X (Twitter) Ads Guide: Setup, Costs & Strategies

X (formerly Twitter) offers advertisers something unique in the social media landscape: real-time access to public conversations. While other platforms optimize for friend-and-family connections or entertainment scrolling, X is where news breaks, opinions form, and cultural moments happen. For brands that want to be part of the conversation rather than just interrupting it, X advertising provides targeting and creative options that leverage this real-time, public nature.

This guide covers everything you need to launch your first X advertising campaign, from account setup through optimization. Whether you're promoting a product launch, driving app installs, or building thought leadership, you'll understand how to use X's unique capabilities effectively in 2026.

Getting Started with X Ads Manager

X Ads Manager is the self-serve platform where you'll create and manage all your advertising campaigns. Before launching ads, you need to set up your advertising account, add payment information, and install tracking, all of which takes just a few minutes but is essential for success.

Setting Up Your X Advertising Account

To access X Ads, you need an active X account. While any account can create ads, accounts with established history and followers tend to have better ad approval rates and audience trust.

1. Navigate to ads.x.com or click "Ads" from the X sidebar menu
2. Select your country and time zone (these cannot be changed later)
3. Add your billing information: credit card or debit card
4. Set your account funding: add initial funds or enable automatic payments
5. Verify your business information if prompted (required for some ad types)

X organizes advertising into a simple hierarchy: Campaigns contain Ad Groups, and Ad Groups contain individual Ads. Campaigns define your objective, Ad Groups control targeting and budget, and Ads contain your creative content. This structure allows you to test multiple audiences and creative variations within a single campaign objective.

Installing the X Pixel

The X Pixel (also called the website tag) tracks visitor behavior on your website, enabling conversion tracking, audience building, and optimization for website actions. Install it before launching campaigns to start gathering data immediately.

Find your X Pixel in Ads Manager under Tools > Events Manager > Add event source. You'll receive a base code snippet to add to every page of your website, plus event-specific codes for tracking purchases, sign-ups, or other conversions. Most advertisers install the base code through a tag manager like Google Tag Manager, then configure events for key conversion actions.

After installation, verify it's working by checking the Events Manager for incoming data. The pixel typically takes a few hours to show activity. Once verified, create conversion events for the actions you want to track and optimize against.

Understanding X Campaign Objectives

Every X campaign starts with selecting an objective that tells the platform what outcome to optimize for. This choice determines available ad formats, bidding options, and how X's algorithm delivers your ads. Selecting the wrong objective means you'll pay for the wrong actions.

The Six Campaign Objectives

Choosing the Right Objective for Your Goals

Your objective should align with where customers are in their journey with your brand:

• Top of funnel (awareness): Reach or Video Views to introduce your brand to new audiences
• Middle of funnel (consideration): Engagements or Website Traffic to nurture interested prospects
• Bottom of funnel (conversion): Website Traffic with conversion optimization or App Installs for direct response

For beginners, Website Traffic with a clear call-to-action landing page often delivers the most measurable results. Video Views works well for brands with strong video content who want to build awareness before pushing for conversions. Avoid Engagements as a primary objective unless social proof and community building are genuine business goals, as likes and retweets don't necessarily translate to revenue.

X Ad Formats: Choosing Your Creative Approach

X offers multiple ad formatsdesigned for different objectives and content types. Understanding your options helps you match format to message for maximum impact.

Promoted Ads (Standard Formats)

Promoted Ads appear in users' timelines and search results, looking like organic posts with a "Promoted" label. These are the most versatile and commonly used ad formats.

• Image Ads: Single image with text. Clean and simple, good for product shots, announcements, or visual storytelling. Supports 1.91:1, 1:1, and 16:9 aspect ratios.
• Video Ads: Videos up to 2:20 (though 15-30 seconds performs best). Autoplay in-feed makes video highly engaging. Best for demonstrations, storytelling, and brand awareness.
• Carousel Ads: 2-6 swipeable images or videos. Ideal for showcasing multiple products, features, or telling a sequential story.
• Text Ads: Plain text posts with a link. Low production requirements but can still drive strong engagement for compelling messages.

Specialized Ad Formats

• Follower Ads: Promote your account to gain followers. Your handle appears with a Follow button in the "Who to follow" section and timelines.
• Amplify Pre-roll: Video ads that play before premium publisher content. Reach users in a lean-back viewing context with higher attention.
• X Live: Promote live broadcasts to expand reach during live events, Q&As, or product launches.
• Dynamic Product Ads: Automatically show relevant products from your catalog to users who visited your site or engaged with your app.

Premium Placements (X Takeover)

For maximum impact campaigns, X offers premium takeover placements:

• Timeline Takeover: Your ad is the first ad users see when they open X each day. Premium pricing (often $200,000+ for major markets) but unmatched reach for launches and events.
• Trend Takeover: Your promoted trend appears at the top of the Explore tab's trending topics. Includes a companion ad for amplification.
• Trend Takeover+: Enhanced trend placement with video creative that auto-plays when users tap the trend.

For most advertisers, start with Promoted Ads featuring video. Video consistently outperforms static images for engagement and recall on X, and the format works across all objectives.

Targeting Your Audience on X

X's targeting capabilities leverage the platform's unique nature as a public conversation space. While you can use standard demographic targeting, X's real power lies in interest, keyword, and conversation-based targeting that reaches users based on what they're actively discussing.

Demographic Targeting

Interest and Behavior Targeting

X determines interests based on accounts users follow, content they engage with, and topics they discuss. This provides insight into genuine interests rather than just declared preferences.

• Interest Categories: 25 broad categories with hundreds of sub-interests, from "Business & Finance" to "Sports" to "Technology."
• Follower Lookalikes: Target users similar to followers of any public account, including competitors. Powerful for reaching audiences interested in your space.
• Conversation Topics: Target users based on topics X has identified them discussing, using natural language processing across tweets.

Keyword Targeting

Keyword targeting is X's most unique capability. You can reach users who have:

• Tweeted specific keywords or phrases
• Engaged with (liked, retweeted, replied to) tweets containing keywords
• Searched for keywords on X

This enables real-time targeting around conversations as they happen. A fitness brand can target users tweeting about "starting my fitness journey" or "need workout motivation." A B2B software company can reach users discussing specific pain points or competitor products.

Custom Audiences

Build audiences from your own data for remarketing and lookalike expansion:

• Website Activity: Users who visited your site (requires X Pixel)
• App Activity: Users who installed or engaged with your mobile app
• Customer Lists: Upload email lists or mobile advertising IDs to reach existing customers
• Engagement Audiences: Users who engaged with your organic or promoted content

Targeting Best Practices

Setting Your X Advertising Budget

X advertising operates on an auction system where you compete with other advertisers for the same audiences. Your costs depend on targeting competitiveness, ad quality, and bidding strategy.

Understanding X Pricing

X offers flexible pricing with no minimum spend requirement. However, extremely low budgets limit optimization and delivery. Here's what to expect:

Budget Allocation Strategy

For your first X campaign, budget enough to gather meaningful optimization data. X's algorithm needs conversions to learn what works for your specific audience and creative.

• Minimum recommended: $30-$50/day for 2+ weeks to gather sufficient data
• Testing phase: Run 3-4 ad variations at $50-$100/day total
• Scaling phase: Increase budgets 20-30% every few days for winning campaigns

X allows both daily budgets (consistent spend) and total campaign budgets (spend across campaign duration). For ongoing campaigns, daily budgets provide more predictable delivery. For time-bound promotions, total budgets ensure you don't overspend.

Bidding Options

X offers several bidding strategies:

• Auto bid: X automatically optimizes bids to get results at the lowest cost. Best for beginners and when you want maximum delivery within budget.
• Maximum bid: Set a ceiling on what you'll pay per action. Useful when you know your target CPA or want to control costs strictly.
• Target bid: Tell X your target cost per action, and it optimizes to achieve that average. Good for predictable unit economics.

Start with Auto bid to learn what costs look like for your audience and creative, then switch to Maximum or Target bid once you have benchmark data.

Creating Your First X Campaign: Step-by-Step

With your account set up and fundamentals understood, here's how to build your first campaign from scratch.

Step 1: Create a New Campaign

1. Go to ads.x.com and click "Create campaign"
2. Select your campaign objective (Website Traffic recommended for beginners)
3. Name your campaign descriptively (include objective, audience, date)

Step 2: Set Up Your Ad Group

1. Name your ad group (describe the targeting or creative theme)
2. Set your budget (daily or total) and schedule
3. Select bid strategy (Auto bid for beginners)
4. Choose goal optimization (Link clicks, Conversions, etc.)

Step 3: Configure Targeting

1. Set location targeting (required)
2. Add interest or keyword targeting relevant to your audience
3. Consider Follower Lookalikes of relevant accounts
4. Add any demographic filters (age, gender) if needed
5. Review estimated audience size (aim for at least 500,000 for broad campaigns)

Step 4: Create Your Ad

1. Write compelling ad copy (280 characters max, front-load key message)
2. Add your media: image (1200x675 recommended), video (1:1 or 16:9), or carousel
3. Include a clear call-to-action in both copy and visual
4. Add your destination URL with appropriate UTM parameters for tracking
5. Preview across placements and devices

Step 5: Launch and Monitor

1. Review all settings and submit for approval
2. Ads typically approve within a few hours (sometimes minutes)
3. Monitor initial delivery and engagement in the first 24-48 hours
4. Let campaigns run 5-7 days before making optimization decisions

Ad Creative Best Practices for X

X's fast-moving, conversation-driven feed means creative needs to capture attention quickly while feeling native to the platform. Users are scrolling through news, opinions, and discussions, so your ads should match that context.

Writing Effective X Ad Copy

X's 280-character limit demands concision. Every word must earn its place.

• Lead with value: Start with the benefit or hook. Don't bury the lead.
• Use conversational tone: X is informal. Write like a smart person talking, not a billboard.
• Include a clear CTA: Tell users exactly what to do: "Shop now," "Read more," "Download free."
• Leverage urgency when appropriate: Time-limited offers or trending moments create action.
• Ask questions: Inviting response drives engagement and discussion.

Visual Creative Guidelines

Creative Testing Strategy

Run multiple ad variations to identify what resonates:

• Test different headlines/hooks with the same visual
• Test different visuals with the same copy
• Test video vs. static image for the same message
• Test question-based vs. statement-based copy

After 1-2 weeks of delivery, pause underperformers and create new variations building on winning elements. Continuous creative testing prevents ad fatigue and improves performance over time.

Measuring X Campaign Performance

X Ads Manager provides detailed reporting across campaigns, ad groups, and individual ads. Understanding which metrics matter for your objective prevents drowning in data while missing important signals.

Key Metrics by Objective

Using the X Analytics Dashboard

Beyond Ads Manager, X Analytics (analytics.x.com) provides insights into both organic and paid performance:

• Campaign Dashboard: Overall performance across all campaigns
• Ad Group Analysis: Compare targeting approaches
• Creative Breakdown: See which ads drive best results
• Audience Insights: Demographics and interests of engaged users
• Conversion Tracking: Measure website actions attributed to ads

For conversion-focused campaigns, integrate X reporting with your attribution system to track full-funnel performance beyond platform-reported metrics.

Common X Advertising Mistakes to Avoid

New X advertisers often make predictable mistakes that waste budget and discourage continued investment:

• Generic targeting: Using only demographics without interest or keyword targeting wastes X's unique capabilities
• Ignoring the Pixel: Launching campaigns without conversion tracking limits optimization and measurement
• Wrong objective selection: Choosing Engagements when you actually want conversions pays for vanity metrics
• Static creative in a video-first feed: Video significantly outperforms static images for most objectives
• Set-and-forget campaigns: X requires ongoing creative refresh to combat ad fatigue
• Overly promotional tone: X users expect conversation, not billboard advertising
• Ignoring real-time opportunities: Missing chances to tie campaigns to trending conversations and events
• Too-small budgets: Running $10/day campaigns that can't gather enough data to optimize

X Ads vs Other Platforms

Understanding where X fits in your marketing mix helps allocate budget effectively.

When X Outperforms

• Real-time marketing around news, events, and cultural moments
• B2B marketing to tech, finance, and media industries
• Reaching journalists, influencers, and thought leaders
• Product launches and time-sensitive announcements
• Building brand voice through conversation
• Targeting based on what people are actively discussing

When Other Platforms May Work Better

• Visual/lifestyle products (Instagram, Pinterest often better)
• Younger demographics and entertainment (TikTok stronger)
• Detailed professional targeting (LinkedIn more precise)
• Large-scale awareness at lowest CPM (Meta often cheaper)
• Search intent capture (Google Ads more direct)

Many successful advertisers combine X with other platforms. X for real-time conversation and thought leadership, Meta for broad reach and retargeting, and LinkedIn for deep professional targeting. Each platform serves different moments in the customer journey.

Next Steps After Your First Campaign

Once your first campaign is running and gathering data, expand your X advertising capabilities:

• Set up advanced conversion tracking for deeper optimization
• Explore different ad formats like carousel and Amplify pre-roll
• Build custom audiences from website visitors and email lists
• Test Follower Lookalike targeting using competitor accounts
• Develop real-time marketing strategies around trending topics
• Integrate X data with your broader marketing attribution

X advertising rewards brands that embrace the platform's conversational, real-time nature. Rather than simply pushing messages, the most successful advertisers join discussions, respond to trends, and create content worthy of engagement. Master the fundamentals covered here, then develop an authentic voice that resonates with X's unique audience.