This analysis provides a comprehensive overview of sponsored political advertising on Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) during the final 20-day monitoring period of the 2025 local elections in North Macedonia. From September 29 to October 17, 2025, the monitoring tracked 52 mayoral candidates and their supporting political entities across 26 strategically selected municipalities.
From the monitored 52, 28 candidates (54%) actively advertised, i.e. sponsored posts on at least one of the Meta platforms. The monitored scope showed €23,308 recorded in the final 20-day localized monitoring. Most of the advertisements on their pages were sponsored by the candidate themselves (92.6%), and the rest were sponsored by the political parties they represent. However, the additionally obtained cumulative data for all political advertising in North Macedonia on Meta Ad Library, for the same period shows that the top 50 political pages alone spent a total of €153,342 representing dominance of central party pages and state and party officials over individual mayoral candidates. As the top overall spenders are national political entities and party leaders, not local mayoral contenders, this suggests that parties centralized their budget to promote their leaders and national platforms, which then cascaded down to local levels.
The recorded expenditure for social media advertising on Meta platforms for the 28 candidates that sponsored advertising of their posts (54% of the total 52 monitored candidates) consisted of 812 active advertisements. From these, a distinct concentration of digital activity was observed in the Skopje region, specifically in the municipalities of Chair, Kisela Voda, and Butel, which together accounted for 55% of the total monitored budget.
While most of the monitored content is promotional and official, the strategic use of third-party financing and negative narratives in competitive zones highlights a complex and sophisticated digital electoral landscape.
