X Ads in 2025: What Works, What Doesn’t—And How to Get the Most Out of It
Some time ago, as an agency, we started looking for ways to partially replace overpriced LinkedIn campaigns. Since X offered a $500 welcome bonus, we decided to give it a try. We launched several campaigns—both for our own self-promotion and for clients—and evaluated the results after two months.
The outcomes pointed us in a clear direction, not just for our own efforts but also for clients who, based on the initial data, are now considering their next moves. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how Twitter (now X) Ads work, their advantages, and the key challenges every advertiser should keep in mind.
About the X
The platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has been a key space for sharing breaking news and real-time updates since its launch in 2006. The original idea by Jack Dorsey—to create a space where people could post short messages limited to 140 characters—quickly found its audience. Today, users can share posts up to 280 characters long. Thanks to this concise format, X became the go-to tool for politicians, journalists, and influencers to communicate with large audiences.
In 2022, the platform underwent significant changes following its acquisition by Elon Musk, shifting toward a model of more open discussion with minimal content moderation. This decision has both advantages and drawbacks—but in this article, we’ll focus on a different angle. While X.com hosts a wide variety of users, its core audience consists primarily of people aged 25 to 49. It particularly attracts tech enthusiasts, professionals across industries, journalists, and influencers who follow news, trends, and topics like technology, business, politics, or lifestyle.
Since 2014, businesses have also been able to advertise on the platform, opening up new possibilities for targeted marketing. Although X is not as widely used in the Czech Republic as Facebook (only about 4% of internet users—roughly 400,000 people—use X), the platform offers some compelling advertising advantages: targeting can be based on demographics, interests, or real-time conversations, making it a strong choice for reaching active, engaged audiences. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how to use X Ads effectively—and highlight the key challenges advertisers should be aware of.
Why Consider X Ads?
Direct connection with the target audience: X.com focuses on real-time communication with users actively engaging in current discussions and trends.
Advanced targeting options: The platform allows you to target based on interests, keywords, conversations, and demographics—boosting the relevance of your ads.
Flexible ad formats: X offers various formats such as promoted tweets, carousel ads, and video content.
Measurable results: Robust analytics tools let you track performance and optimize campaigns based on reach and engagement.
Occasional promotional offers: What motivated us—and our clients—to try the platform was a promotional credit. In our case, we spent $250 and received an additional $250 through a coupon, effectively doubling our budget to $500.
Overview of Ad Formats on X
X offers several types of ads that can be tailored to your target market and marketing objectives:
Promoted Ads: These are ideal for reaching users in their feed and attracting attention without disrupting regular content. In 90% of cases, advertisers will use this format. Other formats tend to serve as a complement.
Within Promoted Ads, you can use:
- Image Ads
- Video Ads
- Carousel Ads
- Text Ads
Vertical Video Ads: Essentially, this is a Reels-style format that’s very popular across social media platforms.
Among the many available formats, we can also mention X Amplify, X Takeovers, X Live, Dynamic Product Ads, Collection Ads, and X Ad Features. If you’d like to learn more about each format, visit the official X website.
Campaign Setup and Targeting
At the beginning, you can choose from three campaign types:
Awareness: Campaigns focused on reach.
Consideration: Ideal for generating interaction with your brand. This campaign type can be further customized with the following objectives:
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Video views – Generate views for your video content
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Pre-roll views – Video ads shown before video content
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App installs – Drive mobile app installations
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Website clicks – Generate traffic to your website
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Engagements – Promote interactions with your content
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Followers – Gain new followers for your account
Conversion: This objective focuses on driving specific actions directly within the app.
Types of Payment, Campaign Flow, and Timing
When setting up a campaign on X, the first step is to select its duration—either for a limited period or with no end date. The next step is choosing the objective fulfillment method. For example, in traffic-focused campaigns, we recommend selecting “site visits” instead of “link clicks.”
This is followed by bid type selection, where you can choose automatic bidding or manually set values for CPM, CPC, etc. As with most platforms, we recommend using Autobid for optimal results. In terms of payment method, both X and we generally suggest using impression-based CPM.
Next is ad placement. X allows ads to be shown in users’ main timelines, on user profiles, and within search results.
Another important step is the brand safety section, where you can define whether your ad can appear near explicit content—and how explicit that content can be. X is planning to introduce ad placements alongside highly explicit content in the future, which may present a challenge for some advertisers depending on their brand guidelines. As expected, you can also exclude specific accounts or profiles from your targeting.
Comment Restrictions
The X platform allows advertisers to limit or even completely disable comments under ads, which can be a major advantage for certain campaigns.
Ad Targeting
Demographic targeting on X includes geographic options at the level of the entire Czech and Slovak Republics, as well as the ability to select the language your ad is targeting.
For targeting based on age, gender, and technical specifications—such as device model, operating system, or mobile carrier—X offers several options, including the ability to show ads only on devices connected via Wi-Fi (formerly popular for app download campaigns). You can also target users with new devices.
If you want to target conversations, X allows you to choose from over 10,000 topics across 25 categories such as sports, lifestyle, or books. Campaigns can also use keywords that users have typed, interacted with, or searched for on X.
For optimal results, the platform recommends including at least 25 relevant keywords per campaign. X also supports interest-based targeting, divided into 25 main categories and 350 subcategories—maximum effectiveness can be achieved by selecting ten subcategories and evaluating performance continuously.
TV content targeting is available abroad, but this option is not currently offered in our region. Another targeting method is audience lookalikes—targeting users who follow a specific account. For example, users following @TwitterBusiness may be interested in advertising on X. It’s recommended to select around 30 relevant accounts, ideally without combining this with interest-based targeting.
We’ve found that running two separate campaigns—one targeting interests and the other targeting followers of specific accounts—works well.
Creating an Ad
The ad creation process is simple and very similar to platforms like LinkedIn or TikTok. You select the format, upload your own creative and write the copy—or choose directly from your existing ad gallery.
Just don’t forget to create a UTM parameter, so your data tracks correctly in Google Analytics.
What Results Have We Seen So Far—and What Do We Think of the Platform?
Our newly gained experience has shown that X Ads deliver pleasantly low cost-per-reach and cost-per-click for B2B campaigns—helping our clients drive solid traffic to their websites, with the occasional conversion along the way.
Even brand awareness campaigns have solid potential here, especially when targeting a qualified, higher-income audience. The cost per reach is significantly lower than on LinkedIn. However, broader targeting can bring in less relevant users as well. One interesting bonus: increased interest from journalists, who often browse X for sources and stories.
From our perspective, X is a valuable addition to the media mix—particularly in certain industries where it deserves attention. It may not be the platform you bet everything on, but it certainly has something to offer. Given its specific user base and high engagement rate, it also provides useful insights into market sentiment and public opinion.
For companies looking for new ways to reach decision-makers or raise brand awareness, X Ads can be a strong tool. We recommend allocating a test budget over 2–3 months—ideally in the lower tens of thousands of CZK—to see what this platform is capable of. Who knows, it might just become your new secret weapon in digital advertising.
Source: https://business.x.com/en/advertising & https://www.cernovsky.cz/marketing/reklama-na-twitteru/
