Ads are officially coming to Threads amid volatility at TikTok and X

The news: On Friday, Meta said it would begin a “limited, early test” of ads on its X-rival, Threads, with a few advertisers in the US and Japan.

Meta hasn’t disclosed which advertisers are involved, but Skittles, Marvel, Nike, and Louis Vuitton were among the brands that had active ads on Threads as of January 27.

Why it matters: The volatility at TikTok is spurring advertisers to seek alternatives, and Meta isn’t going to pass up an opportunity to throw Threads into the mix.

Investors have also been eagerly waiting for Meta to start monetizing Threads, giving the company a win when it reports Q4 2024 earnings on Wednesday.

Between the lines: Recent reports also suggest that some big-name advertisers started returning to X after the US election, in part due to X owner Elon Musk’s close ties with President Donald Trump.

That provides an additional incentive for Meta to introduce ads on Threads, which many advertisers have bucketed as a potential alternative to X.

Yes, but: The launch of Threads ads just a few weeks after Meta’s content moderation makeover and a few days after Trump’s inauguration has raised both advertiser and consumer eyebrows.

• Some brands are more skeptical of Meta as a result of the upcoming changes, which include more political content and the introduction of X-like Community Notes to police content.
• Consumer backlash has already begun, with many users complaining about ads coming to the platform.

Be smart: The dust will eventually settle. And by the time Threads ads roll out more broadly, they will be hard for most advertisers to resist.

• Threads ads will be part of Meta’s powerhouse ad ecosystem, and advertisers can extend their existing Meta campaigns by simply checking a box.
• Threads now has more than 300 million monthly active users, per Meta, up from 275 million in November 2024. X had 349.1 million monthly users in 2024, per our estimates.

Go deeper: In our December 2024 “Social Media Trends to Watch 2025” report, we predicted that the rollout of Threads ads would start in early 2025 but progress slowly.

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