What Matters to Voters? Analyzing the Influence of Targeted Online Ads on Perceived Issue Importance During the United States 2022 Midterm Election and the Dutch General Election 2021

Online advertising is an important component of political campaigning. With microtargeting techniques, voter groups who have shared concerns about specific issues can be identified and, subsequently, targeted with posts addressing those issues. This paper aims to provide an initial investigation into the dynamics and effects of targeted issue ads. We study whether these targeted persuasion efforts influence which issues matter to voters and, vice versa, if voters are more likely to receive ads about issues that they deem important. We take a comparative approach by collecting data in the run-up to the 2021 Dutch general election ( N = 103) and during the 2022 United States midterm election ( N = 31). To test the effects of ads that individual voters were exposed to during these times, we use a novel combination of methods, namely, mobile experience sampling, screenshot data donations, and content analysis. In both countries, we find that exposure to online ads increases the salience of issues among voters. We did not find evidence for successful targeting on issue preferences in the United States or the Netherlands. We discuss possible explanations and implications of these findings.