X Previews Coming Improvements to Ad Analytics

After rolling out its updated account analytics features last month, X is now also preparing to launch updated ad analytics, with improved dashboards and metric overviews, making it easier to track your paid content performance.

As you can see in this example, X’s updated ad analytics dashboard will include a range of large performance charts, so that you can see your ad performance at a glance.

For comparison, here’s what the current X ads dashboard looks like:

Most of the information itself isn’t new, as you can see, but the presentation is much more intuitive, with easier tabs and clickable links, so you can expand the dataset, switch between campaigns, track performance, etc.

It’s a good update, which will be a big improvement for X advertisers. And while there may be significantly fewer of them than there used to be, X will be hoping that updates like this will help it win back more ad partners, and showcase its revamped ad serving system, which it says has now been almost entirely re-built from what Twitter’s ad back-end had been.

Will that be enough to get more advertisers back on board?

The key challenge that X is still facing is that many brands remain wary of potential brand risk by advertising in the app, both due to ad placement alongside potentially offensive content, and through broader association with owner Elon Musk’s on controversial stances, which he regularly shares in the app.

On the former, X maintains that its brand safety processes are solid, and that ad placement is not risky (despite third party reports suggesting otherwise). While the latter is more difficult, because Musk refuses to keep his opinions to himself, on anything, no matter how controversial or argumentative, or ill-informed, his thoughts may be.

That remains a key impediment to X’s potential as an ad platform, because Musk’s view is that people should be allowed to say whatever they want, no matter how crazy, which he sees as a pillar of free speech.

Which, in some respects, makes sense, but the consequence of facilitating misinformation and conspiracy theories is that some advertisers are going to avoid your platform for that very reason. So yes, you can allow such if you like, but that may exclude the other. And while Elon had hoped to find alternative avenues to build the business, X is still largely reliant on ad dollars to maintain viability, though thus far, Elon remains steadfast in his dedication to allowing more controversial content in the app.

So while X’s ad systems may be improving, there are fewer brands willing to try them out. Maybe, if X can show significant growth, that’ll dilute those concerns somewhat (as brand morals can be flexible versus potential benefit), but X has also been sitting on 250 million daily actives for almost two years now, with no user growth.

So it could be a bit of an “if a tree falls in the forest” scenario, with X’s ad options improving, but no one trying them out either way.  

X says that its improved ad analytics dashboard is coming soon.