X, the Elon Musk-owned platform formerly known as Twitter, has begun serving its users with a weird new ad format that is one of the company’s least transparent products yet.
The ads don’t allow users to like or retweet them, and they don’t disclose who the advertiser is or that they are even ads.
Mashable has confirmed this ad format with numerous users from across X and has seen a variety of ads running this bizarre new format that just consists of written copy text, a photo, and a fake avatar whose sole purpose is to make the ad look like an organically posted tweet.
The type of content being promoted in the ads appears to be consistent with ads found in spammy, low-quality “chumbox” advertising – typically defined as those clickbait ads found at the bottom of posts on content farm sites – made popular by native ad networks like Taboola.
Why is X showing these ads?
The presence of these ads is actually quite telling about the state of advertising on Musk’s social media platform.
Since Musk’s acquisition of the company, X has struggled to attract advertisers to the platform. Half of the platform’s biggest advertisers stopped running ads shortly after Musk’s takeover. Furthermore, according to a new report from Media Matters For America, the returned advertisers are spending up to 90 per cent less on advertising on X than they did before Musk acquired the company. Another recent report from Reuters found that Musk’s X has faced declining revenue each and every month since he became the owner of the company.
In order to help with declining ad revenue, X has turned to partnering with third parties within the ad tech industry to sell available advertising inventory. Just last month, Google announced it would be partnering with X to sell programmatic advertising. Earlier this year, X also partnered with InMobi, a mobile-focused programmatic ad sales company.
So, what does that mean?
Users are likely seeing these ads because X no longer has any direct ad inventory to serve them. This could mean that these particular users seeing these ads are not being targeted by any brands that are running ads at the moment. Brands advertising on X and targeting these users have exhausted their ad spend for the moment. It’s also possible that these users have blocked brand accounts that would’ve targeted them with ads otherwise.
Whatever the reason these users aren’t being served ads directly from the platform, the point is that they aren’t seeing them. And that means that X hasn’t been able to sell enough ad space directly to brands and needs to serve advertisements from ad networks instead. In turn, X makes less money as direct ad sales typically generate much more revenue for a company.
What can users do?
Unfortunately, there is no way to block these ads at the moment. However, users can report the ads to X by clicking on the three dots in the top right corner of the ad and selecting “Report Ad.”
Users can also try to avoid seeing these ads by blocking third-party ad trackers on their devices. This can be done through a variety of methods, such as using a browser extension like uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger.
The new X ads are just one more way that Musk is trying to make money off of the platform. However, these ads also indicate how desperate X is for advertisers. The fact that X is now resorting to Chumbox-esque advertising clearly indicates that the company is struggling.
