A new incentive by Twitter offers to match advertisers’ ad spending up to $250,000, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The full $500,000 in advertising must run by Feb. 28, the emails said. Recently, Twitter offered advertisers $500,000 in free ads as long as they spent at least $500,000. 

The offer launched in an attempt to woo brands back to the social-media platform, which has seen its ad business deteriorate following Elon Musk‘s $44 billion takeover. 

Following Musk’s chaotic takeover – for context, Musk stated in November that Twitter had suffered “a massive drop in revenue” and was losing $4 million a day – experts have advised brands and marketers to withhold ad spending and just stay engaged on Twitter simply to maintain customer feedback and relations. More than 75 of Twitter’s top 100 ad spenders from before Mr. Musk’s takeover weren’t spending on the platform as of the week ending 8th January, according to an analysis of data from research firm Sensor Tower. Some of these brands include huge names from pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc to General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG.

As a result, Twitter is facing financial pressure to lure back the many advertisers that have paused their spending since Elon acquired the company in late October. Advertisers fled largely because of fear over what they said was Musk’s approach to content moderation and concerns that their ads would end up appearing near controversial content. 

Naturally, following said chaos, persuading advertisers to return to Twitter is a critical priority for Musk and the platform. Almost 90% of Twitter’s $5.1 billion in revenue in 2021 came from ads. Regarding the incentive, brands must be eligible in proving use of certain Twitter products such as its recently released keyword-avoidance tool, which allows advertisers to create a list of up to 1,000 keywords and avoid having their ads appear above or below tweets containing those words.

Irony is present in that Musk cut thousands of jobs in hope to prevent Twitter’s track to post negative cash flow of $3 billion a year before these cost cuts. He said the staff was roughly 2,000 people compared with about 8,000 previously.