X is trialing a novel advertising method that places a recommendation immediately below a post referencing the firm or its offerings. The preliminary trial, observed by an X user in Europe, showcased a suggestion to “Get Starlink” beneath a user’s message that asserted Starlink’s satellite connectivity functions excellently in Portugal. Clicking the link led individuals to Starlink’s official website.
X product chief Nikita Bier validated the experiment, stating, “Attempting to create a promotional offering that does not feel like advertising.”
The Starlink ad is not universally apparent to all account holders presently, but the designated space for the advertisement is.
Should you access X user @levelsio’s post from March 6 (captured in the image below, in the event of its removal), you’ll observe an outlined box below his message’s content. This box currently exhibits an arbitrary X message, unless your region is part of the active advertising trial.
Where the advertisement is visible, multiple users observed this fresh feature, with one inquiring, “LOL, did you append this Starlink prompt?”
Within the discussion, Bier also addressed a proposal that X ought to permit referral links in this promotional space by remarking, “No, otherwise individuals would deceive. I desire to have confidence in the suggestions presented here.”
X was not promptly available for a statement. TechCrunch will revise this piece once the firm provides a response.
This experiment comes after reports earlier in the current week that the company is deploying “Paid Partnership” designations for content producers. The labels may be affixed to messages to adhere to guidelines concerning promotional content on social platforms, rather than mandating content creators to employ a specific tag like “ad” or “paid partnership.”
Should remunerated posts from creators be integrated with an embedded hyperlink to a promoter similar to the one undergoing evaluation, X might potentially draw in additional advertisers to its service. This might enhance content producers’ engagement with the application, enabling it to more effectively contend with major social media platforms preferred by creators, like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
X has pursued content from creators for a considerable period — even prior to its rebranding as “X” and before it was under Elon Musk’s proprietorship. Nonetheless, the application has yet to firmly establish itself in this domain. To date, the firm has introduced a range of offerings for creators, such as remuneration for trending material, profit distribution from advertising, producer memberships, and more.
The company this week also overhauled its Creator Subscriptions product by incorporating several novel functionalities, which includes the option to earn revenue from discrete discussion threads.
Furthermore, X declared on Friday that the embedded AI assistant Grok can now process X’s extensive written material, referred to as Articles. This capability, similarly, remains underused, since content producers who issue substantial written works generally favor utilizing their personal websites or digital newsletters for such publications.
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