How X’s (Twitter) Partnership with Google Ads Could Impact Affiliates

If you use Google display ads or X (formerly Twitter ads) as an affiliate marketing traffic source, a new partnership between the two could potentially alter your approach.

It’s no secret that X/Twitter has been bleeding out ad revenue since its change in ownership in 2022.

To presumably try to recoup some of that lost ad revenue, X recently announced it will offer some of its ad space to the Google Display Network (GDN).

If you’re unfamiliar with the GDN, it’s simply the network of sites and apps where Google’s display ads can be deployed.

When you run a display ad on Google, your ad can appear on anything from a traditional website to someone’s Gmail interface. This partnership means that X will now become one of the avenues within this display network.

The Current State of Advertising on X/Twitter

If you’re an X user, you’ve likely noticed a drop-off in ads from large, recognizable brands in 2023—a big contributor to the platform’s ad revenue plummeting.

X’s ad platform has also received criticism over the years for having limited functionality compared to its peers. For instance, you have a lot less control over creative and targeting compared to Google Ads. Even their reporting is less robust than you’d expect from an ads platform in 2023.

These factors may lead you to believe that there’s not much value to be gained from buying ads on the so-called “everything app” for your affiliate traffic source. However, if you ever considered advertising on Twitter in the past, you could argue now is a better time than ever.

The Benefit of X & Google Ads Partnership for Affiliates

The primary benefit of this partnership is the potential to gain more control over X ads by proxy of the Google Display Network.

If you’ve been considering running ads on X, it might be worthwhile to wait until it’s fully integrated with the GDN. This way you can target a new audience in that of X users while utilizing Google superior targeting features.

This is even more viable if you’re already running Google display ads, as you’ll likely be able to enable them to display on X fairly easily.

Something else worth mentioning regardless of this partnership is that ad costs on X are significantly lower than other social platforms like LinkedIn for example.

Sometimes online advertising can have a ‘you get what you pay for’ element to it, but if you’re an affiliate working with a smaller budget, X could still be a good fit.

Conclusion

Whether this news alters some of your decisions as an affiliate is going to depend on several factors. The biggest is likely going to be if you were already advertising on X or considering doing so prior to this partnership.

Also consider the fact that Google could utilize X users’ data to improve the GDN’s ability to deliver the right ad to the right user. We know how valuable user data is to these large advertising platforms and there’s no doubt Google is salivating at the opportunity to acquire more.

Either way, we likely won’t know the full ramifications of this big-corp collaboration until a while after it’s implemented.

Will this partnership alter your strategy for either X ads or Google display ads? Let us know in the comments below.