Donald Trump paid slightly higher ad prices than Hillary Clinton: Facebook

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook wants to set the record straight: presidential candidate Donald Trump spent slightly more per ad on the site than his rival Hillary Clinton did ahead of the 2016 election.

The revelation comes after an ex-employee wrote an article for Wired that posited a theory: since Facebook ads are sold through a bidding system, and Trump was targeting people in more rural areas, he likely paid less per ad to reach those people. That prompted a tweet from Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign’s digital director in the 2016 campaign, who was quick to take credit for the efficiency and claiming that he was sure their ads were at least 100 times cheaper.

Clinton said the unfair nature of the system needed to be analyzed. But from June to November 2016, Trump actually spent slightly more for reach in most of those months, according to a chart tweeted out by Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth.