X (formerly Twitter) is a social media and instant messaging platform with an estimated 237 million daily active users (DAUs) who spend an average of 11 minutes per day on the app. For advertisers, the immediacy of X is the draw: You can put a timely message in front of people who are looking for timely information.
This guide explains how X Ads work today, the formats you can buy, the targeting available, how to set up and optimize campaigns, and what to measure so you can scale what works.
Understanding Twitter Advertising (Now X Ads)
What Is Twitter Advertising (Now Known as X Ads)?
X Ads are paid placements that appear across the X experience, blended with organic posts. They are surfaced primarily in the Home timeline and Explore interfaces. Campaigns run through an auction and bill you for a result aligned to your chosen objective, like a click, an app install, or a video view, rather than for every impression by default. That set up makes it imperative to know your goals and how X fits your marketing strategy before you start buying.
What Are the Different Advertising Objectives Available on the Platform?
X supports objective-based campaigns for Awareness (maximize unique exposure), Consideration (post interactions, video views, website traffic, app installs), and Conversions. Choose the objective that matches the action you want, because it determines optimization, billing, and available formats.
Who Is the Typical Audience for Twitter (X) and Why Is it Valuable for Advertisers?
X’s ad reach is substantial and global. Recent digital-audience reporting estimates that ads on X can reach roughly 586 million people worldwide, with usage skewing toward men ages 25 to 34. The combination of scale plus a news- and interest-seeking mindset makes X especially valuable for launches, limited-time offers, and brands tapping into live cultural moments.
Ad Formats Available on Twitter (X)
What Are Promoted Tweets?
Promoted posts are regular posts that advertisers pay to amplify to targeted audiences. They look and behave like organic posts (people can reply, repost, and like), but they’re marked “Promoted.” Promoted Ads can include single images, carousels, polls, and video, and they’re available across most objectives.
What Are Promoted Accounts (Now Follower Ads)?
Historically called Promoted Accounts, Followers Ads are designed to grow followers by suggesting your profile to the right people. X’s current product spotlights Follower campaigns/Follower Ads within its objectives and formats. In practice, advertisers today typically drive high-quality follows using Promoted Ads optimized for Reach or Engagements with clear “follow us” CTAs and profile visits as a KPI.
What Are Promoted Trends?
The current equivalent of Promoted Trends is Spotlight Takeover, which is a premium 24-hour placement that puts your branded trend and creative on top of the Explore tab and “What’s Happening” section on X.com. It’s backed by companion timeline media and built for mass awareness on moments like launches, premieres, and tentpole events.
What Are Twitter (X) Takeover Ads?
X Takeovers come in two headline varieties:
- Timeline Takeover: Your ad is the first ad people see the first time they open X that day.
- Spotlight (Explore) Takeover: Your creative sits at the top of Explore and trending modules for 24 hours.
Both packages are reservation-based, high-impact buys that concentrate awareness quickly.
What Are Twitter (X) Cards?
“Cards” are richer creatives that attach an image or video, headline, and CTA to a post. Cards are ideal for traffic, conversions, or app installs. They can be created in Ads Manager and promoted in campaigns. For app campaigns, X provides dedicated implementation guidance and measurement requirements.
What Are Community Takeovers?
“Community Takeover” isn’t a standard, purchasable X ad unit. Instead, marketers use X Communities, which are user-run, topic-based groups, to host or partner on programming. You can schedule an AMA (Ask Me Anything), co-host a Space, pin posts, and host creator collabs, then amplify with Promoted Ads or a Takeover to extend your member reach. Most advertisers treat it as a planning tactic that pairs Community engagement with paid distribution, not a distinct format you order from X’s rate card.
Targeting Options on Twitter (X)
What Are the Available Demographic Targeting Options?
Targeting is available by age, gender, language, location (from country to zip code in supported markets), and device. Layering these basics creates the foundation for more granular overlays like interests or keywords.
How Does Interest-Based Targeting Work on Twitter (X)?
Interest targeting lets you reach people who frequently engage with specific topics on X, like sports, fintech, or gaming. It maps to behaviors inferred from what people read, watch, and discuss. Many advertisers combine interests with follower look-alikes to focus delivery.
What Are Keyword Targeting Options?
Keyword targeting reaches people based on words and phrases they’ve recently searched for, posted, or engaged with. It’s powerful for intent and brand-safety control. You can include keywords like “headphones review,” while excluding competitor or news-risk keywords.
How Does Follower Look-Alike Targeting Work?
Follower look-alike targeting expands targeting to people who behave similarly to the followers of specific accounts (industry publications, competitors, creators). It’s a fast way to approximate a “category audience” without third-party lists.
What Are Conversation Targeting Options?
Conversation targeting lets you reach people engaged in particular conversations and topics, for example around music festivals, elections, or fantasy football. It’s built for timely relevance by aligning ads to what a cohort is actively discussing right now.
How Does List Targeting Function?
