X Ads vs Meta Ads

I’ve been trying to figure out how the X ads algorithm works.

Of course, I’m not a coder and have very little understanding into the nuts and bolts of the technicalities behind these things. I am but a sinple Polish Kielbasa salesman, at the end of the day.

However…

After messing around a bit, I have some theories about how ads work on 𝕏.

The big question every has is:

How is the 𝕏 ad platform different than the Meta ad platform?

Well…

My layman’s understanding of how Meta ads work are: they have a super advanced algorithm with billions of data points which allows them to place you ads in front of people who are likely to buy, at just the right time when they’re ready to pull out their credit card (or almost ready).

Chet Holmes, the author of The Ultimate Sales Machine, gave us this visual of how any market works:

According to Chet, 3% of people in any market are willing to buy TODAY. Another 6-7% of people are open to it. And as you go further down the pyramid into bigger subsections of the audience, there’s a smaller chance these people are ready to buy.

Meta is exceptional at skimming the top of this pyramid.

To be fair, I think every platform (including 𝕏) gives you this ability.

But one of the things I keep hearing from some bigger brands ($20MM+) is that they are running into an issue where they can’t scale their Meta spend past a certain level of spend.

They’re hitting the wall of their total addressable market on FB and can’t continue to acquire customers at a ROAS level that makes their business work, once they try pushing up the spend.

There are a few solutions to this problem, none of them are easy. There’s always risk involved with each decision when you get to this point. And you’re probably going to have to run some unprofitable experiments as you’re kissing a few frogs to get to the winning strategy that can break through the plateau.

This is why you see big brands test things like running video ads with a “watch time” objective, so they can then retarget these viewers with more direct offers… once they’re warmed up.

Meta has all of the people on the platform bucketed (internally) by what they’re interested in. This system works well, but sometimes your brand is trapped in a bucket and you have a tough time “breaking out” into larger audiences.

Again, there are many reasons for this and I’m not keen on all of the intricacies. But this is my understanding.

It’s sometimes harder to get your ads in front of new people outside of your typical market, due to the nature of the platform itself.

It’s my belief that the 𝕏 ad ecosystem doesn’t exactly work like this.

With 𝕏, you can target specific keywords and profiles, amongst other parameters. It would reason you can reach entirely new markets, simply by changing your targeting parameters… instead of getting stuck in one of Meta’s “targeting buckets.”

I made contact with an 𝕏 ads engineer, I plan on chatting with him this week… so I will hopefully have more insight in coming weeks. I will keep you posted and let you know if they can confirm/deny what I’ve said here. Again, this is what I’ve been able to ascertain from my own campaigns.

Here’s where I feel 𝕏 ads differ

Obviously, you want to grab as much low hanging fruit as possible with your ads. You SHOULD be retargeting people who started their checkout with 𝕏 ads. You should be crafting offers for unconverted website visitors. You should be putting together benefit-driven/promise-driven ads to capture all the existing demand in your market, especially within your warmer audiences.

But where 𝕏 shines is in the organic platform itself.

Great threads, long form posts, stories, and insightful posts go mega-viral every single day. News and industry events tend to go viral on 𝕏 and then expand onto other platforms.

It could be anecdotal, it could be pure confirmation bias… but it seems like you constantly see content on 𝕏 being screenshotted and shared on other platforms, and even on news media.

Go watch Fox News or CNN - there are entire news segments about what someone tweeted.

Anyway…

When people go on 𝕏, they’re usually searching for interesting content and stories.

This is why long form posts and threads work so well on this platform. In fact, those were the best performing post frameworks before they jumbled the organic algo around last year.

Sure, there are thousands of threadboi fucktards with their “7 cHaTgPt PrOmPtS tHaT aRe So GoOd ThEy ShOuLd Be IlLeGaL.”

But for every one of these bullshit posts, you’ll find some gems, like Naval Ravikant’s How To Get Rich Without Getting Lucky thread.

People crave good content.

