The advertising revenue for X/Twitter is looking set to slide as research reveals more than a quarter of advertisers are planning to cut their spending.
From interviews with 1000 senior marketers around the world, the data firm, Kantar, reports that 26% have decided to cut down their spend on X/Twitter while 14% said that they would stop running promotions on the platform completely.
The company’s global revenues have already halved from $4.14bn in 2022. Musk took over at the end of that year and has frequently hit out at advertisers publicly as they continue to move away. Revenues are predicted to fall to $1.9bn by the end of this year.
Confidence Dips as Musk’s Tirades Rise
The research, which also canvassed 18,000 consumers, revealed exactly how dissatisfied advertisers are as concerns around unpredictability and misinformation grow.
“Marketers are brand custodians and need to trust the platforms they use,” said Gonca Bubani, a director at Kantar said in a statement. “X has changed so much in recent years and can be unpredictable from one day to the next. It is difficult to feel confident about your brand safety in that environment.”
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The research reveals that only 4% of marketers think adverts on X/ Twitter “provide brand safety”. To put this into context, Google came top in this category with 39%. Instead, marketers are opting for the safer option in YouTube.
Spats and Threats Send Advertisers Running
Musk’s often explosive and erratic behavior is undeniably playing a role in the drop in confidence. The tech billionaire has engaged in many public spats recently including over the riots in the UK, the sharing a deepfake of Kamala Harris and the decision by the Brazilian Government to uphold a ban of his platform.
In a move sure to have chilled advertisers, X/Twitter has also opted to sue a group of companies – including Unilever, Mars and CVS Health – as well a global advertising alliance. They are being accused of fronting a “massive advertiser boycott,” wrote The Guardian. In what is becoming regular occurrence, Musk exploded in response with a public Tweet. “We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” he declared.
Last November, Musk used an on-stage interview to lash out at advertisers following a backlash after he called an anti-Semitic Tweet “the actual truth”. Walt Disney, Apple, IBM and Coca-Cola were among the companies who pulled ads. Musk’s response to them was an expletive filled rant. His message to these companies, filmed in front of the audience in New York, was: “Don’t advertise. If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself.”
X Singled Out as a Source of Misinformation
The EU also singled X/Twitter out as a source of misinformation and urged Musk to sort it out. It followed a study of 6,000 unique social media posts across a spread of platforms. X/Twitter was revealed to be the worst offender, with the largest “ratio of discoverability” of disinformation.
With Musk’s behavior unlikely to be curbed, advertisers will continue to show their disapproval by spending the dollars elsewhere. The Kantar team write that this is a trend that has been growing for years and is now “accelerating”. A turnaround in fortunes for X/Twitter is therefore “unlikely” with Musk at the wheel.
