tWiTtEr AdS dOn'T wOrK

Warren Buffett has this analogy he likes to use, called “cigar butt” investing.

Sometimes when you’re walking down the street, you might find a cigar lying there that has a few more puffs left in it.

Essentially, he’s talking about finding “free money.”

You’re taking an advantage of an opportunity that most other people have already discarded.

I wanted to begin this Xvertising series with this metaphor because thats how I feel about X ads.

X ads have been widely discarded by the greater marketing community. So much so, that I’ve heard a number of people tell me that “Twitter/X ads don’t work.”

People are stupid, but they’re not THAT stupid.

Over the past years, I’ve noticed the increase in ads in my X feed. Some of these ads have been running for months on end. Some of these ads have tens of millions of impressions. I even found one ad with a staggering 108 MILLION impressions.

The goal of advertising (on any platform) is to multiply capital.

That’s it.

You spend a dollar on an ad and your goal is to make more than $1 back. Sometimes you make that dollar back that very same day, while gaining a customer. Sometimes you make $5 back that day and have a yuge profit, along with that new customer. Sometimes you run an ad and have to wait until the customer you influenced makes a purchase at a later date.

Whatever your time horizon, advertising is the business of multiplying capital so you can keep acquiring customers to fuel your growth.

If you’re not multiplying capital, you’re flushing money down the toilet.

So if you keep spending money on ads but they’re not returning, you turn them off.

You don’t run up an ad to 1,000,000+ impressions unless it’s making you money.

You don’t run an ad up to 5,000,000+ impressions unless it’s making you money.

You don’t run an ad up to 10,000,000+ impressions unless it’s making you money.

I don’t believe it’s possible that the people who are running the marketing departments of these companies are stupid enough to spend money on ads at this scale unless they’re working.

Sure, I could be wrong. But I don’t think I am.

Why Ads Work (And Why They Don’t)

If you have an exceptional product, advertising is easier. An exceptional product can do well on Facebook. It can do well on a bus bench.

We know that advertising works, in general.

When people say “___ ads don’t work” there’s usually a few reasons why:

1. Your product sucks

2. Your brand is mediocre

3. Your offer is bland and/or boring

4. You targeting/placement is off

If you can solve for all four of those issues, advertising can work on any platform. That’s why I didn’t initially buy the “X ads don’t work” line I heard from some people.

Because every time I heard that, I’d see 10 more brands who WERE making it work.

Virgin Frontier, From Sea to Shining Sea

Facebook, Instagram, Google, Youtube - they all have well established cottage industries. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of agencies providing services for each one of these platforms.

To my knowledge, there doesn’t seem to be any cottage industry around X ads at the time of this writing.

Why is this?

Well…

I feel that in the past, the product was lackluster.

Over the years, they’ve made many improvements to the ad platform.

It’s quite unique, now.

It doesn’t operate like Meta, where you can just do broad targeting campaigns and let the machines take over.

In my opinion, it requires more of a “direct mail” mindset… where you’re carefully choosing ‘lists’ to target. Your list might only be 100,000 people. But if you’re a software company, that might be your entire addressable market so who really gives a shit at that point, am I right?

I’ve been testing targeting specific keywords (somewhat similar to Google search)… and also Follower Look Alikes and have had some success there, with my own ads.

I don’t think you need 2 BILLION users to succeed. You don’t need the same sized ecosystem that you have on Meta.

I, for one, can’t stand Facebook. Outside of local groups, I don’t feel like there’s much going on there. The news cycle starts on X. It was always that way.

But since Facebook is so big and has such a huge base of people, it’s the default option.

I still like Facebook/Instagram ads, obviously.

In my opinion, this isn’t an “either/or” decision.

There are millions of people who only spend time on X… and never log onto Facebook.

You have an opportunity to reach a whole new group of people who you aren’t regularly reaching on other platforms.

It’s like standing on the Jersey Shore, looking westward… an entire, unconquered continent ripe for the taking.

Grab a pen and paper

The first thing I want you to do is come up with 10 keywords your potential customers might be interested in. Think of it like this: what 10 keywords would make the most logical sense.

One of the companies I like to buy from (who I discovered on X, btw) is a pillow company called The Woolshire:

What keywords would have pockets of their potential customers?

Well…

We’ll find out through testing. If I had to choose, here would be a few:

1. Pillow

2. Wool

3. Organic

4. Sleep

5. Insomnia

6. Cotton

7. Microplastics

8. Endocrine disruptors

9. Natural fabrics

10. Esoteric health

Of course, we could probably come up with 50 more if we really tried.

Will ALL of these keywords pay off? Probably not. We might find that 2-5 of them drive ALL the performance. We might even just find one.

But if we can find one, two, maybe three keyword targets that let us multiply capital and acquire customers at a profit, then we’re in a good spot.

Think about this in the context of your own brand. It’s not the ONLY way to run X ads (obviously)… but lets begin this thought exercise here.

Think about keywords that represent the pain people are trying to escape from… and the pleasure they’re trying to achieve.

Let’s start there.

More next week.

Stay tuned.

Chris Orzechowski

P.S.

If you want some helping getting your X ad campaigns up and running, my team and I can handle this entire process for you. Hit reply and say “Ad Management” and we’ll have a chat.