Q5: X's best-kept secret

At X, we’re always on the hunt to uncover new opportunities for all brands and small businesses to thrive within our marketplace cost-effectively.

After the frenzy of the holiday shopping season, it’s common for some advertisers to take a beat to recharge their creative and media strategies for the year ahead.

But based on new X data, we encourage you to think twice. Savvy advertisers can take advantage of valuable media efficiencies and a highly engaged audience to stay top of mind and drive growth into the new year.

Ads on X are more efficient and effective in Q5

Q5 occurs from about mid December to mid January on X. During this time, we see reduced CPMs and cost-per-conversion as consumers shop for post-holiday deals and products to support their New Year's ambitions. Last year, X saw a 5% reduction in the average CPM and a 27% reduction in the average cost-per-conversion¹.

With ads on X more efficient and effective during this period, advertisers have a unique opportunity to sustain Q4 momentum into 2024 while competitors sit on the sidelines.

The conversation on X doesn’t stop in Q5 

Q5 on X is about more than just media efficiency. As many people take time off during the holidays to recalibrate, they spend more quality time on X—connecting with loved ones, reflecting on the past year and discovering the latest in the world. Conversation during this period remains as vibrant as ever, driven by major events like live sports, gaming and film releases, and New Year’s—and this Q5 promises to be the biggest yet.

In just the past month, we’ve seen conversations on X dominate the public discourse. The world turned to X to follow the OpenAI saga in real-time, generating over 1.3 billion impressions on the platform² —more than twice what we saw with this year’s Grammys. Meanwhile, the NBA in-season tournament has taken over the timeline with video views up +105% year over year³.

Q5 is filled with a wide variety of tent-pole moments, ranging from the holidays to sports, entertainment and more. With a surge of engagement around these conversations, your brand can remain relevant to your audiences while driving maximum ROI.

Three ways for advertisers to take advantage

For advertisers reevaluating their approach to Q5, here’s three ways to get the best from X.

1. Try X’s enhanced performance offering

We recently enhanced our performance ads products through state-of-the-art machine learning systems. X advertisers can now take full advantage of Optimized Targeting, which enables our ads algorithm to automatically find the most relevant audiences with a limited set of human inputs. In testing, this product consistently outperformed traditional targeting setups with an average 10% increase in click-through rates and an average 16% increase in conversion rate⁴.

To drive the best results, select the Sales campaign objective to reach users who are most likely to convert on a lower funnel action such as purchase, subscribe, add-to-cart and more. Combined with reduced media costs in Q5, now is a great time to experiment with performance advertising on X.

2. Connect through live sports with premium, brand-safe video

When it comes to live sports, there’s no substitute for the real-time experience on X. This season, sports video views are surging, driven by our product advancements in long form, live and vertical.

With Amplify Video, X advertisers can align their brand with premium, brand safe video from the likes of the NFL, NBA, NHL, UFC and Premier League. These pre-roll videos and sponsorships put advertisers center stage during the biggest surges in conversation throughout the season.

3. Vertical video: X’s fastest growing surface

Vertical video is the fastest growing surface on X. Over 100M people around the world are consuming vertical video daily at an average of over 13 minutes per day. On many days, vertical video accounts for around 20% of all time spent on the platform⁵.

Now advertisers can take advantage with full-screen, sound-on Vertical Video Ads to tell their story in a more captivating way and unlock incremental reach. In beta testing, X users were seven times more likely to engage with Vertical Video Ad placements, making it a simple strategy to elevate overall campaign reach and effectiveness⁶.

Now in beta testing, select US advertisers can bid on pre-screened, brand safe and suitable Vertical Video feed inventory through X’s partnership with Integral Ad Science (IAS), a leading global media measurement and optimization platform. This pre-bid product is limited to the Vertical Video format (not across the X Timeline) and enables IAS to classify video content aligned to the GARM brand safety and suitability framework before an ad runs against it.

Unlock the power of X in Q5

Unlock the power of X in Q5 before your competition catches on! With strong auction dynamics and a highly engaged user base, this is a unique opportunity to drive efficient end-of-year results and start 2024 strong.

Get in touch with us to learn more or click below to start advertising.