Twitter is matching ad spend to boost revenue

Twitter, amid all of its chaos, is in the holiday spirit.

The platform is offering advertisers what execs described as uncommonly generous deals in an apparent effort to boost advertising spend before the end of the year, according to emails shared with Marketing Brew by two advertising agency executives. Meanwhile, many major advertisers, including Jeep, Mars, Kellogg, and Verizon, have stopped running ads on the platform entirely, according to the Washington Post.

Globally, Twitter is offering something called a “value add” to advertisers that reach a certain incremental spend limit, according to the email. This means that Twitter will offer additional impressions on behalf of the advertiser, depending on how much they spend. In some cases, Twitter is offering to match advertising spend on the platform.

• Within the US, if an advertiser spends $200,000, they’ll get a 25% value add.
• If they spend $350,000, they’ll receive a 50% value add.
• If they spend $500,000, they’ll get a 100% value add, capped at $1 million per advertiser.

A 100% value add is “absurdly high,” one of the agency execs told Marketing Brew. “I’d never expect to see even a 20% value add from anyone unless I was spending millions in an upfront deal.”

The spend must be placed before December 31 and doesn’t include Twitter’s Amplify product, according to the email. Twitter representatives didn’t respond to a request for comment at the time of publishing; the company no longer has a communications department.

Rewind: Many advertisers are wary of new CEO Elon Musk’s “hardcore” version of Twitter, which has seen massive layoffs and departures. Agencies including IPG and Omnicom earlier recommended that clients pause ads on the platform. Platformer previously reported that Twitter’s revenue was “in a free fall.” Meanwhile, ad sales made up 92% of its revenue last quarter.