Elon Musk’s X Corp is cutting back its advertising prices by as much as 50 percent to woo back its advertisers.
The social media giant, formerly known as Twitter, is offering incentives on certain advert formats in the US and the UK, reports The Wall Street Journal.
It has offered reduced pricing on video adverts that run alongside a list of trending topics in its ‘Explore’ tab which would give brands 24 hours on top of the popular section.
Emails sent to advertisers this week reportedly show that brands have been warned they will lose their verified status if they fail to reach certain spending thresholds.
It comes as the company has struggled to draw in new advertising commitments following Musk’s $44 billion takeover last October.
Elon Musk’s X Corp is cutting back its advertising prices by as much as 50 percent to woo back its advertisers
The social media giant, formerly known as Twitter, is offering incentives on certain advert formats in the US and the UK, according to The Wall Street Journal
X is offering companies 50 percent off video ads that run alongside the trending topics on any new bookings until July 31.
‘The goal of these discounts is to help our advertisers gain reach during crucial moments on Twitter such as the Women’s World Cup,’ one email sent to advertisers read.
From August 7, brands will lose their gold verification mark if they haven’t spent at least $1,000 on adverts in the last 30 days or $6,000 on ads in the previous 180 days, the email states.
Companies see verification on the social platform as important because impersonators could misrepresent them and damage their brand like some users did early during Musk’s ownership.
Musk revealed earlier this month that X had seen a ‘~50% drop in advertising revenue’ and had a negative cash flow.
He has brought in Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s former head of advertising, as the company’s chief executive to draw brands back in.
The billionaire insists it could soon be cash-flow positive soon. Twitter battled years of losses before it was taken over by Musk last year and it took on billions in debt with his acquisition.
It is not the first time X has tried to boost its revenue by offering ad discounts as the company offered large incentives around the Super Bowl which is its biggest ad-revenue generator.
The company makes most of its money from advertising but has struggled to gain new commitments.
Brands are said to be concerned over the billionaire’s management approach and content moderation.
The advertising industry is also in a decline and other media companies have started to offer brands discounts.
X is offering companies 50 percent off video ads that run alongside the trending topics on any new bookings until July 31
It comes after Musk revealed a dramatic rebranding of Twitter with its famous blue bird logo replaced by an X and the X.com domain now directs users to the Twitter website
Companies such as Mondelez International have returned to spending on the X platform, according to the Journal.
But other brands have stayed away, ad buyers have claimed.
Doug Rozen, CEO of Dentsu Media, Americas, last month said the agency’s spending on Twitter was still down by around 70 percent.
Ad buyers hope Yaccarino will provide stability to the social media platform and say she understands how important content moderation is for advertisers.
She ‘is a known quantity in terms of understanding brands,’ said Christina Hanson, CEO of ad-buying agency OMD USA.
Advertisers have said working with X has been worrying at times. The company limited how many posts users could read on July 1.
Musk said this was done to stop other companies from scraping the platform for data and was a temporary measure.
It had a negative impact on the advertising industry as limited visibility meant fewer users saw adverts which caused the price of adverts to rise.
An agency saw prices jump by nearly 15 percent during this period, an ad buyer claimed.
While another said it saw a decrease in engagement with adverts but a few days later X said the effects on advertising had been minimal.
It comes after Musk revealed a dramatic rebranding of Twitter with its famous blue bird logo replaced by an X and the X.com domain now directs users to the Twitter website.
He renamed Twitter as X on Monday and unveiled a new logo for the social media platform, a stylized black-and-white version of the letter.