Government ad spending audit reveals Twitter ban

The Federal government banned Twitter advertising following a “brand safety incident” in 2022, according to an official audit report into government spending on advertising.

The revelation is contained in the Australian National Audit Office’s (ANAO) report into government ad spend between 2021 and 2024, released yesterday.

The unspecified incident in September 2022 involved ads on individual Twitter profiles, and occurred just before Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform.

Agency UM advised the government to “pause” all Twitter spend and to permanently ban all ads on Twitter search and individual profiles.

Mumbrella has contacted the ANAO for further detail on the incident.

The distinction between ad placements on Twitter is relevant, as the banned search and profile ads are not the only ad inventory on the platform: promoted posts, for example, are the most common ad type and appear in a user’s regular feed.

The blanket advertising pause on Twitter, rebranded X in 2023, had apparently been lifted a year later when Crikey reported the ADF and Department of Education were advertising on the platform. This was in the context of global advertisers moving off X in response to a loosening of content policies and the appearance of anti-semitic and other objectionable material.

UM’s relationship with the government was also under the microscope in the ANAO report. UM first won the contract to provide media strategy, planning and buying services to the Australian Government in 2018, and then renewed the contract in 2021.

The audit report shows that the government paid UM an annual retainer of $9.8-$10.5m between 2018 and 2024, or a total retainer of over $70m over the seven years.

Customer satisfaction surveys taken one year apart in 2022, 2023 and 2024 show the government’s happiness with UM slipping from “Good” to “Average” with a steady downward trend.

UM satisfaction scores (ANAO)

The surveys were conducted independently by Verian, the last in December 2024. They measured how well UM was performing against “contracted requirements and service levels”, general satisfaction and areas where UM needed to improve.

UM declined to comment on the ANAO report and the satisfaction ratings.

Also included in the audit was an overview of government ad spending that highlighted the spikes that invariably occur before elections. See Tim Burrowes’ A Smoking Gun in Unmade for a lengthier dissection of that phenomenon.