X, formerly known as Twitter, is discontinuing its promoted accounts ad format. The ad format, which allowed advertisers to promote their accounts within the platform’s timeline to attract new followers, generated more than $100 million annually in global revenue for X.
The Promoted Accounts feature, commonly known as “Follower Objective” ads, was taken down after X’s advertising clients were informed via email. These are text-based ads that display in the timeline feed with a Follow button. They don’t explicitly promote any content, and the call-to-action is merely to follow the individual.
The decision to discontinue the promoted accounts ad format is part of a larger effort by X to optimize the X experience by prioritizing content formats. X has said that it is looking to focus on more dynamic ad formats, such as video ads, that can better engage users.
According to an Axios’ source, “the change was driven by X’s product group, not the revenue side of the company.”
The sources for this piece include an article in Axios.