Best Ad Types on X/Twitter
Is it X, or is it Twitter? It’s been two years since the rebrand, and we’re still not sure what to call it. One thing we do know is that it still has plenty of opportunities for advertisers. While Bluesky has emerged as a competitor, it still doesn’t have ads, and it might not for the foreseeable future. Apparently, it’s even tossing around the idea of a subscription model.
Even though new competitors have emerged, X/Twitter still has more than 300 million users, and offers a wide variety of ad types.
Promoted Ads
These are essentially paid posts that appear in users’ feeds. That means that the formats of content that can be included in these ads include all the kinds that can be included in organic posts. They can be text, image, or video, just like organic posts, or they can have carousels of images.
Naturally, the media type affects the costs of these ads, with image and video posts typically being more expensive than text-only ads, but it’s usually also worth it.
Vertical Video Ads
This is a relatively new ad type, as the vertical video feed is one of the newer features for organic posts. X, like every social media platform in recent years, saw all the engagement TikTok was getting, and wanted in on the action. So they got in the lab, hunkered down, and pretty much copied the format. But that’s besides the point. Short form video continues to have some of the highest engagement rates among ads, regardless of platform.
If X is to be taken at their word, vertical video ads have an engagement rate seven times higher than the same ads appearing in home feeds (meaning promoted ads). If we read between the lines, this statistic should probably be taken with a grain of salt, as it came from the post where they announced the new ad format, which means the data came from a relatively small number of advertisers who were given early access to this format. It’s possible that they were also trying to hype up their new format.
Regardless, short form video is still king on social media. Although a lot of these social media platforms like X/Twitter tend to keep platform-wide engagement rates and conversion rates close to their chests, but according to HubSpot, social media has the highest return on investment (ROI) of any advertising channel, and according to Hootsuite, short-form video is the preferred format of users who are trying to learn about a product or service.
X Amplify
First launched exclusively for sports broadcasters in 2013, Amplify is now available to all industries. Amplify is essentially a livestream feature, and offers two ad formats: pre-rolls and sponsorships. The pre-rolls are obviously video ads, and sponsorships are sort of like sponsored streams themselves. According to X/Twitter’s ad suite, the users of this feature are divided into “15+” groups, which may sound like a lot, but other social media and CTV channels offer much more specific targeting.
X Takeovers
Takeovers basically bump your ads to the top of users’ feeds. These can appear in either the “For You” or “Trending” pages. In the “For You” page, it appears as an especially prominent sponsored post, larger than the typical sponsored ads. On the “Trending” page, an ad format that’s called a Spotlight Takeover, your ad appears in something like a clickable banner above all the trending topics. The greatest benefit of this ad type is the guaranteed exposure.
The typical promoted ads have pay-per-click and pay-per-impression cost structures, which is great, especially if you’re not interested in spending a lot on social ads. With promoted ads, you’ll only pay when someone sees your ad or clicks on it, but that doesn’t guarantee a large number of users will actually see it. X Takeovers are not only more prominent, but offer much more meaningful opportunities for engagement.
Promoted ads could easily get lost in the endless scroll of someone’s feed, and even if they scroll past without taking notice, that still counts as an impression. X Takeovers are much harder to miss, and on the “Trending” page, it’s pretty much impossible to miss. The ad is by itself, above the fold. Because it takes up so much of the screen, and because there are less opportunities to advertise in this way, these ads are undoubtedly expensive. If you have the budget, they’re probably worth it though.
Interested in advertising on X, or Twitter, or whatever it may be called in the near future? Let’s talk about it.