X / Twitter Advertisements — are they still worth it?

 December 22, 2023      Andrew Procyk

Since Elon Musk purchased Twitter and changed the name to X (no one seems to know why). Aside from the name there have been plenty of changes in the way the company does business (again, no one seems to know why). In recent months X (Twitter) has seen many large advertisers pull back due to Musk’s “free speech” on his platform better known as little to no censorship. With the recent reinstatements of controversial suspended accounts of Donald Trump, Jordan Peterson, Babylon Bee, Kanye West, Andrew Tate, Alex Jones, and more due to these new policies under Musk.

This has led to corporations like Disney, Warner Bros., IBM, and Apple pulling their ads off of X. The main question to ask is whether it is still worth it for companies big or small to advertise on X even with direct competitor social media platforms like Facebook/Meta’s Threads gaining in popularity.

Pros and Cons of using Twitter (X) ads for Marketing

Pros:

  • Targeted Advertising: X offers precise targeting options based on interests, demographics, behaviors, and keywords, allowing you to reach specific audiences.
  • Engagement Opportunities: X’s interactive nature encourages engagement through likes, retweets, and replies, providing opportunities for direct interaction with your audience in real-time.
  • Brand Reach: Ads can increase your brand’s visibility and reach a broader audience, helping with brand recognition and exposure.
  • Diverse Ad Formats: X offers various ad formats (such as promoted tweets, accounts, trends, etc.) catering to different campaign objectives, whether it’s brand awareness, website clicks, or app installs. Across 4 studies according to X, the average Twitter ads ROI is 40% higher than the average pay for performance.
  • Real-Time Marketing: Its real-time nature allows brands to participate in ongoing conversations, events, or trends, enabling timely and relevant marketing efforts.
  • User Traffic: Over 353.9 million active users in 2023 according to statista.com Twitter has a very strong user base. 1
  • Advertising Dropoff: Almost half of X’s largest advertisers have left after Elon Musk purchased Twitter on October 27, 2022

Cons:

  • Ad Saturation: Given the fast-paced nature of Twitter, ads might get lost in a continuous stream of content, making it challenging to capture user attention if not done correctly.
  • Costs: Twitter ads can be relatively expensive, especially compared to some other social media platforms, and may require a significant budget to achieve substantial results.
  • Limited Ad Space: With a character limit for tweets, conveying a compelling message within the ad space can be challenging, affecting the effectiveness of the ad.
  • Ad Blocking: Some users might use ad-blocking tools, limiting the reach of your advertisements.
  • High Competition: Due to its popularity among marketers, competition for ad space can be intense, potentially driving up costs and reducing visibility.
  • Direct Competitor: Threads that launched on July 5, 2023, is the Mark Zuckerberg alternative for X and has just shy of 100 million monthly average users as of October 2023.
Free Dead Bird on a Pavement Stock Photo

To advertise or not to advertise that is the question

With a less saturated market than the market leaders such as Facebook and Instagram, big corporations leaving will only lead to more opportunities for the company’s current ads.

Twitter, now referred to as X has seen changes impacting its advertising worth. Despite boasting over 353.9 million monthly users and a higher-than-average ROI, recent controversies led major companies like Disney and Apple to withdraw their ads due to content moderation concerns. Even after the exodus of advertisers seen in 2023, a lot of big corporations have already started to return and most notably Netflix started sharing ads on X again.

The benefits of Twitter ads include precise targeting and engagement opportunities and should counteract any disadvantages like high costs, with the rise of platforms like Threads only complicating decisions. For smaller businesses, advertising on X depends on goals, audience, and budget. Success relies on strong strategy and understanding the evolving landscape, before investing in X’s ads and that’s why hiring digital marketing firms ensure you have a bulletproof marketing strategy.  

Overall X formerly known as Twitter is still a viable social media platform that’s worth the investment for businesses trying to drive engagement, brand awareness, and most of all profit.

Including Twitter / X in your sweepstakes & contest marketing strategy

With over 350 million monthly active users still on the platform it’s still important to include it in your strategy for your sweepstakes marketing program. Use incentives like bonus entries into your sweepstakes to push organic “Tweets” that can access potentially hundreds of millions of users as this is becoming increasingly difficult through other social networks. Considering an ad spend to promote your brand and your sweepstakes now only makes sense with less major advertisers cluttering the feed.

I recommend some testing and evaluation, after all Elon has been known to be fairly insightful and successful, only time will tell if X really marks the spot. Elon Musk’s Twitter Page

Andrew Procyk, RAVEN5, December 2023

Footnotes

1 https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-worldwide/

View All