X tests new advertising format linking posts directly to products

X is testing a new advertising format that places a recommendation directly beneath a post that mentions a company or one of its products. The early test, first noticed by an X user in Europe, showed a prompt to "Get Starlink" below a post from a user who wrote that Starlink's satellite service works well in Portugal. When users clicked the link, it took them to Starlink's website.

X head of product Nikita Bier confirmed that the experiment is real, replying, "Trying to make an ad product that isn't an ad."

Currently, the Starlink ad is not shown to all users, although the ad placeholder is already visible.

If you open X user @levelsio's post from March 6, which has also been screenshotted in case it is deleted, you can see an outlined box under the post's text. Right now, that box displays a random X post unless you are in one of the markets where the advertising test is currently active.

In regions where the ad appears, several commenters noted the new feature, with one person asking, "lmao, did you add this Starlink button?"

In the same thread, Bier also replied to a suggestion that X should let users place affiliate links in that ad slot, saying, "No, then people will lie. I want to trust recommendations on here."

The test comes shortly after reports earlier this week that X is introducing "Paid Partnership" labels for creators. These labels can be added to posts so creators can comply with social media advertising rules, rather than relying on hashtags such as "ad" or "paid partnership."

If sponsored creator posts were eventually paired with an embedded advertiser link like the one now being tested, X could become more attractive to marketers. That, in turn, could increase creator activity on the platform and help X compete more effectively with larger creator-focused networks such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

X has been building momentum around creator content for quite a while — even before the platform was renamed "X" and before Elon Musk took ownership. Still, the app has never fully established itself in that space. To date, the company has introduced a variety of creator-focused tools, including payouts for viral posts, ad-revenue sharing, creator subscriptions, and other features.

This week, the company also updated its Creator Subscriptions offering with several new features, including the ability to earn money from individual threads.

Alongside that, X announced on Friday that its integrated chatbot Grok can now read X's long-form content format, known as Articles. That feature is also not widely used, as creators who publish longer written work usually prefer to do so through their own websites or newsletters.