Advertisers say their Google ads are showing up on X. Why?

I really don't understand how Google can continue to justify their policy of 'we push you to every platform unless you dig in our settings and turn some platforms off' when it keeps resulting in embarrassing BS that advertisers don't like.

This isn't even the first time this has happened, only the first time with this particular platform.

Google’s ad tools bid and serve ads based on certain advertiser criteria across platforms, including on X. If advertisers don’t want to run on certain publishers, they have to opt out, according to Google spokesperson Michael Aciman.

The ads show up in places they are not expected to show up or formatted for and advertiser money is wasted.

At some point buyers are going to have to come to terms that this isn't by accident. It's all by design.

It's almost an aside that the future of advertising on X itself is clearly not great.

Jack Johnston, senior social innovation director at performance marketing firm Tinuiti, told Marketing Brew that a few of his clients had bought X ads through Google but at such a small scale that it was hard to gauge performance. Aesthetically, he described the ads as being a “little out of place” on the platform.

Meanwhile, the conversation about advertising on X has shifted. Musk’s personal brand, he said, is turning some advertisers away even more than the content of the platform itself.

“The conversation is not necessarily about brand safety or anything that advertisers have control over. It’s more political: Certain leadership on the client side feel like they don’t want to invest because it aligns with Elon,” he said. “That’s most of the conversation that we’re having when we bring it up.”