Desperation Sets In: Twitter Offers To Match $250,000 In Ad Spending To Lure Pissed Off Advertisers Back

Things are going great in Twitterland, apparently. The company has been facing lawsuits, tech outages, government investigations, bailing partners, not to mention departing users and advertisers. We had noted that 40% of advertising had gone away last month, and this week reporters are noting that an internal Twitter presentation confirms that number, while noting that 500 of the company’s top advertisers have left. Musk claims he’s cut enough costs to take the company away from the threat of bankruptcy, but all those other issues aren’t going to help (especially the lawsuits and the government investigations). It doesn’t sound like his “pay me $8” plan is going all that well either. Selling off the furniture seems unlikely to make that big of a dent, so Twitter needs to woo back the advertisers who left.

And… they’re desperately trying to do so by offering free ads to the bigger advertisers who have bailed, according to the Wall Street Journal. The deal is buy one, get one free, up to $250k.

The tech company is dangling free ad space by offering to match advertisers’ ad spending up to $250,000, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The full $500,000 in advertising must run by Feb. 28, the emails said. 

Basically half off, if you commit to spending $250k.

And it looks like they desperately need it, as the article notes:

Many big brands including pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc., United Airlines Holdings Inc. and auto makers General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG have paused their spending on Twitter. More than 75 of Twitter’s top 100 ad spenders from before Mr. Musk’s takeover weren’t spending on the platform as of the week ending Jan. 8, according to an analysis of data from research firm Sensor Tower.

And, of course, February is often a big ad spend month for Twitter, as advertisers try to jump on board the Super Bowl advertising bandwagon. I imagine the deal might lure back some, though it will be surprising if they stick around without such enticements going forward.

In my own (greatly diminished) use of Twitter, I’ve seen the quality of the ads become hilariously bad, even as the company is trying gamely to insert more into my feed. But, at least Elon’s second largest investors in the company, the Saudis, are getting some extra ad space (I’ve also seen ads for used Teslas, so perhaps Musk is getting a two-fer):