X Ads : A Beginner’s Guide

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Although X has courted controversy. it has consistently remained one of the top platforms for netizens to discuss anything and everything, whether it’s election results or a new sneaker line. But as a marketer, why should you care about a microblogging social media site? Should X Ads be on your radar?

We feel. that leveraging X for ad campaigns should be a no-brainer in today’s world, when 68% of customers want to stay updated on new brand offerings on social media. For those still on the fence or looking to understand more about them before taking the leap, here is the ultimate marketer’s guide to X ads.

X Ads : An Introduction 

X ads are an advertising tool that allows you to target users of X, formerly Twitter. These ads will be visible to users even when they’re logged out of X and have a clear ‘Ad’ label mentioned on them. X offers marketers various types of ad formats:

1. Promoted X Ads

Previously known as ‘Promoted Tweets,’ these look like regular X posts and are targeted to users who aren’t following your profile yet. They also have a ‘Promoted’ label on the bottom to differentiate them from regular posts and can include videos, moments, and carousels apart from text and images.

2. Follower X Ads

Referred to as ‘Promoted Accounts’ earlier, these ads promote your X account by targeting users who might meet your customer profile but aren’t following you yet. They’re ideal for marketers looking to drive brand awareness and are visible in the ‘Who to follow’ section of a user’s feed.

3. X Takeover ads

This ad format positions your brand on X’s premium real estate, giving you the best placement X has to offer. This naturally makes it more expensive than other ads. You can choose two placements-

Timeline takeover : ensures your ad is the first ad a user sees when they access X

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Trend takeover : Positions your ad alongside trending topics in the Explore tab.

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4. X Amplify

This format allows you to place ads via video content from extremely relevant publishers. You can choose Amplify Pre-roll, which allows you to select from 15+ categories of videos to showcase as pre-roll video ads, or Amplify Sponsorships, which involves partnering with a particular publisher. 

5. X’s Dynamic Product Ads (DPA)

With DPA, showcase your most relevant offerings to the right customers. DPA retargeting also helps you target ads with offerings that users have already engaged with on your site. 

6. X Collection Ads

These ads showcase all your offerings’ details in a single unified view and provide users with a hassle-free browsing experience. They can also help steer users through different offerings, guiding them to landing pages for the specific offerings they’re interested in. Collection ads give X users a personalized customer journey and drive diverse engagement channels.

Additional read: 6 Social Media Optimization Strategies That Will Change Your Game

What Makes X a Good Marketing Platform?

Here are the benefits of leveraging X:

• Drives Customer Engagement: X is the 3^rd most used social network and has an average engagement rate of 4.6%. And since the platform thrives on immediacy, marketers have the unique opportunity to ride the wave of trending discussions, facilitating user interaction in real time.
• Improves Brand Awareness: As mentioned above, X has 335.7 million monthly users, offering you a tremendous audience for your ads. Further, 76% of X users say they have purchased a product because of X conversations, and 80% leverage the platform to discover new products.
• Increases Website Traffic: X can help drive traffic to your primary website. You can leverage it as a distribution channel to share links to your articles, ebooks, case studies, product pages, etc. This helps you boost your lead generation efforts as well.

Additional read: Building Brand Awareness: Here’s everything you need to know

Leveraging Audience Insights in X

X offers ‘Audience Insights,’ a tool that helps you understand your customers better. It offers insight into age groups, interests, preferences, gender, device type, and more to help you create targeted and relevant ads that drive marketing goals. You can leverage its location insights to personalize ads as per the user’s location and can also time your ads to have them visible when your audience is most active.

Smart Budget Allocation in X

Here’s how you can make the most out of your X ads budget:

• Define Objectives: Ascertain your marketing goal. Is it increasing website visits, driving followers, or boosting engagement? This will ultimately be your guiding light.
• Daily vs. Total Budget: You can set a daily and a total budget on X. While the former restricts how much you spend in a day, the latter regulates the allocation for the entire campaign. Selecting one will depend on your campaign’s length and intensity.
• Manual vs Automatic Bidding: Manual bidding gives you more control over your campaign and allows you to set your maximum bid amount for Cost per Click (CPC), Cost per lead (CPL), etc. Automatic bidding involves X optimizing your bid amounts to drive your Return on Ad Spend.
• Tracking and Tweaking: Monitor campaign performance and adjust bids or reallocate the budget as needed.
• Analyze Ad Placements: You can place your ads in timelines, profiles, etc. Be sure to analyze each ad format in relation to its cost to optimize your budget allocation. 
• Make Seasonal Adjustments: Holidays, sports events, etc., might result in a sudden surge in ad competition, requiring you to raise your bid amounts for ad visibility.
• A/B Testing: Always leverage A/B testing to ascertain the ad version that performs best with your audience.

Additional read: X (Twitter) Ad Campaigns – The Most Important Metrics to Track and Optimize

What Type of Content Performs Best on X? 

Here are top performing content types:

• Text-only posts that are quick and concise and include attention-grabbing headlines, thought-provoking questions, and witty one-liners
• High-quality visual content such as videos, GIFs, and images
• User Generated Content (UGC) such as customer testimonials, reviews, etc., help offer social proof for your claims
• Ads and posts about industry trends and news can help establish industry leadership
• Contests and promotions can encourage engagement and drive website traffic

How Much Do X Ads Cost? 

Luckily for marketers, the cost of running an X campaign is directly tied to your budget. In other words, the amount you spend on X ads depends on how much you’re willing to shell out. 

That said, X ads can typically cost between $0.26 to $0.50 per first action and rise to between $1.01 to $2 per follow for promoted accounts.

Drive the Success of your X Marketing Campaigns with EasyInsights

X ads can be a game-changer for your marketing initiatives. But as is the case, with all marketing tools, you need to keep a finger on how it’s performing to ensure you’re on the right path. And while you have X’s own analytics to bolster that, it can offer only so much insight into your campaigns.

If you’re looking to drive your ROI and get a complete understanding of how your X ads are performing in relation to other campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, etc., consider integrating EasyInsights. With this no-code CDP, you can source data from over 200 sources onto a single platform to answer questions like:

• Is my budget allocated efficiently?
• What’s my overall marketing ROI?
• What are my top-performing marketing channels?

Don’t sit in the dark any longer. Book a demo now!