List targeting (also known as Tailored Audiences) matches your hashed customer emails and phone numbers or website and app activity against X users so you can build CRM remarketing, exclusions, or look-alike expansions. Note: This feature is available everywhere.
Creating and Managing Twitter (X) Ad Campaigns
What Are the Initial Steps in Setting up a Twitter (X) Ads Campaign?
Follow these steps to set up an X Ads campaign:
- Log into Ads Manager.
- Click “create campaign.”
- Choose your objective.
- Set your campaign and ad group details.
- Define your audience.
- Build your creatives (posts and cards).
- Add billing if it’s your first campaign.
If you run app campaigns, you probably want to integrate a mobile measurement partner first for SKAN/Android attribution.
How Do You Define Your Budget and Bidding Strategy?
Best practice is to pick a daily or total budget at the ad-group level and choose an automatic or a manual bid tied to your billable event. Automatic bids let the system bid to maximize results, whereas manual bids offer hands-on control. Keep in mind that costs may vary widely by market and objective. Many advertisers see CPCs and CPMs in the low-to-mid range compared with other social platforms, but your actual costs will depend on auction pressure and creative relevance. You’re billed for results aligned to your objective.
How Do You Create Compelling Ad Creatives for Twitter (X)?
Creating ads that capture users’ fractured attention is not easy. Short videos and animations that catch the eye, a single clear message, and a concrete CTA are bedrock best practice. But, creativity that matches your brand voice is key. Ad copy must be concise, and creators try to front-load value in the first second of video. Note: X’s creative standards discourage clutter — hashtags and multiple emojis are prohibited in ads — so visuals and text need to be crisp.
How Do You Monitor and Manage Your Campaigns?
Use the campaign dashboard to track impressions, results, engagement rate, and cost-per-result in near-real time. Build variants (copy, aspect ratio, hooks) and rotate winners. Schedule posts ahead of moments and adjust flighting/frequency caps to balance reach and fatigue.
Measuring and Analyzing Twitter (X) Ad Performance
What Are the Key Metrics to Track for Twitter (X) Ads?
Start with:
- Impressions/Reach.
- Engagements and Engagement Rate.
- CTR.
- Video views/complete views and view rate/CPV.
- Cost-per-result.
- Conversions/ROAS.
How Do You Analyze the Results of Your Campaigns?
You must map metrics to intent. Most ad buyers use reach and frequency for awareness, engagement rate for resonance, CTR for traffic fit, post-click metrics like bounce and time-on-site for landing-page match, and conversion rate or CPA for efficiency. These metrics allow you to compare by audience segment, placement, and ad creative. To understand how well your video hooks a viewer, monitor your 3-second and 6-second views alongside the completion rate.
How Can You Optimize Your Twitter (X) Ads for Better Performance?
- Tighten targeting: Start broad within your core geography/age, then spin out ad groups by interest, follower look-alike, keywords, and conversation targets.
- Iterate creative: Test openings (first 1–2 seconds), aspect ratios, and captions; cut variants weekly, keep top-quartile performers.
- Control exposure: Apply frequency caps to protect efficiency in reach campaigns.
- Measure properly: Implement website conversion tracking/pixel and, for apps, verified SKAN/MACT partners before launch.
Key Takeaways
When working with Twitter/X Ads, pick an objective that matches your real goal, as X bills on that action. Match format to moment, e.g., Promoted Ads for always-on, and Takeovers for launches and cultural spikes. Remember that creative clarity always wins — one message, a strong CTA, motion first — and keep ads clean, with no hashtags or emoji overload. Measure both attention and action, and view rates and engagement alongside CTR, CPA, and ROAS.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How much does Twitter (X) advertising cost?
There’s no universal rate card because X Ads run through an auction. You can set daily and total budgets and typically pay on a cost-per-result basis. Benchmarks vary by market and vertical, and your creative relevance and competition ultimately drive price. It’s best to start with controlled tests and then scale what clears your CPA/ROAS hurdles. There are alternatives to X Ads advertisers should be aware of, not only for acquisition through other social networks, but especially if and when ads reach their revenue plateau.
Is Twitter (X) advertising effective for all types of businesses?
Advertising on X is most effective when timing and breaking into a conversation matter. It also works for performance advertisers who can pair strong creatives with keyword, conversation, and list targeting. You can evaluate your fit for X by looking at your audience (are they on X?) and by the timeliness of your strategy. If you can’t hook your brand to rapidly changing conversations around widely diverse topics, it might not be a good fit.
How do hashtags play a role in Twitter (X) advertising?
For ads, X’s current creative rules prohibit hashtags and multiple emojis. For organic content, hashtags still help with discovery. You can use one to two highly relevant tags and lean on conversations and topic alignment rather than tag stuffing.
What are Twitter (X) Moments and can they be used for advertising?
Moments are curated collections of posts that tell a story. They’re not a separate ad format, but marketers use them to package narratives and then promote the associated posts or pair Moments with Takeovers for scale.
