Twitter to offer incentives to advertisers

Twitter Inc is offering incentives to advertisers for increasing their spending on the platform, as an effort to jump-start its business after Elon Musk’s takeover instigating many companies to pull back their ads. Ad sales account is for about 90% of Twitter's revenue.

Musk's first month as Twitter's owner has included a slashing of staff including employees who work on content moderation and incidents of spammers impersonating major public companies, which has spooked the advertising industry. Starting from General Mills Inc , Mondelez, Carlsberg, United Airlines to luxury automaker Audi of America, many companies have stopped or paused advertising on Twitter since the acquisition, at the same time agencies including Omnicom Media and Interpublic Group have recommended their clients pause spending, due to which the company had seen a massive drop in revenue.

Details of the incentive offer were first reported by newsletter Marketing Brew. Twitter billed the offer as the "biggest advertiser incentive ever on Twitter," according to the email reviewed by Reuters. U.S. advertisers who book $500,000 in incremental spending will qualify to have their spending matched with a "100% value add," up to a $1 million cap and those spending $350,000 will receive “50 per cent value add” — meaning they receive additional impressions worth half of what they spend. A $200,000 investment grants advertisers a “25 per cent value add”, or extra impressions worth a quarter of what they spend.

Earlier in October, Musk said he wanted Twitter to be "the most respected advertising platform" and not a "free-for-all hellscape", in a bid to gain the trust of ad buyers ahead of the close of his deal. A report says, Musk has personally called chief executives Tim Cook for shrinking spending on the platform.

After several waves of job cuts and departures, Twitter’s ads business team has shrunk so much that many agencies and brands no longer have any point of contact at the company, according to multiple people familiar with the situation. Others are complaining that Twitter’s ads systems have also become buggy during Musk’s overhaul.