Reform UK is still well ahead on reach and spend, with about 63 active Meta ads and three now past a million impressions. Its biggest spender is now a petition against what it calls "dystopian" HMRC powers to take money from bank accounts (£9K–£10K). The Conservatives have dropped from about 12 to about 8 ads now that their polling-day reminders and the Ed Davey video have ended. They are back to the "Cut benefits, fund defence" petition and Budget attacks. Labour is unchanged: about 16 ads backing Andy Burnham's "new path", with modest but growing spend. No new ads have appeared since yesterday on any party page, and the Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid are still not advertising. New today: targeting. Reform's postcode lists cover 252 seats, mostly Labour-held seats where it came second in 2024. The Conservatives' lists cover 171 seats, mostly in the South and in seats lost to Labour and the Lib Dems. Only 35 seats appear in both.
Scoreboard
| Party | Meta active ads | Change vs 5 Nov | Biggest Meta ad | Google (last 7 days) | Main theme |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reform UK | ~63 | 0 | >1M impressions (three ads) | None (last ran Nov 2025) | HMRC powers petition, tax-free allowance, face coverings, Burnham and the EU |
| Labour Party | ~16 | 0 | 90K–100K | 1 YouTube video (4–5 Nov, 5K–6K impressions) | Burnham's "new path", National Care Service |
| Conservative and Unionist Party | ~8 | −4 (polling-day and Davey ads ended) | 125K–150K | None (last ran Jul 2024) | Cutting welfare to fund defence; Budget attacks |
| Scottish National Party | ~4 | 0 | 900K–1M | None (last ran Jun 2026) | Independence through energy wealth |
| Liberal Democrats | 0 | 0 | – | None (last ran May 2026) | – |
| Green Party of England and Wales | 0 | 0 | – | None (last ran Jul 2024) | – |
| Plaid Cymru | 0 | 0 | – | None (last ran Jul 2024) | – |
Reform UK
- Other live lines: Burnham and freedom of movement (>1M, £2K–£2.5K, up from £1.5K–£2K), Burnham "rejoining the EU" petition, fuel duty (600K–700K), Rosebank (250K–300K), scrapping the BBC licence fee (125K–150K), scrapping tax on overtime, a "savings tax raid", a pensioner personal-allowance comparison and "stop the boats".
- Nothing new in the top 20, and the overall count is flat at ~63. A second HMRC variant (125K–150K, £800–£899) and a licence-fee variant have moved into the top 20.
Commentary: Reform has moved its money behind the HMRC petition, which now accounts for more spend than any other single UK party ad on Meta. The creative is a red-and-black propaganda-poster pastiche with a staring eye that carries the HMRC crown in its pupil, the headline "STOP HMRC having direct access to your bank account" and a yellow "Sign the petition" button. Like the face-coverings ad, its main job is to collect contact details through a petition about civil liberties or identity. The "Uniparty" pledge card puts three politicians side by side against Westminster ("Frozen tax thresholds until 2031" / "No plans to increase personal allowance" / "Increase the personal allowance to £15,000"), which frames Labour and the Conservatives as one bloc. The targeting is still broad (audiences >1M), aimed at taxpayers, savers and pensioners after the Budget.
Conservative and Unionist Party
- Stopped since 5 Nov: the Ed Davey video ("More dangerous than you think..."), three "Polls are open" / "Vote Conservative today" ads and one other low-reach ad. That is in line with Thursday's council by-elections having finished.
- Still live: "Back Kemi's Plan – Scrap Inheritance Tax on your family home" (60K–70K, £700–£799, still aimed at a tiny 100–1K audience) and "Labour… are the ones choking the economy".
Commentary: With the polling-day work over, the Conservative page has gone back to collecting data through the welfare/defence petition. The lead image shows Badenoch, arms folded, in front of an armoured vehicle, with "Cut benefits / Fund defence / Agree with Kemi?" in yellow and white block type. Its spend has grown steadily, but the whole page is still spending far less than Reform's single HMRC ad. The very small audience on the inheritance-tax ad suggests either a narrowly uploaded list (existing supporters or donors) or a test.
Labour Party
- The other live ads are variants of the same "new path" message (three image and two video versions). The set of IDs is the same as yesterday.
Commentary: Labour is building a list around its new leader. The lead creative is a portrait-format shot of Burnham waving on a red Labour conference stage, with "Sign up to back Andy's plan" in white and yellow. Reach is wide (audiences >1M), but spend is still low at under £800 for the top ad. The care-service video is the only policy-specific line, and for now the account is defending and introducing rather than attacking. The 4–5 November YouTube spot was a short burst and has not been followed up.
Scottish National Party
Commentary: The same four ads as yesterday, with steady growth. The "right to decide" video closes on a plain navy end card with "YES.SCOT/DECIDE" and collects declaration signatures, while the choose.scot ads use energy prices and the Norway comparison to make an economic case for independence to Scottish audiences.
Leaders and spokespeople
- Badenoch is also still running "Tax, tax, tax" and the "D-tier" Budget tier-list video, and Findlay a "follow my page" ad. Constituency ads continue unchanged from Shabana Mahmood (3), Yvette Cooper (4) and Wes Streeting (2).
- Rupert Lowe's Penn Hill polling-day ad has ended. Checked and inactive: Robert Jenrick, Andy Burnham, Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe, Ed Davey, John Swinney, Anas Sarwar, Rhun ap Iorwerth, Richard Tice, Rachel Reeves and Daisy Cooper. Still no pages found for Zack Polanski or Zia Yusuf.
Commentary: Badenoch's Commons clip, cut vertically with bold yellow captions for mobile feeds, is the only leader ad gaining meaningful reach. Personal-page spend remains token across all parties.
Targeting
Who each party chose to reach on Meta, based on the advertiser's own audience settings published in the Ad Library ("Audience" tab, 28 Oct – 3 Nov 2026). These are targeting choices, not delivery figures.
| Party | 7-day spend | Where | Who | Lists and lookalikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reform UK | £87,532 (126 ads) | ~1,960 postcode sectors in 252 seats. Its UK-wide ads exclude Northern Ireland and those same sectors. | 18+, all genders, no interest or language targeting | Its own supporter lists are excluded from ~82% of spend; no lookalikes |
| Conservative and Unionist Party | £5,321 (19 ads) | ~2,000 postcode sectors in 171 seats, plus three postcode bundles (~10,700 postcodes, not itemised by Meta). The England-only ads exclude Scotland and Wales. | 18+, all genders, no interest targeting | Custom audiences included in 59% of spend (supporter lists 29%) and excluded in 57%; lookalikes in 67% |
| Labour Party | £4,263 (40 ads) | England (74% of spend), UK excluding Northern Ireland (26%); no postcode targeting | 18+, all genders | Its own lists excluded from 100% of spend; lookalikes in 26% |
| Scottish National Party | £784 (10 ads) | Scotland | 18+, all genders | Lookalikes in 100% of spend; one ad uses a custom audience |
| Lib Dems, Greens, Plaid | £0 | – | – | – |
Reform UK and the 2024 seats. Labour won 183 of the 252 targeted seats (73%, against 63% of all seats). Reform came second in 75 of them, which is 75 of the 98 seats where it came second in 2024. Its average 2024 vote share in these seats was 20.0%, against 14.4% UK-wide. Four of its five 2024 wins are included. The densest targeting is in Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, Mid and South Pembrokeshire, Barrow and Furness, Boston and Skegness (Reform-held), Rother Valley and South East Cornwall. By region, the sectors are concentrated in Yorkshire, the West Midlands and the North West, followed by the South East coast, the North East and Wales. There are almost none in London and none in Scotland.
Conservative and Unionist Party and the 2024 seats. The party came second in 128 of the 171 targeted seats (75%, against 45% of all seats). Labour holds 79 of them, the Lib Dems 50 (29%, against 11% of all seats) and the Conservatives 41. The median 2024 majority in these seats is 11.4%, against 14.1% for all seats. The heaviest concentrations are in Cities of London and Westminster (many small central-London sectors), Wirral West, Hexham, Milton Keynes Central, St Ives, High Peak and South Shropshire (a Conservative hold by 3.1%). The South East, the South West and London account for most sectors.
Overlap. Only 35 seats are targeted by both parties, for example Bournemouth East, Aldershot, St Ives, Basingstoke, Eastbourne, Calder Valley, Dudley and Bury North. Both parties also put small amounts of spend into tight areas around Worksop, Dudley, Runcorn and Newark/Southwell. That is consistent with campaigning in this week's local by-elections.
Commentary: The two parties are drawing almost separate maps. Reform's postcode lists closely match the seats where it came second to Labour in 2024, mostly in post-industrial England and Wales. It runs its national ads with those sectors carved out, which suggests different creative or frequency for target areas. Excluding its own supporter lists points to recruiting new contacts rather than mobilising existing ones. The Conservative lists lean towards the commuter belt, the South West and seats lost to the Lib Dems. They combine supporter lists with lookalike audiences, so the aim looks like re-engaging lapsed voters as well as prospecting. Labour and the SNP are not using constituency-level geography at present.
Method: postcode sectors were mapped to July 2024 Westminster constituencies using up to 100 live postcodes per sector (postcodes.io, ONS codes) and drawn on ONS July 2024 ultra-generalised boundaries. 2024 results are from the House of Commons (electionresults.parliament.uk) and ignore later by-elections and defections. Sector counts favour dense urban seats, where sectors are smaller. Meta does not itemise the postcodes inside the Conservatives' "ZIP code" bundles, and one Reform sector (B22 1) could not be matched.
What to watch
- Whether Reform keeps scaling the HMRC petition, which has passed £9K in a week, and whether other parties respond on the issue.
- What replaces the Conservatives' polling-day ads, and whether the Lib Dem-targeted video returns.
- Whether Reform's and the Conservatives' postcode lists change week on week, which would signal target-seat choices.
- Whether Labour puts real money behind the Burnham list-building, or more YouTube activity follows.
Spend and impressions are the platforms' own ranges. Meta multi-version ads often show no range on the page view, and only the top ~20 ads per page were captured (8 of ~16 for Labour, 20 of ~63 for Reform). Labour ministers' constituency pages were checked by ID only today. Google covers YouTube, Search and Display and is checked over the last 7 days. One Conservative Google ID (AR01893937366146482177) again returned "advertiser not found". TV, print and outdoor ads are not covered. Sources: Meta Ad Library pages for Conservatives, Labour, Reform UK, SNP; Google Ads Transparency Centre (UK political).
Page IDs to add to the task list (found on 5 Nov, used today): Plaid Cymru 26416930992 · Richard Tice 663238947481630 · Rachel Reeves 388650307829032 · Wes Streeting 177717252277852 · Daisy Cooper 533273977174586. None found for Zack Polanski or Zia Yusuf.