Microsoft has told its advertisers that it will remove Twitter from its Smart Campaigns ad platform from 25 April after Bill Gates’ old company reportedly baulked at the high price of Twitter’s API.
The company behind Windows and Office posted a note on its website and emailed advertisers saying that the Smart Campaigns with Multi-Platform and the Digital Marketing Centre would remove Twitter on Monday.
From then on, users will be unable to access their Twitter accounts through Microsoft’s social media management tool, rendering them unable to schedule, create or manage tweets. Plus, users will not be able to view their past tweets or engagement through the platform.
Previously, Microsoft’s Digital Marketing Centre would let users control their Twitter accounts and other social platforms within one app and run paid ad campaigns on Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram, and Microsoft’s search advertising.
Twitter’s API allows third parties to integrate Twitter services and had previously been free. However, in February, Twitter boss Elon Musk announced that the company would kill free API access and would instead charge enterprises at least US$42,000 (AU$62,000) per month to access it.
Musk, however, defended his decision to hike the API price claiming that Microsoft had been “ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it (removing ads) and then selling our data to others.”
He also claimed that Microsoft used Twitter data to train its AI tools and that it was “lawsuit time.”
This would seem to be yet another attack on advertisers by Musk who started to leave the platform in droves following his takeover.
Speaking to NBC’s Linda Yaccarino at the Possible conference yesterday, Musk said to applause that “it’s totally cool to say you want your advertising to appear in certain places in Twitter and not in other places. But it is not cool to try to say what Twitter will do. And if that means losing advertising dollars, we lose it. But freedom of speech is paramount.”
