How To Create X (Twitter) Ads For Beginners (COMPLETE BLUEPRINT)

How Can I Create Effective X (Twitter) Ads As A Beginner?

Creating effective X (Twitter) ads doesn't need to be complicated, even for beginners. The key is focusing on the right campaign type—specifically, a Reach campaign that targets follower lookalikes of accounts with your ideal audience. Unlike other platforms, X advertising success comes from building relationships first through your pinned tweet, consistent posting, and strategic retargeting, rather than pushing for immediate sales. With costs per click under 50 cents and the ability to get millions of impressions for just a few hundred dollars, X ads can deliver exceptional results when you follow this complete blueprint.

Questions People Ask

Do I need to be verified or pay for X Premium to run ads?
No, you don't need to pay for X Premium to run ads, though upgrading to the $8/month premium subscription may slightly improve results. You only need to be a verified user with a complete profile including a good profile picture, bio, and working links. Personal accounts typically perform better than business accounts since people prefer connecting with people.

What type of X ad campaign should I set up first?
Set up a Reach campaign first as your top-of-funnel strategy. While X may prompt you to use their new dashboard or sales campaigns, these typically don't work well for new advertisers. The Reach objective allows you to show your ads to the most relevant people at the lowest cost, creating awareness before trying to drive engagement or sales.

How much should I spend on X ads and how long until I see results?
Start with the minimum budget possible for the first few weeks to optimize your account. Initially, costs will be higher, but as your account builds trust with X and engagement increases, costs will decrease significantly. Most businesses see relationship-building results within 2-3 weeks, though actual sales may take longer—sometimes weeks or even months after people follow you.

Why do most X ads fail?
Most X ads fail because advertisers try to sell immediately rather than building relationships first. Using sales campaigns or website conversion campaigns before establishing trust doesn't work well on X. Successful advertisers create a two-step process: first introducing themselves through a pinned tweet that builds authority, then retargeting those who engage with educational content before making any sales pitch.

Why This Strategy Works for Any Business

• Lower cost acquisition: With costs per click under 50 cents and impressions in the millions for just a few hundred dollars, X ads deliver better value than Meta or Google ads
• Builds trust before asking for sales: The relationship-first approach creates genuine connections that lead to higher-quality leads and customers who actually know your brand
• Leverages organic content for conversions: Instead of paying for every conversion touchpoint, this system uses paid ads for discovery and organic content for nurturing
• Creates a sustainable audience: By focusing on follower growth, you build an audience you can market to repeatedly without paying for each impression

Why Most X Ads Fail

If you're tired of Meta ads, Google ads, or simply need a new advertising platform, X (formerly Twitter) ads might be your answer. I've been running X ads for the last 18 months with exceptional results—so impressive that we've pivoted our entire agency model to focus on them. The advantages are clear: lower cost per click, higher quality traffic, and better engagement.

However, most advertisers are approaching X ads incorrectly. We've tested all campaign types—reach campaigns, engagement campaigns, sales campaigns—and discovered that only one specific approach consistently works across our 50+ client accounts.

Why We Switched Our Agency Model

As the owner of Automation Links, I've worked with over 2,500 business owners during the past decade, and X advertising has proven to be one of our most effective channels. The platform delivers tremendous value with clicks typically under 50 cents and the ability to generate millions of impressions for just a few hundred dollars.

What makes X unique as an advertising platform is that your ideal audience is likely already there having meaningful conversations. If you believe your potential customers use the platform, it's worth testing as part of your marketing strategy. However, there are critical elements you need to understand to make your campaigns successful.

Do You Need Verification to Run Ads?

A common question I receive is whether verification or a paid X account is required to run ads. According to my research (including a quick check with Grock, X's AI assistant), you only need to be a verified user—not necessarily a premium subscriber.

That said, I do recommend upgrading to the Premium subscription ($8/month) as I've noticed slightly better ad performance with premium accounts. However, this isn't mandatory. What's more important is:

• Having a complete profile with a professional profile picture
• Creating a compelling bio that clearly communicates your value
• Ensuring all your links work properly
• Having a strong pinned tweet (more on this shortly)

Personal Brand vs. Business Page

An important distinction when running X ads is the type of account you should use. We consistently see better results when ads come from personal brands rather than business pages. People prefer connecting with people, not faceless companies.

I recommend creating a personal account for your advertising, even if you're promoting a business. You can always link back to your business page in your profile or posts, but the initial connection should feel personal. This approach builds better relationships over time and ultimately delivers superior results.

Top-of-Funnel Setup: Reach Campaign

The foundation of successful X advertising begins with a properly configured Reach campaign. This campaign type is designed to:

1. Introduce your profile to new potential followers
2. Target lookalike audiences similar to the followers of accounts in your industry
3. Maximize impressions at the lowest possible cost

When researching accounts to target, be cautious with older accounts that have hundreds of thousands of followers. Many of these followers may be purchased, inactive, or bots. Instead, focus on accounts with active engagement and recent comments—these indicate genuine, active audiences.

