X Ads

Formerly Twitter Ads. Real-time conversation, live events, and news are the platform's advertising rationale; the audience is large but the advertiser base contracted sharply after 2022 and brand safety controls were rebuilt in response.

Where ads run

• Home timeline (promoted posts: image, video, carousel, text)
• Amplify pre-roll on publisher video
• Takeover (Timeline Takeover, Trend Takeover, Trend Takeover+)
• Vertical video feed
• Search results

Campaign types

• Reach
• Video views
• App installs
• Website traffic
• Engagements
• Sales (conversions)
• Pre-roll views

Targeting

• Keywords (in posts, searches, and engagements)
• Follower lookalikes (people similar to an account's followers)
• Interests, conversation topics, events, movies and TV
• Custom Audiences: lists, website (X Pixel), app, engagement
• Demographics, location, device, carrier, language

Buying

Auction-based, billed per objective: impression, view, click, engagement, install; automatic, target cost, and maximum bid options. Takeovers are reservation buys at fixed prices. No minimum spend on auction campaigns.

Measurement

X Pixel and Conversions API; attribution windows selectable; brand lift through partners; verification through IAS and DoubleVerify integrations reintroduced in 2023 and 2024 for adjacency measurement.

Watch

Brand suitability is the first question on any X plan. The platform offers adjacency controls, sensitivity settings, and third-party pre-bid verification; whether those satisfy a given brand is a judgment call, and several large advertisers remain absent. Where it works, it works around live moments: sports, awards, product launches, breaking news, and the communities that discuss them.

Documentation

https://business.x.com/en/help.html

See also: benchmarks for typical costs, and the glossary for any term used above.