First of the big election debates tonight, which means a first proper look at both parties’ campaign messaging, and the stories they want to tell the country.

Whether you’re interested in politics or not, political messaging is worth paying attention to – after all, its job is the same one you have: to convince and compel a prospect to take action.

It’ll be quite broad tonight, as both leaders try to appeal to the population at large, but underneath the surface, there’s a whirlwind of laser-focused marketing activity already taking place.

Modern elections are fought primarily online, with the major parties targeting floating voters in specific constituencies with specific messages.

Because the approach is sniper rather than scattergun, unless you’re one of the people they want to target, you probably won’t see it.

Unless you use this – https://www.facebook.com/ads/library

The Facebook Ad Library lets you look at all the ads that any Facebook page is running, whether it’s a political party, a business, or some other entity.

And while getting a sneak peek at what attack lines the Tories are using is interesting in itself (at least to me!), what’s more useful is seeing the ads that other companies are running, whether they’re selling a similar product to you, or selling something completely different to the same market.

What you won’t know is how effective the ads are, but as a general rule: if they’ve been running them for a long time, there’s probably a reason…

Hope you find it useful!

Seb