Building Authority with Pinned Tweets

Your pinned tweet functions as your digital storefront on X. It needs to be carefully crafted to:

• Introduce yourself and your brand
• Build immediate credibility
• Generate engagement
• Be memorable

Once your Reach campaign introduces new people to your profile, you need to establish a consistent posting schedule. This consistency, combined with your authority-building pinned tweet, encourages people to follow you.

The most important insight: your best sales and leads will come organically after people discover you through the ads. This requires patience and a strategic approach to content.

Common Ad Questions & Ad Account Setup

When setting up your X ad account, you'll likely encounter their new dashboard interface. While X will prompt you to use this new system, I strongly recommend avoiding it for now as our testing shows it simply doesn't deliver good results yet.

After creating your campaign, be aware that it often doesn't go live immediately and sometimes doesn't spend the full allocated budget. This is where having an X representative can be invaluable. Check your emails from X/Twitter as they may have already reached out to you. If not, connect with me on X (@Brad_Smith_Coach), and I can help connect you with my representative who can assist with account approval.

Don't Use Sales Campaigns First

When creating your first X ad campaign, the platform will likely steer you toward a sales campaign. Resist this temptation! The sales-focused approach doesn't work well for new advertisers on X.

Instead, edit the campaign objective and select "Reach" from the available options. We've tested every campaign type thoroughly, and the logic is simple: you can't force people to engage, visit your website, or make purchases. The most effective strategy is showing your ads to the maximum number of relevant people and letting them decide how to interact.

Do You Need Tracking to Start?

While tracking is important for any advertising platform, it's not essential for your initial top-of-funnel campaign on X. Since the goal is simply to get people to follow you and engage with your organic content, complex tracking setup can wait.

For your first campaign, focus on:

• Setting up the correct campaign type (Reach)
• Targeting the right audience
• Creating a compelling pinned tweet

You can always add UTM parameters to the link in your bio to track traffic from X to your landing page. More advanced tracking setup, including pixel implementation and audience building, can be implemented later for your retargeting campaigns.

When to Add Pixels & UTMs

As your X advertising strategy matures, you'll want to implement proper tracking. This includes:

1. Setting up the X pixel on your website
2. Building custom audiences based on site visitors
3. Creating conversion events to track specific actions
4. Adding UTM parameters to all links to identify X traffic in your analytics

Learn more about advanced X ad tracking in this blog about tracking sales sources with proper attribution.

Why You Should Choose Reach

The reason we always recommend starting with a Reach campaign is simple: it delivers the widest exposure at the lowest cost. Other campaign objectives like engagement or website clicks won't magically make people engage or click—they just optimize toward people who already tend to take those actions (often at a higher cost).

When naming your campaign, I recommend using a format like "Top of Funnel - Reach - [Date]" to help you organize and track performance as you scale your advertising efforts.

Targeting Ideal Audience on X

To maximize your targeting effectiveness, I recommend using a Chrome extension called X-Pro Targeting. This tool helps you build larger, more relevant audiences by identifying follower lookalikes and keyword-based targeting groups.

The ideal audience size for most X ad campaigns is between 1-5 million people. This provides enough scale while maintaining relevance. To build this audience:

1. Identify accounts whose followers match your ideal customer profile
2. Use the "recommendations" feature to discover similar accounts
3. Add enough accounts to reach the 1-5 million audience size
4. Focus on accounts with recent, high-engagement activity

Remember to target accounts with active followers rather than those with large but potentially inactive follower counts. This ensures your ads reach people who regularly use X and are more likely to engage with your content.

How to Start With a Low Budget

When launching your first X ad campaign, start with the minimum possible budget. This approach allows you to:

1. Test and optimize your targeting
2. Build trust with the X algorithm
3. Improve your ad relevance score
4. Gradually lower your costs

Initially, your costs will be higher as X learns about your account and ads. As your campaign runs and generates engagement, costs typically decrease significantly. Only increase your budget after 2-3 weeks of optimization when you're seeing good engagement metrics.

Max Reach & Demographic Settings

In the campaign settings, always select "Max reach recommended" and pay by impression rather than engagement. This ensures maximum visibility for your budget.

For demographic targeting, I recommend:

• Setting age ranges (typically 21-54 works well for most businesses)
• Specifying language (usually your native language)
• Selecting up to five countries where your ideal customers are located

Restricting these parameters prevents your ads from showing to irrelevant users or potential bots with incomplete profiles.

