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Elon Musk and his X leadership team still have a long way to go to lure advertisers back to the platform following the owner’s bid to smooth relations at the Cannes Lions Festival last month, six sources told ADWEEK.
Musk dialed back on his 2023 provocative “go fuck yourself” comment to advertisers, explaining that X is using artificial intelligence to improve ad targeting capabilities.
“There’s still a long way to go to get buyers back on X,” the first agency executive, who wasn’t authorized to speak to media, told ADWEEK. “What also has to happen is more tangible updates to the products, and not just lip service of ‘come back.’”
Further, Stagwell CEO Mark Penn’s comments that Stagwell is telling clients to “absolutely test advertising [on X] and see if it works” is a little bolder than what at least one Stagwell agency is telling clients, which is to be cautious as brand safety concerns still loom, according to a second executive familiar with the matter. That agency is advising partners that there is an audience to engage with on the platform. As Penn previously noted, “the platform has improved its brand safety approach compared with a year ago, partly thanks to AI and the fact-checking tool Community Notes.”
“Clients have been holding back on ad spend,” the second executive said. “X doesn’t have the manpower to help agencies for direct connection, and we haven’t seen enough to have full confidence in brand safety.”
In June, X had 26.2 million daily active mobile application users in the U.S., down 13% year-over-year, according to Sensor Tower estimates. The firm also estimates that 73 of the top 100 advertisers have stopped advertising on X since October 2022, shortly before the acquisition, concerned with how the platform handles content moderation and brand safety.
Ad dollars on X dropped 20% year-over-year in 2024, from $788 million in 2023 to $628 million, per MediaRadar. The number of companies advertising on X also dipped 11% year-over-year, from nearly 12,000 in 2023 to 10,600 in 2024 during the same period.
“It’s wartime, and dollars are hard to come by in general,” the first agency executive said. “Because of brand safety issues, [not spending on X] is an easy decision to make.” Musk’s history of amplifying antitrans and antisemitic comments to his 188.6 million followers still has buyers nervous.
For its part, X has seen some brand safety developments under CEO Linda Yaccarino’s leadership, including a partnership with Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify. The latter, however, apologized in April after erroneously providing wrong data for X to advertisers.
But with the upcoming U.S. elections, Musk’s free-speech agenda adds to the platform’s volatility, sources said.
“There’s going be a lot of [political] content on X,” said Shamsul Chowdhury, executive vice president of paid social at Jellyfish. “How does X manage that and make brands feel safe to be in that space?”
X had not responded to comments by press time.
Using a chatbot to streamline ad targeting
Details of X’s AI-powered ad targeting capabilities are scant.
Other platforms have been offering some type of AI-ad targeting for years, with Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+ ratcheting up the most recent headlines for being effective but also not entirely transparent.
In the past month, the first agency executive was shown a preview of an AI targeting tool from X that had a similar interface to ChatGPT. Buyers can type in their target audience—for instance, people who enjoy running or are in running clubs.
“The current status quo is that you manually toggle targeting options like demographics or psychographic behavior,” the first agency executive said. “[The AI tool] is trying to make that streamlined.”
However, because not much active spending is happening on the platform through this agency, it has yet to test the tool on a live campaign.
This exec also noted that X lacks the performance-driven tools available on rival platforms such as Meta, TikTok and Snap.
“There’s no shortage of platforms for advertisers to spend their ad dollars,” said Chowdhury. “How does X make a claim for the budget when they don’t necessarily have the ad products that are competitive to their peer set?”
This article has been updated to clarify that the Stagwell agency is advising partners that there is an audience to engage with on X.
