The starter's gun is yet to be officially fired on election 2022, but make no mistake, the campaign is well underway, and your vote is already being targeted.
As Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese jet around the country at a quickening pace to campaign in marginal seats, online election activity has been slowly but surely growing.
And if the online advertising at this early stage is anything to go by, Australians can expect to see a lot of "attack" ads before they get to cast their vote some time in the next three months.
Advertising data published by Facebook shows spending on political, social issue and election ads has been elevated since August last year, and is climbing.
The data includes all advertisements categorised as a political or social issue ad, including state politics issues and not-for-profit organisations running ads not directly linked to the upcoming election.
It's a more complete picture of Facebook advertising than we've seen in any previous election, after the platform increased transparency with its ad library reporting in 2020.
Spikes in spending in February and April 2021 were largely due to increased advertising associated with the Western Australian and Tasmanian state elections.
Setting aside those two events, national spending on political issues picked up in the second half of 2021, reaching a peak in late November before dropping over the quieter Christmas and New Year period, which also coincided with the national Omicron coronavirus wave.
But now the year has well and truly begun, and with Omicron no longer dominating the headlines, the amount of campaign money pouring into Facebook's coffers is climbing once again.
Who's spending what?
In the past month, the Coalition and its members have spent considerably more on Facebook advertising than Labor.
The Liberal Party head office has this month focused many of its ads on Anthony Albanese, in an attempt to portray him as a weak and untrustworthy leader and a puppet to the Greens and union bosses.
On Facebook, rather than spending a lot of money on a single ad, advertisers often run lots of cheaper ads, tailoring their messages to specific audiences.
Around 40 of the Liberal Party of Australia's ads in the past month have had more than 20,000 views, and about 70 per cent of those have been negative ads about Labor.
The other campaigner spending big is Climate 200, along with the collection of urban independent candidates being backed by the group.
The organisation founded by Simon Holmes à Court to finance independent races, Climate 200 has run Facebook ads in support of at least six candidates running in Liberal-held seats.
The United Australia Party — founded by Clive Palmer — has spent comparatively little on Facebook ads so far this year; it's massive budget is being invested elsewhere.
UAP dominates online
This election we also have more detail on election advertising on Google-owned websites, including YouTube, thanks to Google's Transparency Report, which publishes political ad data.
Google is now reporting information about a narrower set of ads, but it includes parties and groups explicitly campaigning for candidates.
In the four weeks ending on February 13, political campaigners spent just under $2 million on election ads through Google and YouTube.
But 94.8 per cent of that came from just one party, the United Australia Party.
Nearly half the remaining spend came from the Liberal and Labor parties' branches in South Australia, where a state election is imminent.
But it's not just on Google that the UAP is spending big.
Estimates from advertising industry tracker Pathmatics suggest the party is spending more on advertising online than any other brand in the country, not just those campaigning for public office.
Pathmatics estimated that the United Australia Party ran more than $5 million worth of digital advertising in January.
Foxtel was the next biggest spender, running nearly $4.9 million worth of advertising to spruik its streaming service Binge.
The NSW Government also spent a lot on digital advertising, with much of that coming from NSW Health, related to the COVID pandemic response.
The UAP put the most money into a video ad in which Clive Palmer criticises government responses to the pandemic
The data does not include any advertising in traditional media, like television, radio and print newspapers.
The campaign trail is already well trod
It's not just online activity that's kicking into gear.
ABC News has compiled the dates and locations of all media events held by both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese since the beginning of the year, including media conferences and picture opportunities facilitated by the leaders.
The data shows both men are already clocking up serious mileage.
Mr Albanese began the year with a flurry of travel, visiting the New South Wales central coast before a tour of the tropics, making his way from the Far North Queensland seats of Leichhardt and Kennedy to the Central Queensland seat of Hinkler.
There was a pause in marginal seat visits for the February sitting of parliament, but the Prime Minister is now catching up to the frequent flyer miles being logged by his opponent.
The day after parliament rose earlier this month, both leaders jetted to the Northern Territory for a series of campaign events held around the 80th anniversary commemorations of the Bombing of Darwin.
From there, Mr Morrison went to Tasmania, via Melbourne, holding a series of events across the key seats of Bass, Braddon and Lyons. Mr Albanese followed the next day.
With the WA border still closed to quarantine free visitors, neither leader has hit the campaign trail in the west.
But in an election where every seat could matter, sandgropers should brace for the visits to start next month, when the border rules are relaxed.
And with all this extra election activity, it's definitely no surprise that news reporting of the campaign-that's-not-quite-a-campaign has also increased.
Data from media monitoring company Streem shows there has been a steady increase in print and online stories mentioning the upcoming election since the start of the year.
However, people who are already growing weary of politics had a small reprieve last week, when the number of stories mentioning the election fell for the first time this year.
Don't expect that reprieve to last for long.