I guess that’s true on any platform, although it seems like on Meta It’s much more “low IQ.”

Celebrity gossip, sports clips, prank videos - straight trash.

What does any of this have to do with 𝕏 ads?

Well, if we go back to Chet Holmes’ demand capture pyramid… we know that the number of people in any market on any platform who are “ready to buy” is very small. But the number of people at a lower awareness level who can easily be “warmed up” is massive.

I remember reading this thread from Noah Ryan a while ago…

This thread was 89 posts long, if memory serves correct. Yet on post #29, he mentioned a brand called NicNac and linked to their store.

I remember seeing NicNac’s Instagram story later that night… apparently they had their biggest sales day in company history the day that thread was posted.

Interesting…

This is not an “ad” obviously, it’s an organic social post.

But it’s highly educational, not sales-y at all, and it doesn’t even feature the NicNac anywhere in the lead. In fact, there’s a picture of a competing product in the hero image.

Yet despite this, this long form piece of content led to this brand achieving its highest day of sales ever.

Interesting… wouldn’t you say?

Sure, there could be a number of reasons why this happened.

I’m not saying that this style of post was the number one reason why they had this sales spike.

But in my opinion, this piece of content met a bunch of people in a lower level of market awareness and “warmed them up” to the prospect of trying this new brand.

Justin Brooke Enters The Chat

Justin Brooke is the founder of AdSkills, an exceptional training company that teaches media buying and planning for virtually every platform.

I was texting with him the other day about 𝕏 ads… sharing my theories and thoughts. He told me that, in his opinion, 𝕏 lies in the middle of the ‘spectrum’ of ad platforms.

If Google PPC captures the highest level of intent… it kind of makes sense, when you look at it this way.

Sure, everyone loves Meta because it’s kind of easy. You don’t even need to target… you just focus on making good ads and let the algo do it’s thing. And it DOES do it’s thing… until it doesn’t anymore.

Thinking of this through the lens of Chet Holme’s pyramid, we know there’s a LOT of people on 𝕏 who can be buyers, if we can create ads that meet them at their awareness levels.

Now, keep in mind…

When I’m talking about awareness, I’m referencing Gene Schwartz’s levels of market awareness:

You could, theoretically, overlay these levels of awareness on top of Chet Holme’s demand pyramid… and it’d be a pretty even match. Which means if you want to succeed in marketing to a lower-awareness market… your messaging needs to change. (Remember this, for later.)

This would reason that the way to succeed on 𝕏 is to BUCK THE TREND of doing the exact same thing everyone else is doing, on every other major social platform.

How do you do this, exactly?

Well…

THAT is going to have to wait until next week…

Sit tight and stay tuned…

Chris Orzechowski

P.S.

BIG things are happening in 2024 with 𝕏 ads. Check out this announcement:

I am awaiting more details and will keep you posted when I found out exactly what this going to look like. My best guess is that they’re going to create a “hand in glove” integration with Shopify so you can generate your own lookalike audiences based on existing customer data.

P.P.S.

This newsletter is sponsored by… ME, motherfucker!

If you’re interested in working with me to help you scale with 𝕏 ads, I’ve got a special offer:

I’m doing something I call: Your First 𝕏 Ads Campaign

You might not be ready to jump into hiring my agency… perhaps you just want to test the waters, yourself.

Totally valid.

If that’s the case, we can do an hour call where I’ll walk you through how to set up your first campaign. We’ll map out a campaign and funnel plan. We’ll workshop your ads, possibly using some existing creative. We’ll concept ideas for your offer and even some new ad angles. And we’ll hone in on the targeting parameters you need to achieve success.

After that, you’ll be off to the races.

Of course, if after that you want to continue to work with me we can have that discussion. But this will at least get you in the game so you can start testing 𝕏 ads for your business, to see if they’re viable for your brand.

If you’re interest, hit reply and say YOUR FIRST 𝕏 ADS CAMPAIGN and we can chat. The investment for this introductory service is $1,000.