Building Lookalikes with X-Program Chrome Extension

The X Pro Targeting Chrome extension is invaluable for building effective lookalike audiences. After adding your initial target accounts, click on "recommendations" to see similar accounts suggested by the tool.

Continue adding accounts until you reach the recommended 1-5 million audience size. Remember to prioritize accounts with:

• Recent posting activity
• High engagement rates (comments, likes, shares)
• Authentic followers (not purchased or inactive accounts)

This ensures your ads are shown to real, active users who are most likely to engage with your content and eventually become followers or customers.

Middle-of-Funnel Retargeting Strategy

After your top-of-funnel Reach campaign has run for a while, set up a second campaign to retarget:

• Anyone who saw your initial ad
• Users who engaged with your content
• People who visited your profile
• New followers gained through the first campaign

This middle-of-funnel campaign should feature educational content that encourages comments or direct messages. The goal is to deepen the relationship with people who have already shown initial interest in your brand.

By asking for comments or DMs, you create opportunities for direct engagement that builds trust and familiarity. This approach works for both B2B and e-commerce businesses, though the specific offers will differ (lead magnets for B2B, coupon codes for e-commerce).

Example Pinned Tweet Breakdown

My own pinned tweet showcases the effectiveness of this approach. It introduces me personally, builds a relationship through my face and story, and has generated over 400,000 views with significant engagement (50+ comments, 270+ likes).

When someone new discovers my profile through an ad, this pinned tweet immediately establishes my authority and creates a memorable first impression. This is far more effective than a direct sales message or generic business announcement.

The key elements of an effective pinned tweet include:

• Your face (builds recognition and trust)
• A brief introduction of yourself and your business
• A compelling value proposition
• A conversation starter that encourages engagement

Authority Building & Trust through Engagement

The sequential nature of this advertising strategy is crucial. You're building a relationship through multiple touchpoints:

1. Initial ad exposure introduces your profile
2. Pinned tweet establishes authority and memorability
3. Consistent posting keeps you visible in their feed
4. Retargeting ads deepen the relationship through education
5. Organic engagement converts interest into action

This approach takes patience—sometimes people will hire you or buy from you weeks or even months after initially following you. But the quality of these relationships leads to better customers and clients in the long run.

Why You Should Use Organic Posts as Ads

When creating your ads, use existing organic posts rather than creating dedicated ad content. This approach:

1. Leverages social proof from existing engagement
2. Appears more authentic in feeds
3. Builds authority through visible likes and comments
4. Performs better in the algorithm

Don't use the "boost post" feature or create new ad-specific content—these approaches typically underperform. Instead, select an organic post that's already performing well and promote it through your campaign.

Keep your promoted posts relatively recent—ideally within the last 3 months. If a post is still generating good engagement, you can continue using it beyond this timeframe, but generally, fresher content performs better.

Ad Format Tips & Posting Strategy

When using organic posts as ads, you bypass many of the restrictions that come with creating dedicated ad content, such as:

• 280 character limits
• Square image requirements
• Video formatting specifications

This flexibility allows you to create more natural, engaging content that doesn't feel like traditional advertising.

After someone follows you from your ad, your consistent organic posting becomes crucial. Share valuable, educational content regularly to stay top-of-mind and build trust over time. Remember that the sales process on X is longer but often leads to higher-quality customers who feel a genuine connection to your brand.

Follow-Up Strategy with Content & Automation

The complete X advertising system works as a relationship funnel:

1. Reach campaign: Introduces your profile to potential followers using follower lookalike targeting
2. Pinned tweet: Establishes authority and builds recognition
3. Consistent posting: Maintains visibility and delivers value
4. Middle-of-funnel retargeting: Educates those who engaged and encourages deeper interaction
5. Value delivery: Provides something valuable in exchange for comments or DMs
6. Conversion: Eventually leads to sales after trust is established

This works equally well for service businesses and e-commerce. Instead of lead magnets, e-commerce brands can use abandoned cart recovery and coupon codes in their follow-up strategy.

Learn more about creating an effective follow-up system in this blog about email automations that convert leads to customers.

Final Thoughts: Patience Yields Results

The X advertising blueprint I've shared is fundamentally different from traditional advertising approaches. It prioritizes building relationships before asking for sales, which requires patience but delivers superior long-term results.

If you're looking for a platform with lower costs and higher quality engagement than Meta or Google, X advertising deserves your consideration. The approach works consistently across industries and business types when implemented correctly.

Remember that success with X ads isn't measured by immediate conversions but by the gradual building of an engaged audience that trusts you and eventually converts organically through your content. This strategy has transformed our agency model because it delivers sustainable, long-term results rather than quick but fleeting wins.

Here is the blueprint to implement for your business Comment. Alternatively, book a free 15-minute consultation session to discuss how this approach might work for your specific business. Book Now!

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