Kantar: 26% of marketers plan to cut back X ad spending in 2025 and 14% plan to pull budgets in 2024, over concerns about content and trust in disseminated info
Annual survey highlights growing concern about platform content and trust in information disseminated
Context & Ripple Effects
Marketers have repeatedly treated ad allocation as a platform-governance decision, not just a reach decision: brands were already seeking safer placements amid slower online-ad growth in 2019’s flight toward risk-managed inventory, while Facebook advertisers reassessed commitments as targeting became harder and pricier after GDPR.
The Kantar findings put X at the sharp end of that discipline. They arrive after agencies were reported to be shifting commitments toward YouTube and away from traditional TV, suggesting that brand-safety concerns can redirect budgets rather than simply reduce advertising overall.
First-order effects
- X faces planned budget reductions from 26% of surveyed marketers in 2025, while 14% say they intend to withdraw budgets in 2024; its advertising business is directly exposed to concerns over content quality and information trust.
- Advertisers and agencies must reassess whether X inventory meets their brand-safety standards, potentially narrowing campaigns or pausing spend while they review placement risk.
Second-order effects
- Budgets withheld from X can be reallocated to platforms and media environments agencies judge more controllable or trustworthy, reinforcing competition for brand-safe video and digital inventory.
- The survey raises the value of transparent moderation, placement controls, and credible measurement for ad-supported platforms; those unable to satisfy buyers’ standards risk losing spend beyond any single campaign cycle.
Third-order effects
- If marketers increasingly price content and information integrity into media plans, platform advertising will be differentiated more by governance and brand suitability than by audience scale alone.
- The pattern could make brand safety a more durable procurement requirement across social platforms, as later concerns about Meta’s moderation changes indicate; the extent of any spending shift will depend on whether advertisers find credible alternatives and controls.
The trend: Digital ad buying is moving toward a governance-weighted model in which trust, moderation, and placement control increasingly determine where budgets can scale.