Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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224. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence the Defence Force’s expenditure on advertising, with details of the objective, duration, social media platforms, reach, audience, CTR and cost of each social media advertising campaign, in each of the years 2023 to date in 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54678/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Defence Forces that the following is the information requested in respect of social media campaigns in each of the years 2023 to date in 2025.

1. The objective of these campaigns is to raise awareness and generate interest in Tri-Service (Army, Naval Service and Air Corps) recruitment and to drive qualified and high quality application activity through targeted digital channels.
2. Campaigns are run year round with additional focus on specific competitions as they open at particular times of the year, e.g. cadetship, aircraft maintenance technician etc.
3. The social media advertising is spent across Meta (Facebook/Instagram), LinkedIn, Snapchat, with broader reach media as applicable.
4. Campaigns were designed to reach broad but targeted segments, consistent with recruitment objectives. Specific audience segments and reach metrics are maintained in the internal campaign dashboards and campaign-specific reports.
5. Click-through rates (CTR) figures allow overall performance to be aligned with industry benchmarks for recruitment activity on these platforms. The CTR is monitored continuously to optimise creative, targeting and bidding. In regards to Social Media platforms, it is important to note that 90 per cent of our traffic comes from posts/reels with paid advertisement supporting them. This gives us excellent reach to target specific demographics. It also affords us the opportunity to publish jobs through social media platforms to target specific people we are recruiting for example Chefs, Engineers and Grooms. The following are the number of impressions created in 2025 from paid advertisement spend across the various platforms used

   - Instagram - 10.8 million
   
   - Facebook - 88.7 million
   
   - Snapchat - 41.1 million
   
   - Total impressions for 2025 - 140.6 million.
   
   The Defence Forces do not have a TikTok account.

6. Cost of Advertising Campaigns:
   1. 2023 (01 Jan 2023 – 31 Dec 2023), Total advertising spend (excl. fees): €1,504,327.06 + VAT, Social media spend: €91,399.85 + VAT.
   2. 2024 (01 Jan 2024 – 31 Dec 2024), Total advertising spend (excl. fees): €2,007,246.72+ VAT. Social media spend: €241,181.34 + VAT.
   3. 2025 to date (01 Jan 2025 – 08 Oct 2025), Total advertising spend (excl. fees): €1,814,267.65 + VAT, Social media spend: €209,150.38 + VAT.
7. The integrated Tri-Service advertising approach has contributed to increased engagement and recruitment activity, with positive implications for overall manpower balance and capability.