Sarwar's Facebook and Instagram pages. The main Meta profiles of Scottish Labour, by contrast, have run ads costing just £1,585, which may also offer an insight into the party’s goals - those postcodes prioritised span the likes of Lochgelly, Glenrothes, and Bearsden. A further £20,468 has gone on ads run via the Meta profiles of individual candidates, with the highest spend - £1,006 - devoted to Jenny Laing’s campaign in Aberdeen.

The party, which did not respond to questions about its digital campaign, has also spent £3,050 on 40 YouTube ads, the majority of which consist of messages from candidates across constituencies such as Almond Valley and Dunfermline.

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The SNP’s total ad spending over the same period is £51,152, with a party spokesperson describing it as its “biggest and best digital campaign we have ever had.” Its main Meta profiles have run £14,462 worth of ads, and although it has so far eschewed detailed targeting of audiences, it has used ‘lookalike’ audiences - a tool designed to reach people similar to those it already appeals to.

A further £20,621 has gone on ads via candidate campaigns on Meta. Those on John Swinney’s page account for just £379 of that total, with other prospective SNP MSPs running far more intensive ad blitzes; Martyn Day, the former SNP MP now standing in Falkirk East and Linlithgow, has run ads worth £2,451, closely followed by Màiri McAllan (£2,059), and Lloyd Melville (£1,646). Four SNP candidates have run ads costing less than £10, including Angela Constance.

The SNP has spent the most of any party on Google advertising to date, with £15,700 going on YouTube ads. The majority, over £10,000, financed one video, entitled ‘Make it both votes SNP’, which was shown to the platform’s users around 2.5 million times between 16 February and 21 March.

According to Kate Dommett, professor of digital politics at the University of Sheffield, the SNP appears to be “experimenting,” given it has historically relied almost exclusively on unpaid organic posts.

“The use of lookalike audiences is a key tool parties deploy to reach out to new voters who are believed to share attributes that party supporters possess,” she said. “The SNP may therefore be using data to try and get their message beyond their usual support base.

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“Local candidates also seem to be trying to connect with voters, as one advert run by candidate Martyn Day links to an online survey collecting data including names, postcodes, voting intentions and most important issues - data vital to parties' efforts to identify and mobilise their supporters. However, the fact that so few candidates are using paid adverts to collect data suggests that this may be the outlier.”

Elsewhere, the Scottish Greens have spent £5,668 on Meta ads, with a focus on voters under the age of 40. The party also used what is known as detailed targeting to refine their audience, specifying interests such as activism, social change, human rights, Palestine, and musical theatre.

It also used location targeting for its ads, with the most spent in the Stepps, Millerston, and Robroyston areas, and swathes of Edinburgh including Bruntsfield, Morningside, Wester Hailes, Juniper Green, Currie, and Balerno.

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A Greens source said the party’s goal was focused around using its relatively modest resources in a smart way, explaining: “A lot of our strategy has come from looking at how smaller parties in Europe have been successful, and how they’ve used Meta in the past.”

The Scottish Conservatives, meanwhile, have spent £1,689 on nine Meta ads, with a further £2,708 going on ads on candidates’ pages. The Scottish Liberal Democrats have run two YouTube ads at a cost of £150, targeting voters in the Highlands.

Reform UK’s digital ad spend stands at just £586. That was channelled not via the Reform UK Scotland Facebook presence, but the main page of Reform UK, and accounted for a mere fraction of the UK-wide party’s total Meta ad spending of £68,285 between 22 December 2025 and 21 March.

Only last June, Nigel Farage’s party spent up to £20,000 on ads on Facebook and Instagram as it fought a Holyrood by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall, and Stonehouse. It remains to be seen if it is preparing a late deluge of digital ads, or has pivoted to another strategy. It did not respond to questions.

Prof Dommett said: “Beyond the two main parties, the amount invested in digital is low - reflecting the limited resources many parties' have to expend online. Given the geographic challenges parties face conducting face-to-face campaigning in Scotland - as many constituencies cover huge swathes of land - the limited uptake of digital is surprising.

“This suggests that parties are significantly constrained in what they can spend, having far less money available for digital in this election than at the general election back in 2024.”