As a response to U.S. ad revenue falling 60%, social media platform X (which used to be known as Twitter) has partnered with Google Display Network in the hope that it’ll recoup some of its lost income by boosting its advertising base.

The Google partnership follows a decision taken to start selling ads through Indian marketplace InMobi in May.

Kelsey Chickering, Principal Analyst, Forrester, via QZ

“The chaos that ensued following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter—uncertain moderation policies, a revolving door of account managers, etc.—made it easy for Twitter’s top advertisers to walk away and take their spend elsewhere.”

An opportunity for advertisers

Now, advertisers can use Google Ads Display campaigns to access X home feed inventory, although exactly how that’ll work hasn’t been announced by either party. With more than 90% of its total revenue brought in by ads, X needs the move to reverse its decline in sales and get it on the path to something that looks like profitability.

The Google Display Network helps advertisers reach people across millions of website, apps and Google properties such as YouTube and Gmail. 

Google Ads Help

“The Google Display Network helps you find the right audience with its targeting options that strategically show your message to potential customers at the right place and the right time. Display campaigns include AI capabilities that help improve campaign performance.”

Display campaigns are often used to show ads in a wide variety of formats across the Google Display Network, and can reach buyers at all stages of the buying cycle. And now, it can be used to serve ads on X.

There are several concerns over X’s advertising offering, which marketers need to consider before running any ads on the app.

Kelsey Chickering, Principal Analyst, Forrester, via QZ

“[The] current advertiser deficit means further degradation of the experience for users who now see increasingly irrelevant ads. As the ad experience erodes for users, so does the overall experience on the platform, leaving room for competitors to steal user time and advertiser budgets.”

But, for those brave enough to take on X, there is an opportunity to get in front of 200 million engaged daily users – all while using a platform that many will already be familiar with, and will probably have adverts already running on. That will make it easy to repurpose existing creative for X, saving time and money in the process.

However, it should be noted that X has flimsy brand safety protections, so ads could be placed next to offensive content.

Not Google’s only partnership

X isn’t the only tech giant Google has partnered with recently. Back in September it was revealed that TikTok is testing displaying links to Google search results from its own search results page in the app.

TikTok confirmed that the Google results are not ads, so speculation is that Google has decided to enter into a partnership with the video sharing platform to try and drive some search traffic back to its own engine.

The move comes as young people are turning to platforms like TikTok and Instagram for their search results – and a much shared quote from a higher-up at Google seems to confirm this.

Prabhakar Raghavan, Senior Vice President, Google

“In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram.”

There is also Google’s impending antitrust investigation from the U.S. Justice Department to consider. The rise of TikTok as a search destination could help Google make a case that is has competition, but on the other hand, the partnership could work against it. Time will tell with that one.

Brands should keep an eye on this, even if the implications are unclear at this stage. If anything, it could herald the rise of TikTok as a discovery platform.