Spotlight Takeovers

Spotlight Takeovers appear in the top banner of the “For You” section and the trend name and description will also appear as first or second slots of the “Trending” section in the Explore tab and “What’s Happening” module on X.com. When someone clicks on a Promoted Trend, they’ll see a post from your brand at the top of the search results, followed by organic posts directly from the conversation surrounding the trend. Spotlight Takeovers will run for 24 hours within a country from midnight to midnight, and can also be bundled with Timeline Takeover for greater impact. 

Each Spotlight Takeover includes three key components: the #Hashtag or Trend name (max 20 characters), Trend description (optional, max 30 characters), and Companion Posts. Takeovers run for 24 hours and reach everyone in the targeted country from midnight to midnight. Companion Posts will appear in people’s timelines, help encourage interaction, and maximize scale and impact.

Spotlight Takeover supports up to 3-minute videos, GIFs, and static images. Creatives will display on both mobile and desktop, with the ad running edge-to-edge on mobile. Spotlight Takeover ads will appear at the top of the For you tab in Explore for the full 24 hours of the campaign. 

Spotlight Takeovers are great for complementing the launch of something new or the promotion of a big event at scale. Breaking your news on X with a Spotlight Takeover can drive mass awareness, build interest, and drive conversation around a product launch, app launch, message launch, or new promotion.

Spotlight Takeovers also benefit brands looking to connect with what’s happening by maximizing discovery, building relevance, and securing adjacency to what you know will be trending that day — such as a cultural event, sporting event, holiday, national (topic here) day, or industry news.

Spotlight Takeovers are particularly strong for launching a new teaser trailer, for example, by maximizing awareness to a broad audience with engaging, immersive video. According to internal X data, people are 3X more likely to click-through an ad in the Spotlight Takeover unit — making it the perfect product to put your message in.

• Integrate your content: Build the campaign hashtag into your creative assets — photos, videos, GIFs, etc. Pin a relevant post to the top of your profile for those who click through to your profile to keep the experience consistent.

• Sustain the buzz: Extend the conversation and engagement created by the Spotlight Takeover by running additional campaigns with the same hashtag on the days following the takeover.
• Leverage the audience: Use Post Engager targeting in future campaigns to retarget people who have engaged with or were exposed to your Spotlight Takeover to capitalize on that valuable audience.
• Keep it simple: Focus your copy and creative on a single topic, and make it declarative and intriguing. Avoid click-bait phrases. Use the spotlight description to provide further context if needed, but don’t duplicate your hashtag or handle as they will have their own placements.
• Keep it visual: Use visually engaging videos that around one minute long to ensure a continuous clean loop, and allow sufficient buffer time for viewers to see your logo or CTA before it replays. Don’t use a white background, place your logo in the top-left corner or middle of the frame, and avoid flashing or too much text overlay.
• Use Creative Swapping to swap your creative on the day you’re running your Spotlight Takeover. This feature gives you the flexibility to extend your message and further tell your story.