Friday, 17 May 2024

X (Twitter) unveils new features to boost control and safety for advertisers

The new tools give marketers more say over ad placement.

X, formerly known as Twitter, has launched two new features to improve brand safety and control for advertisers.

Sensitivity Settings and Enhanced Blocklist will be rolled out for all customers over the next few weeks in the X Ads Manager.

Managing Director of X, Linda Yaccarino, said:

  • “This announcement completely reinforces our commitment to brand safety. X has built all its advertiser controls and third-party partnerships in just the last nine months. Thank you to our teams and our partners! More progress to come.”

Why we care. Ensuring your ad appears in the right place is important not only in terms of reach, but also for your brand’s reputation. If your ad appears alongside something inappropriate or a message that contradicts your brand’s beliefs and values, the damage could be hard to repair and impact sales.

What are Sensitivity Settings? This automated solution helps brands to find the right balance between reach and suitability, enabling them to select their preferred environment for ad placement. The tool uses machine learning to reduce adjacency to different types of content according to a brand’s sensitivity threshold.

What is an Enhanced Blocklist? This automated feature is designed to help protect advertisers from appearing next to unsafe keywords in the Home Timeline – for example ‘You’ and ‘Following’.


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What has X said? X announced the new features via an announcement on its blog. A spokesperson said:

  • “we are expanding our industry-leading partnerships and capabilities of Adjacency Controls to help all advertisers achieve their unique suitability needs in a more scaled and automated way. These new capabilities will work together to unlock an extended level of adjacency protection for X advertisers.”
  • “Our work is ongoing and these new solutions are important milestones in our continued brand safety and suitability efforts. X is committed to giving advertisers more control and transparency, and we’ll continue to keep building new capabilities for advertisers.”