Not all of your political advertisements may be managed through The Taurus. Some might be placed on social media platforms that have their own transparency tools. Others might be managed by agencies using different systems. In some cases, you may have ads running on platforms that generate their own transparency notices independently.
The problem is straightforward: if your campaign totals only reflect ads managed in The Taurus, the aggregate cost figure disclosed to the public will be incomplete. Article 9 of EU Regulation 2024/900 requires that campaign-level totals cover all spending, not just the portion tracked in one particular tool.
External notices solve this problem.
What is an external notice?
An external notice is a record you add manually to a campaign in The Taurus. It represents a transparency notice that was created outside The Taurus, on another platform or through another system. When you add an external notice, you provide three pieces of information:
- Title — A descriptive name for the ad or notice (e.g., "Facebook Ad - Climate Policy Video" or "Agency-managed Billboard Campaign")
- URL — The web address where the original transparency notice is published. This allows anyone reviewing your campaign to verify the external notice independently.
- Cost amount — The amount spent on this particular ad or group of ads
The external notice is then included in your campaign's cost aggregation, just like any notice created directly in The Taurus.
When to use external notices
You should add an external notice whenever your campaign includes political advertising that is not tracked in The Taurus. Common scenarios include:
- Social media ads managed through a platform's own ad transparency system
- Ads placed by third-party agencies that use their own compliance tools
- Cross-border placements where a partner organisation in another country manages part of the campaign
- Legacy ads placed before you started using The Taurus, but still falling within the campaign period
The guiding principle is completeness. If an ad is part of your campaign and its costs should be reflected in the aggregate total, it needs to be accounted for, either as a notice in The Taurus or as an external notice.
How to add an external notice
Navigate to the campaign in your organization dashboard and open the campaign detail view. You will find an option to add an external notice. Fill in the title, the URL of the published transparency notice, and the cost amount. Save the entry, and it immediately becomes part of the campaign's totals.
You can add as many external notices as needed. Each one appears in the campaign dashboard alongside your Taurus-managed notices, clearly marked as external so you can distinguish between the two.
How external notices affect totals
External notice costs are added to the campaign's aggregate total in exactly the same way as costs from Taurus-managed notices. When the public views any transparency notice linked to the campaign, the campaign-level total they see includes both types.
For example, if your campaign has three notices in The Taurus totalling EUR 15,000 and two external notices totalling EUR 8,000, the disclosed campaign total will be EUR 23,000. This is the figure that appears in the campaign section of every linked transparency notice's public view.
Keeping external notices accurate
Because external notices are entered manually, accuracy depends entirely on you. There are a few practices that help:
- Update costs as they are finalized. If you add an external notice with an estimated cost, come back and update it when you have the actual figure.
- Use precise URLs. Link directly to the transparency notice on the external platform, not to a generic page. This makes verification straightforward for anyone reviewing your disclosures.
- Review periodically. As your campaign progresses, check that all external ads are accounted for. It is easy to forget an ad placed through a secondary channel.
- Document the source. Use descriptive titles that make it clear which ad or platform the external notice refers to. This helps your team when reviewing the campaign months later.
External notices exist because real-world campaigns are messy. Ads span multiple platforms, involve multiple agencies, and evolve over time. The Taurus gives you a single place to bring all of that together so your Article 9 disclosures reflect the full picture.