With Elon Musk potentially on the outs as Chief Twit, Twitter could soon see a new approach, which could once again change the direction of the app.
But thus far, under Elon’s leadership, things have been trending along a path that’s less aligned with brand safety, in allowing banned users to return, touting a more ‘free speech’ approach to content moderation, and even sharing his own conspiracy theories via his tweets.
Given this, and the fact that Twitter needs ad dollars to keep running, it makes sense that one of the primary concerns raised in a recent meeting between Twitter execs and ad industry folk was brand safety, and how Twitter will be able to ensure that their ads are not displayed alongside offensive content.
Which has led to Twitter adding some new options to reassure ad partners.
First off, Twitter is rolling out new Adjacency Controls, which will enable brand to prevent their promotions from appearing alongside Tweets which include chosen keywords that they’d prefer to avoid.
As per Twitter:
“To start, these controls will apply to adjacent Tweets in English only, and we’ll roll out to other languages shortly. Empowering brands to customize their campaigns to prevent their ads from appearing adjacent to unsuitable content is an important step towards increased ad relevance on Twitter.”
Yeah, ‘ad relevance’. That’s why advertisers would want this.
The option will provide ad placement controls in ‘relevance-ranked Home Timelines’, which covers the majority of Twitter usage. That’ll give some extra assurance to brands who don’t want their promotions showing up alongside, you know, hate-based commentary and conspiracy theories.
In addition to this, Twitter will also expand its partnerships with brand safety partners DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science.
“In early Q1 2023, DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science will offer their post-bid brand safety reporting for Tweets in our Home Timeline at scale to our advertising partners. This reporting will give advertisers transparency on the context in which their ads served, according to the GARM Brand Safety & Suitability Framework.”
DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science will also provide independent validation of Twitter’s efforts to uphold the GARM Brand Safety Floor, which seeks to prevent unsafe ad placements.
Really, these are baseline parameters that all digital ad platforms should provide, but in Twitter’s case, they’ve become increasingly important, as advertisers keep their push notifications switched on for Elon’s tweets, to ensure that they’re across his every update and shift.
I mean, ideally, Elon would have liked to have cut off advertisers entirely, by supplementing Twitter’s ad income with subscriptions. Evidently, that’s not going to happen, and while Twitter does need ad partners, it will also be beholden to ad placement regulations which will help to ensure that you don’t end up seeing promoted tweets alongside offensive remarks in the app.
And with tens of thousands of previously banned accounts being reinstated, the risk of such has also increased exponentially – which is why for Twitter, these updates are mission critical to its next stage.
