Twitter is slowly making headway with reticent advertisers, after a subtle endorsement yesterday from one of the largest media holding companies, WPP. Some of Twitter’s biggest advertisers from before Elon Musk bought the company in October are willing to rethink strict ad pauses that were enacted because of concerns about major policy changes on the platform, according to people familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

However, Twitter’s ad team, led by longtime veteran Chris Riedy, still faces challenges integrating back into the world of big brand advertising. And Ad Age has recently learned Twitter has no plans to host a stage presentation at this year’s NewFronts in May, which is typically one of its biggest sales pitches of the year, a high-profile industry confab that is critical to stabilizing ad revenue well into 2024.

The bright side is that WPP became the first major agency to publicly suggest brands reassess Twitter, after the holding company, along with IPG's Mediabrands and Omnicom, warned advertisers in November to consider pausing spend on Twitter due to concerns over moderation practices, among other issues. WPP CEO Mark Read, speaking on Bloomberg TV yesterday, said: “Twitter seems to be a lot more stable the last few months than perhaps it was toward the end of last year. I think clients want to start to look about how they can come back onto Twitter.”

WPP did not return a request for comment. Another top holding company that had sent an advisory note to clients in November, warning that the site could be unsafe for advertising as usual, confirmed this week that it eased up a little on that recommendation. “The media holding company shifted its guidance to clients from a full stop to ‘proceed with caution’ based on recent improvements in brand suitability controls, but still wants to see third party validation of the platform’s hate speech conclusions before returning to business as usual,” a person close to the holding company said.

It’s unclear how persuasive Twitter, and its potential agency allies, will be in bringing back some brands long-term, though. “I’m not changing my position” until there’s a top-level meeting with Twitter, said a marketing leader at one of the brands that paused spend in November, speaking on condition of anonymity. The marketer said they would sit down with Twitter’s ad team in the coming months. The brand wants to learn more about how contextual ad targeting is working, which is when ads are placed according to the subject matter in Twitter timelines and searches. The brand also wants to learn more about the prevalence of hate speech, and it wants to see that leadership has stabilized.

Twitter has a tough hill to climb, because leaving the platform did not greatly alter this brand’s advertising results, “and I don’t miss the two to three hours of conversation each week on if we stay … or leave the platform,” the marketer said.

Still, there have been moves by brands in recent weeks, especially during the Super Bowl, to dip back into the platform. Doritos, Heineken, Molson Coors, Crown Royal, PopCorners, E-Trade, Pringles, Pepsi and others bought ads around the game, and others were active with unpaid posting. Twitter appeared to be coming back to life with marketing, and brand mentions, a measure of how often people talked about Super Bowl advertisers in the weeks leading up to the game and during the game, were up 150% from 2022, according to Sprinklr, a marketing and customer service software provider.

Twitter’s next big test comes in May, when most of the top digital ad platforms hold NewFronts presentations, which are produced by IAB. Twitter will not put on a NewFronts presentation this year, according to one person familiar with the plans. However, Riedy and his team are expected to be active on the periphery making the case for Twitter, this person said. Riedy is doing the work to “rebuild trust in the platform,” this person said.

Related: See the TV upfronts and newfronts calendar

Twitter is fighting for its ad fortunes after a brutal few months. After Musk took over, there were concerns that looser moderation policies would increase the risk to brands, which don’t want to be surrounded by offensive material.

There also were changes that caught brands by surprise, like when Musk started to sell “blue checkmarks” as part of Twitter Blue subscriptions. The check marks had been used by brands to prove that it was their voice on the service. This then led to random accounts buying the check marks and impersonating brands. Musk has since overhauled the program to give brands a gold checkmark as a symbol of authentication, while selling the blue ones as a subscription feature. Some advertisers, who were close with Twitter’s previous ad sales team, were disoriented by the way Musk fired more than half the staff, including people who worked closely with brands to service their ad buys. In late November, Riedy, a veteran on Twitter’s ad team, became the head of sales, providing a sense of continuity. 

In December, Twitter’s U.S. ad revenue dropped 71% year over year, according to Standard Media Index, which tracks invoices from major holding companies and independent ad agencies. In November, Twitter's U.S. ad revenue was down 46% year over year, according to Standard Media Index.

Twitter has made some improvements in recent weeks. In January, Twitter announced a deal with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, opening a new brand safety tool to show marketers more details about the tweets that appear alongside ads. Twitter also has been aggressively discounting ad rates, offering two-for-one deals on impressions leading up to the Super Bowl, which meant that for every view the advertiser bought, Twitter threw in another one free, matching up to $250,000 in ad spending.

Twitter also has been working with the Media Rating Council to prepare for an audit, a process that has been in the works since at least 2021, when Twitter agreed to have an independent party analyze its brand safety systems. The willingness to work with industry bodies like MRC, and to consider recommendations from the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, another trade organization, instilled some confidence among agencies that the platform is on the right track, according to Prerna Talreja, Crossmedia, managing director, head of digital activation.

“They have completed the pre-assessment for MRC audit and accreditation,” Talreja said, “and they also released adjacency controls to block certain keywords and measure safety via third parties like IAS and DV.”

“However, there still remains skepticism and of course these capabilities still have gaps,” Talreja said. “So, we're not seeing brands immediately rushing back, but there is more interest now."

Contributing: Lindsay Rittenhouse