Scottish Government adverts on Facebook for the financial year 2016/17: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/03088  
Date received: 22 October 2018
Date responded: 1 November 2018

 

 

A list of all Scottish Government adverts on Facebook for the financial year 2016/17.

A list of users targeted for each advert, both in terms of locations and user demographics (for example: age, user interests etc.)

 

Most of the information you have requested is available in a previous FOI response, reference FOI/18/00993, which can be accessed at:  /publications/foi-18-00993/

This lists all Scottish Government advertising campaigns on Facebook for the financial year 2016/17 and provides a list of users targeted for each campaign. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested, namely detailed demographics of users targeted (for example, user interests). The reasons why we don’t have the information are explained below. 

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you.  

 

The targeting information at a campaign level held by the Scottish Government across gender, age, location and platform is provided in FOI response FOI/18/00993. The Scottish Government does not have the information on targeting per campaign advertisement you have asked for because the Scottish Government does not have access to the targeting tools which are used within Facebook or other social media platforms that deliver each advert within the campaign.

 

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

You may wish to note that targeting at an individual advert level, using the targeting tools available within social media advertising platforms, is developed, managed and held by the appointed media buying agency. The media buying agency is briefed on the target audience for a campaign and uses this information to plan and implement the targeting to deliver the adverts to the audience required by the campaign. This approach is taken in order to access their knowledge and expertise in best approaches for targeting as a result of working across their range of clients. The details of targeting across all campaigns involves the intellectual property of the appointed agency.

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses