Twitter ads get you in front of 586 million highly engaged X users who open the app an average 16 times per day. (Most people only check their email three to five times per day!)
In 2025, X ads are easier to use than ever with automated campaigns you can set up in minutes and a better value than ever with AI targeting increasing conversions by 16% on average.
Keep reading to find out the newest Twitter ads updates and learn how to start your first X ads campaign today.
How much do X ads cost in 2025?
The short answer is, it depends. Ultimately, how much your X (Twitter) ads cost is up to you.
Right now, the price of an X ad could change in the next five minutes based on campaign objective, competition, seasonal trends, and many other factors.
That said, a recent analysis of 7,000 agencies by EnrichLabs found these average X ads cost benchmarks for 2025:
- Median Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): $21.55
- Cost Per Click (CPC): $0.18
- Median Cost Per Engagement (CPE): $0.13
- Conversion Rate: 0.02%
- Engagement Rate: 0.59%
Cost per mille (CPM) is another common ads cost metric and Hootsuite’s own Twitter ads CPM is $2.09, compared to $2.53 on Meta. Additionally, our CPC on X ads in 2025 is $0.74, compared to $1.41 on Meta.
“Not all social platforms are 1:1,” notes Cedric Bruce-Kotey, Senior Manager, Paid Social at Hootsuite. “Each have to be analyzed carefully.”
Twitter ads only cost $0.01 more than the next highest bidder, thanks to X’s “second price auction model.” For example, if I set my max bid at $2.80 but the ad I’m competing with for top spot bids $1.85, I pay $1.86 to win.
X offers two budgeting strategies to control your Twitter ads cost:
- Manual spending limits: Set a daily, campaign, and ad group budget.
- Automated Campaign Budget Optimization: You only have to specify a daily budget and campaign duration and X will optimize performance across all your Twitter ads and groups.
How to set up your X (Twitter) Ads account in 6 steps
First, double-check you’re logged into your business X (Twitter) account, then follow the steps below.
1. Create your Twitter ads account
Log in to your account at X.com then go to ads.x.com.
2. Choose your country and time zone
Select from the dropdown menus, then click Create your first ad.
3. Set up your first campaign (optional)
After completing the basic account set up information, you’ll be taken to the campaign section in X Ads Manager where you can create your first campaign (or do this later).
Choose your campaign objective (more on these later).
Some options may change depending on the objective you choose. Name your campaign then click Next.
Optionally, you can click Show advanced settings to have full control over all aspects of bidding, targeting, and more.
For most users, the simplified mode will deliver better performance while the advanced mode is best suited for experienced advertisers.
If you’re sticking with X’s recommended settings, the next step is choosing targeting settings. Once you’re happy with those, click Next.
Set your daily budget first — X will pre-fill a recommended budget — then enter your target CPA. This is how much you want to pay for each action, but not necessarily what you will pay, as costs fluctuate with the auction system.
You can create your actual X ads. Either upload media and write ad captions, or have Grok (X’s AI assistant) autofill this based on your website.
Once you’ve created all the ads for your campaign, you can save it as a draft or launch.
4. Enter billing information
You need to add a credit or debit card to launch a Twitter ads campaign.
Advertisers spending over $5,000 USD monthly can request an insertion order to streamline billing.
5. Launch your first Twitter ads campaign!
Once you’ve added a credit or debit card, you can begin running Twitter ads campaigns.
6. Enable multi-user login (optional)
For teams, it’s convenient to set up access permissions with multi-user login so more than one account can manage your X ads.
#1 tool for X marketing
Schedule tweets, answer comments, and manage ads from one spot. Then, show off your results in beautiful reports. It’s so easy.
Twitter ads campaign types (and when to use them)
There are currently nine X ads objectives. These aren’t the same as ad formats, such as a video or Promoted post. The campaign objective is the goal of your campaign, including all ads within it.
X (Twitter) ads campaigns are organized into goal groups:
Awareness Twitter ads
Reach
Source: @casadonramonmx on X
Objective: Maximize impressions.
When to use this campaign: Building brand awareness or promoting a new product, event, content series, etc.
How you’ll be charged: Per every 1,000 impressions.
Tips for success:
- Use three or more ad formats so your ads can appear in more places across X.
- Focus on one clear message per ad to build awareness without confusing a new audience.
Consideration Twitter ads
Video views
Objective: Get more video views.
When to use this campaign: Promote your top organic videos for expanded results, and build awareness.
How you’ll be charged: Per view. There are four bid types to choose from based on how long you want people to watch your video, ranging from two to 15 seconds.
Tips for success:
- Try enabling retargeting to target your ad to people who have previously engaged with your video content, as these are likely to be a source of quality views for a new campaign.
- Bid type impacts cost a lot here. For the lowest X ads cost, choose the two second watch time option.
- To target more interested buyers, choose the six or 15 second watch time bid type. Each view will cost more, but likely come from a more matched audience.
Pre-roll views
Similar to YouTube video ads, pre-roll ads are shown before a user watches an organic video. Your ad is paired with a topically relevant video, increasing the likelihood that the viewer will be interested.
Source: X
Objective: Get more video views from highly engaged viewers.
When to use this campaign: You want high quality video views from people who will likely watch your entire video (a.k.a. 15 seconds).
How you’ll be charged: Per view, with bid types optimizing for views from two to 15 seconds.
Tips for success:
- Think of your pre-roll ad like a TV commercial: it needs to be creative enough to make someone more interested in you than the video they actually clicked on.
- Viewers can skip after six seconds so put your most important messaging before then.
App installs
Promote your app to people most likely to download it. X (Twitter) users are 38% more likely to download an app from an ad compared to users on other social platforms.
Source: @OpusClip on X
Objective: Promote your app and boost downloads.
When to use this campaign: Great evergreen campaign option for promoting specific features to targeted audiences.
How you’ll be charged: Per click to the app store, except App Purchase Optimization mode, which charges per impression.
Tips for success:
Website traffic
Source: @framer on X
Objective: Get people to visit your website.
When to use this campaign: Promote new content, such as podcast episodes or items in your store, or get people to sign up for your newsletter or event.
How you’ll be charged: Per impression.
Tips for success:
- Try retargeting ads to re-engage people who’ve previously visited your website.
- Card or Carousel formats turn your ad into a giant button linking to your site. Try out these formats with engaging images.
Engagements
Engagement Twitter ads are all about getting people to take action. You can promote an existing organic post or create standalone engagement ads.
Source: @voiceforenergy on X
Objective: Get people to like, comment, or share your post.
When to use this campaign: Uncover customer preferences, start conversations, and as an overall boost to your engagement metrics.
How you’ll be charged: Bids are for each like, comment, share, or click (to view the full post) charged per 1,000 engagements.
Tips for success:
- Try the Polls format.
- Ask your audience a question or mention the action you want them to take, such as sharing, or liking.
Conversion Twitter ads
App re-engagements
App install campaigns attempt to target people who don’t already have your app whereas app re-engagement campaigns target people who already have your app, based on phone tracking capabilities.
Source: @canva on X
Objective: Get existing app users to spend more or use the app more.
When to use this campaign: Offer upgrade discounts or promote new content and in-app purchases.
How you’ll be charged: Per click (leading to your app).
Tips for success:
- Card ads will automatically show your App Store rating, app icon, price, and more (as long as your rating is 4+ stars).
- Retarget infrequent app users with an exclusive discount.
Sales (new in 2025)
Sales ads on X take the website traffic objective further by focusing on getting interested buyers over to your site and getting them to convert. New Sales ads are easy to set up: enter a daily budget, targeting information, and launch.
Source: @freedommobile on X
Objective: Increase purchase conversions with X’s AI-powered Optimized Targeting.
When to use this campaign: To sell more, either for new launches or automated evergreen campaigns by connecting your ecommerce catalog.
How you’ll be charged: For every 1,000 impressions.
Tips for success:
- Run a Sales campaign for at least four to six weeks to allow the AI targeting to accurately find your ideal audience.
- Create at least five unique creative assets per ad group and refresh these every few weeks.
Keywords (new in 2025)
Find your ideal audience on autopilot by targeting users who searched for your keyword, posted something with that keyword, or recently engaged with posts containing that keyword. Includes hashtags.
You can add keyword targeting to any campaign from the “Audience features” section.
For example, Walmart could show this post to people who recently used the keyword “lizard”… if they wanted to.
Objective: Narrowing your ads target audience within a campaign.
When to use this campaign: You want to reach the people most likely to complete your campaign objective.
How you’ll be charged: Depends on the campaign type you’re using keyword targeting within.
Tips for success:
- Target at least 25 keywords per campaign for the best results (max 750 per ad group).
- Misspellings and simple variations are included, for example if words such as “the,” “and,” or “than” are in between your keywords.
X ad specs
Twitter video ad specs
The following settings apply to:
- Twitter vertical video ads
- Twitter Amplify pre-roll video ads
- Twitter Amplify Sponsorship ads
- Twitter promoted video ads
- Display size: 1080px x 1920px or 1200px x 1200px
- Aspect ratio: 9:16 or 1:1 (recommended for Amplify pre-roll and Sponsorship ads)
- Maximum video length: 2:20 (<15 seconds recommended, <6 for Amplify Sponsorships)
- File type: MP4 or MOV
- Frame rate: 29.97fps or 30fps recommended, up to 60fps
- Video codec: H264 4:2:0
- Audio codec: AAC
- Maximum file size: Under 30mb recommended, up to 1GB
- Ad copy: Up to 280 characters (links count for 23 characters)
- Thumbnail image: PNG or JPG, maximum 5mb
Twitter promoted image ad specs
- Display size: 1200px x 1200px or 1200px x 628px
- Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 1.91:1
- File type: PNG or JPG
- Maximum file size: 5mb
- Ad copy: Up to 280 characters
Twitter promoted text ad specs
- Ad copy: Up to 280 characters. Links use 23 characters.
Twitter promoted carousel video ad specs
If combining images and videos in the same carousel ad, all assets must use a 1:1 aspect ratio.
- Display size: 800px x 800px or 800px x 450px
- Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 16:9
- Number of slides: Between 2-6
- Maximum video length: 2:20 (<15 seconds recommended)
- File type: MP4 or MOV
- Frame rate: 29.97fps or 30fps recommended, up to 60fps
- Video codec: H264 4:2:0
- Audio codec: AAC
- Maximum file size: Under 30mb recommended, up to 1GB
- Ad copy: Up to 280 characters per carousel
- Website title: Up to 70 characters per carousel
- Website description: Up to two lines. X recommends 50 characters or less.
Twitter promoted carousel image ad specs
- Display size: 800px x 800px or 800px x 418px
- Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 1.91:1
- Number of slides: Between 2-6
- File type: PNG or JPG
- Maximum file size: 5mb each image
- Ad copy: Up to 280 characters per carousel
- Website title: Up to 70 characters per carousel
- Website description: Up to two lines. X recommends 50 characters or less.
Twitter Timeline Takeover ad specs
Ad specs vary by format. Timeline Takeover ads can be video, image, carousel, X Live, Promoted text posts, Branded Hashtags, or Branded Notifications.
Twitter Trend Takeover ad specs
- Ad hashtag: Must include a hashtag (maximum 20 characters)
- Ad copy: Up to 70 characters
- Ad visuals: 3-6 images, videos, or GIFs that represent this trend
- Specs depend on choice of image or video ad.
- Aspect ratio: 16:9
X Live ad specs
Video streaming specs may vary depending on your equipment and software, but X recommends the following X Live stream settings:
- Display size: 1280px x 720px (recommended), 1920px x 1080px
- Frame rate: 30fps recommended, up to 60fps
- Video codec: H.264
- Video bitrate: 9-12Mbps
- Audio codec: AA-LC
- Audio bitrate: 128bps
- Supported streaming services: Restream, Golightstream, Socialive, OBS, Wirecast, Teradek, Elemental, Vmix, StreamYard, Streamlabs (others may also work)
- Event page copy: Up to 280 characters, including links.
- Timeline feed: Add a feed of posts using up to 5 hashtags or keywords.
Twitter Dynamic Product and Collection ad specs
To use Twitter (X) Dynamic Product and Collection ads, you must install X Pixel or Conversion API first. Then, add your product catalog to X Shopping Manager.
Ad specs vary by format (e.g. image, video, carousel, etc).
Twitter Branded notifications ad specs
Advertisers manage the setup of Branded Notification ads in Arrow, a third-party X partner. Ad sizing and other specs depend on the format chosen. You must choose a trigger to opt people in; most brands ask users to like the post or leave a specific word or emoji in a comment.
How to build a high-impact Twitter ad
There’s no one-size-fits-all “great Twitter ad.” How effective X ads are depends on your audience, industry, goals, format, and more.
But, follow these general guidelines to create more effective Twitter ads:
- Strong visuals are the foundation of high-impact Twitter ads! Focus on capturing attention first.
- Include your logo and brand colors.
- Stick to one clear message per ad.
The bright white text on this ad stands out, reinforcing the caption message, and is reinforced with a great photo and use of their logo.
Source: @mackweldon on X
Measuring Twitter ad performance: What to track and why
The most important Twitter metrics depend on your campaign objective. For example, tracking clicks for traffic campaigns, or views for reach-focused campaigns.
For all campaigns, these are the basic Twitter ads metrics you should be tracking:
- Engagement rate: Identify if an ad is resonating with your audience.
- Impressions: Total reach gained from Twitter ads.
- Paid video views: Gauge overall Twitter ads success for video campaigns.
- Conversions: Depending on objective, e.g. purchases, sign ups, clicks, app downloads, etc.
- Ad spend: Ideally you’ll see rising results and falling ad costs, but a big shift in the balance between these things warrants investigation.
In addition to tracking overall campaign metrics, Cedric Bruce-Kotey, Senior Manager of Paid Social at Hootsuite, adds it’s important to compare the performance of each creative asset too:
“We monitor metrics for a period of time, around 4-6 weeks, to allow sufficient delivery of assets, and to allow us to make data-driven decisions on which assets/audiences to replace/update.”
Want to make creating and measuring Twitter ads easier? Do both with Hootsuite, along with your other 7,823 social media tasks, all in one place.
Create and schedule organic X posts and ads side-by-side, and see detailed performance of your organic and paid campaigns together. Plus with built-in benchmarking, see how recent ads compare with your typical results.
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5 tips for optimizing, targeting, and scaling your Twitter ads
Ready for some quick wins to uplevel today? Try these X ads tips.
1. Bid high for more unique views on Reach campaigns
For Reach or awareness campaigns, your bidding strategy has a lot of impact on your ad performance. If you want more unique people to see your ad — as in, the same people don’t see your ad multiple times — try a higher maximum cost-per-ad (CPA) bid.
Unique reach and repeated reach are both useful for brand awareness. Just be sure to align your bidding strategy with the outcome you want.
2. Do these four things to get 33% more engagement on video ads
These video ad optimization tips are good advice for any platform, though X notes video ads with these four features get 33% more engagement.
- Keep videos under 15 seconds.
- Use captions for those watching without sound (and to improve accessibility).
- Have a hook: Capture attention within the first three seconds.
- Keep visual branding, such as logos or colors, consistent in your videos.
3. Try pre-roll video ads
While your top performing ad format may be different, our team has found early success with video pre-roll X ads:
“Pre-roll videos are performing strongest in terms of video formats. These are similar to bumpers on YouTube that appear before a video starts. We select categories of videos that we want our ad to appear before,” notes George Bradley, Paid Social Strategist at Hootsuite
Bruce-Kotey adds that targeting is key: “[With pre-roll ads] we are targeting audiences that are more likely to view our ads and more likely to be interested in the content that aligns with our brand, product, and messaging.”
4. Keep X ads simple for smaller budgets
“If budget levels are low, it’s best to start off with the more traditional objectives and ad formats,” says Bradley.
“For example, a reach/brand awareness campaign will allow you to reach as many users as possible with your budget. Similarly, the video view objective would maximise the number of users viewing your ad for a certain amount of time.
Using standard ad formats (mainly static image and video) alongside these objectives would keep costs down and maximise efficiency with a smaller budget.”
5. Tracking top of funnel ROI is about retargeting
Bruce-Kotey acknowledges it can be difficult to measure ROI in a top-of-funnel campaign, but adds:
“A way we like to quantify the success of our top-of-funnel initiatives is the impact that new prospects have on our conversion activity, more specifically, our richness in retargeting audiences.
Which is why we typically run full funnel campaigns.”
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