How to Run Twitter Ads

Running ads on X (formerly Twitter) is a powerful way to put your brand in front of the right people, drive traffic, and generate leads right within the live, conversational flow of the platform. This guide breaks down exactly how to create, target, and measure X ad campaigns from start to finish. We'll walk through setting up your account, choosing the right objectives, designing effective ad creative, and nailing your audience targeting so you can launch your first campaign with confidence.

First Things First: Getting Your X Ads Account Ready

Before you can launch a campaign, you need to get your house in order. Getting access to the X Ads manager is quick, but there are a few prerequisites you need to have in place.

Requirements for X Advertising

To run ads, you need a standard X account that meets a few basic criteria:

• An X Premium (or Verified Organizations) Subscription: This is a recent change. You must be subscribed to either X Premium (the blue checkmark) or Verified Organizations to be eligible for advertising.
• A Complete Profile: Your account needs a profile picture and a bio. An account that looks empty or spammy isn't likely to be approved.
• An Active Account: Your account must have a public history of recent posts and engagement. You can't just sign up and start running ads immediately.

Once you meet these requirements, you're ready to set up your ads account. Just head over to ads.x.com and log in with your credentials. You'll be prompted to add your country and time zone to finalize the setup.

Step 1: Choose Your Campaign Objective

The very first step in creating a new campaign is choosing your objective. This is you telling X what you want to achieve. Getting this right is important because the platform will optimize your ad delivery to hit that specific goal.

X offers a simple choice between two core objectives:

Maximize Engagement

Suited for marketers who want direct, hands-on control over their campaigns. This option allows you to manage specific objectives and is best for those experienced with manual campaign setup.

Automated Advertising

Use automated advertising, called "Promote," to amplify your brand's voice and reach through a combination of Promoted Accounts and Promoted Posts - a quick way to grow your following and engage more people from as little as $79 a month.

Step 2: Define Your Budget and Campaign Details

With your objective set, it's time to talk money and timelines. This is where you tell X how much you're willing to spend and when your ads should run.

Ad Group Details

An Ad Group contains your budget, targeting, and schedule for one or more ads within your larger campaign.

A campaign will automatically populate one ad group to start, however, you can add additional ad groups enabling you to:

• Test a specific variable and compare it to another ad group by only changing one variable (such as targeting or flight dates).
• Run ads focused on different goals underneath a larger overall theme (for example, creating a conversion ad group and engagement ad group while both remaining in the same overall campaign).

Bidding and Budgeting Options

Next, you declare the name of your first ad group. This won't affect its performance, but you could use a name that describes what you'll be testing or who you'll reach within your first ad group, such as "New Visitors - Desktop".

Once named, you'll be asked to provide your Ad group start date followed by the ad group end time if one applies.

You'll encounter two main types of budgets and bids:

• Total ad group budget: This is the maximum amount you'll spend for the entire duration of this ad group's run, for example, $20. This allows more spending on days where there's great engagement, such as a weekend. Just set it and forget it.
• Daily budget: The maximum daily amount you will spend on an advert on X, such as $20 a day, which provides day-over control on spending.

Step 3: Nail Your Audience Targeting

This is where you zero in on who sees your ad. Strong content can fall flat if it reaches the wrong audience, so spend some time here. X offers a robust range of tools within the ads platform that helps you target accurately. They broadly come under two overarching categories called "Audience Type" as below:

New Audiences

Allow X's algorithm to identify and target new people who are most likely to be interested in your business.

Custom Audiences

Retarget engagers, re-engage mobile app users, upload your contact lists, or connect with visitors to your business online. A powerful way of retargeting people who are already in your audience.

Demographic Targeting

This is your starting point. You can get granular with targeting based on:

• Location: Target users by country, metropolitan statistical area, or postcode.
• Age: Select specific age ranges that fit you or your client's personas.
• Gender: Target specific genders or leave it to include everyone.
• Device: Limit your ads to certain devices such as iOS, Android, and desktops. A handy tool for reaching different device segments or testing device performance.

Advanced Audience Feature Targeting

• Keyword Targeting: This is exceptionally powerful as X is a platform. With this feature, you can show your ads to users who have recently posted about, searched for, or engaged with specific search terms. For example, a local photographer could target keywords like "wedding photographer London," "family photos," or "corporate headshot tips."
• Follower Look-Alikes: Target the followers of specific accounts, such as competitors or influencers in your niche. By entering their usernames, you can reach an audience that has already demonstrated interest in your industry, products, or services.
• Interests: X categorizes users into interest groups based on their engagement history over time. For example, a travel brand could target users in the "Adventure Travel" interest category.
• Conversation Topics: This is similar in some ways to keyword targeting but looks for conversations, so instead of targeting users who have previously engaged with a particular phrase or keyword, you're able to target an overall conversation that may be trending on X.

Step 4: Create Compelling Ad Creative

With your objective, budget, and targeting locked in, you need to create the actual ad people will see. What works on X is content that feels organic, immediate, and serves a purpose.

Single Image Post

This is your bread and butter - a post built around a single eye-catching or animated image with just a little bit of accompanying text. It's perfect for a direct, visual message.

Video Content

Video is a powerful visual medium for demonstrating your product or service. Keep it short (ideally under two minutes) to capture attention quickly. Design your video with text overlays to be impactful even without sound, as many users watch with audio off.

Carousel Ads

This format helps as you can showcase many products or services in just one place using a carousel, allowing people to scroll through each picture. This ad type is very interactive and ideal for e-commerce brands wanting to provide a wider view of their products. Note: Availability for this ad format may depend on your account's verification level and advertiser status.

Note - you may well also see other formats such as Takeovers appear once setting up your ads, which allow advertising to appear throughout the website. These options are typically more pricey.

Once you have placed your creatives into their respective Ad groups, click "Next" to proceed to the final review.

Step 5: Launch, Monitor, and Optimize

You're almost done. Simply review your campaign launch details on the final page, which details all the inputs you've set up so far, including:

• Campaign name
• Funding source
• Start & end time
• Ad group
• Optimization preference
• Placement & more...

Simply hitting "Launch Campaign" will set your campaign live for everyone that fits your audience specifications.

Launching a campaign isn't the finish line. The best advertisers continuously track results, test creative, and tweak their campaigns as data comes in. Return to your X ads dashboard regularly to monitor your progress.

Key Metrics to Monitor

Once your campaign is live, track its performance in the X Ads dashboard. Here are some key metrics to understand:

• Impressions: The total number of times your ad has been seen.
• CPM (Cost Per Mille): The average cost for one thousand impressions.
• Reach: The number of unique individuals who have viewed your ad.
• Results: The number of times people took your desired action after seeing your ad.

Run A/B Tests

To really discover what connects with your audience, create duplicate versions of an ad with just one changed element. Then, compare the results to see which change had the biggest impact. Here are a few things to consider testing:

• Different caption (e.g., asking a question versus making a direct statement).
• Varying graphics images or a single video thumbnail change. Does a different color scheme or video opening work more effectively?
• One or more CTA changes, like ("Download our guide" versus "Learn More").

Final Thoughts

Running successful campaigns on X is a mix of understanding the platform, defining clear goals, targeting smartly, and crafting content that feels native to the feed. By following this guide, you have a solid framework for launching ad campaigns that connect with your audience and drive meaningful results for your business.

While a savvy ads strategy is vital, paid traffic works best when it directs people to a thriving organic presence. A consistent organic presence builds the trust and authority that paid campaigns amplify. To streamline this process, a scheduling tool like Postbase can help you plan, organize, and publish your content efficiently, ensuring your organic feed is always active and engaging.