An ad on X is, first of all, a post. It has an avatar, a name, a handle and text, and it sits in the home timeline between posts from people the reader chose to follow. The platform has spent the last few years changing what surrounds that post: the label, the card that carries the link, and, for some campaigns, a real button. If your picture of an X ad dates from the Twitter years, it is out of date.
The details below come from X's own creative specifications and ads documentation, and from X's timeline as it looked in September 2026.
Promoted is now Ad, at the top
X ads used to carry a small Promoted line at the bottom of the post. Since 2023 they have carried an Ad label at the top right, beside the menu, where the time would sit on an ordinary post. X's help pages describe ads as clearly marked with an Ad label. The rest of the post looks like any other: the display name in bold, the handle, the text, the media, and the row of reply, repost, like and view counts underneath.
Text: 280 characters, and a link costs 23
An ad's text has the same 280 character limit as any post, but every link counts as 23 characters however long it really is, because X shortens it. A post with one link therefore has 257 characters left for everything else. In practice, the posts that do well in the timeline are much shorter than that: one idea, stated plainly, with the link in the card rather than in the text.
The website card
Most ads that send people to a site use a website card: the picture or video, with the headline written over it and the destination shown underneath. The headline sits on the image, roughly 8 to 12 pixels in from the left and bottom edges, on a dark band so it stays readable. Under the card, in small grey text, X shows where it leads, in the form From yourbrand.com.
- Headline: up to 70 characters, shown on at most two lines before it is cut with an ellipsis. X suggests 50 or fewer to avoid the cut on most devices.
- Image card: 800 by 418 (1.91:1) or 800 by 800 (1:1). Keep the bottom left of the picture plain, since the headline covers it.
- Video card: 800 by 450 (16:9) or 800 by 800.
- The destination URL must start with http:// or https://.
A standard website card has no button. The whole card is the link. That is why the headline carries so much weight: it is the only call to action the reader sees.
Sales campaigns get a button
Since May 2025, ads bought with the sales objective can use a different layout: the headline moves below the media, next to a button with a call to action. It looks more like a shop listing than a post, and it is meant to. For e-commerce clients it is worth testing against the classic card, since it makes the next step obvious. App campaigns have long had their own buttons, with labels such as Install, Open, Play, Shop, Book, Connect and Order.
Pictures and video
- Images: PNG or JPEG up to 5 MB. For a picture on its own, 1200 by 1200 or 1200 by 628 are the standard sizes. X also accepts 16:9 and 9:16, and in February 2026 added 4:5 and 2:3, so creative made for Instagram and Pinterest can be reused without recropping.
- GIFs are shown as a still image in ads, so animated creative should be supplied as video.
- Video: MP4 or MOV up to 1 GB. X recommends 15 seconds or less, and supports up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Videos under a minute loop.
- Standalone video: 1920 by 1080 or 1200 by 1200.
In the timeline, pictures sit inside a rounded frame with a thin border, at the width of the text column. A tall picture takes more of the screen, which helps it stop the scroll, but check how it crops in the card before relying on it.
Objectives, and what they are for
X's ads manager organises campaigns by objective: reach, video views, pre-roll views, website traffic, engagements, app installs, app re-engagements and sales. The objective decides what X optimises for and what you pay for, so pick the one that matches what the client will judge the campaign on. A website traffic campaign that is reported on sales will always look like a failure.
Writing for the timeline
X is a text-first place, and ads that read like announcements lose to posts that read like a person talking. A few habits help.
- Lead with the point. The first line is often all that is read, so it should carry the offer or the reason to care.
- Put the link in the card, not the text, so the post does not lose 23 characters and a line to a URL.
- Write the card headline as a separate sentence that works on its own, since it sits on the picture and is read after the post.
- Match the language to the audience. For Gulf campaigns that often means separate Arabic and English ads rather than one bilingual post.
- Tag the link with UTM parameters, because traffic from X apps often arrives without a clear referrer and is otherwise counted as direct.
X in Saudi Arabia
X matters more in Saudi Arabia than in most markets. DataReportal's analysis of X's own advertising tools put its ad reach at about 15 million people in Saudi Arabia at the end of 2025, around 43 percent of the population, against about 2.85 million in the UAE, around 25 percent. Those are reach figures from the ad tools, not active users, but the gap between the two markets is the useful part. A campaign built for the UAE should not assume X is a small channel in the Kingdom.
Brand safety
Many clients' first question about X is where their ads will appear. X offers adjacency controls that keep ads away from chosen keywords and accounts, and third-party verification from companies such as IAS. Set them before launch, agree the lists with the client, and put them in the campaign notes so the choice is on record. X has also been testing Grok inside its ads manager with a limited group of advertisers, for strategy suggestions and help writing ads.
What the reader can do with it
An ad on X can be replied to, reposted, liked, bookmarked and shared, just like a post, and those replies are public. That is an opportunity and a risk. Someone on the account team should watch the replies for the first days of a campaign, especially in markets where a clumsy line can travel quickly, and have an agreed answer ready for the obvious questions about price and availability.
The ad mockup generator on this site draws an X ad in the home timeline with the Ad label, the headline over the picture, the From line and the action row. It also counts the post the way X does, with each link as 23 characters, so you can see the real length before the ad goes into the ads manager.
