You may have already clicked like on the Facebook page of the presidential candidate you are rooting for but if you wonder why you are still seeing ad for the opponent, it really does not have anything to do with your political views and beliefs nor your demographic profile.

If you are more of a Clinton supporter and still see an ad of Donald Trump on Facebook, this is basically because microtargeted online advertisements are used to convey a message to a specific audience and it has nothing to do with your political beliefs. But if you are wondering why, here are some plausible reasons.

  • Your email address might be part of the list that the supporters might have uploaded to Facebook. These lists might have been filtered by age, geography, gender etc. Advertisers, such as the Trump campaign have used this strategy.
  • Facebook uses the fingerprints of your activities to determine the candidate that you like based on the histories of your likes and clicks.
  • Your political biases have been used by Facebook including the pages of the candidates that you "like".
  • Even without your email address and even if Facebook is unable to figure out your political inclination, you can still see the ads depending on the demographic camp you are in.
  • Your browsing history is also another reason because when you visit a website of a candidate, it can send an alert to an ad to be shown the next time you login to your Facebook account. This technique is called retargeting which means that a record of those who visit a site is being saved, which is why the ad continues to follow you around on your succeeding sessions.
Tags Facebook, Ad