A record number of advertisers plan to significantly reduce their spending on X, the social media platform formerly Twitter, in 2025. A global survey by market research firm Kantar found that a net 26% of marketers intend to decrease their ad spend on X next year, marking the largest recorded pullback from any major global ad platform. Only 4% of marketers believe X ads provide “brand safety,” which refers to the certainty that their ads won’t appear alongside extreme content.
In comparison, 39% of marketers feel confident about brand safety on Google ads. Gonca Bubani, Kantar’s global thought leadership director for media, stated, “Advertisers have been moving their marketing spend away from X for several years.
Decrease in X ad spend
The stark acceleration of this trend in the past 12 months means a turnaround currently seems unlikely.
Bubani added, “X has changed so much in recent years and can be unpredictable from one day to the next—it’s difficult to feel confident about your brand safety in that environment.”
The survey findings suggest that X may struggle to lure back advertisers despite efforts by its owner, billionaire Elon Musk. Since Musk’s $44 billion takeover of the platform in 2022, many big brands have retreated over concerns about content moderation and uncertainty regarding the platform’s direction. Last month, Musk accused an influential ad industry body, whose members include Unilever, Mars, and CVS, of conspiring to “boycott” X.
In response, an X spokesperson stated that the platform “now offers stronger brand safety, performance, and analytics capabilities than ever before while seeing all-time-high usage levels.
The Kantar report, based on interviews with 1,000 senior marketers and 18,000 consumers in more than two dozen countries, revealed that X scored outside the top 10 brands for trust and for the perception of how innovative its advertising is on the platform. YouTube remains the ad platform marketers most prefer, while Amazon and TikTok share the top spot for consumers.
