Digitas North America’s Ariel Sims assesses the Threads and X era of the social ad market

For all the attention being paid to X (née Twitter) these days, Ariel Sims is keeping a closer eye on Meta’s Threads at the moment. Between the two text-based social platforms, the latter is the one that the svp and head of paid social at Digitas North America said she’s spending more time talking with clients about and thinking about. “We’re having more conversation around [Threads]. But because my remit is typically in paid [advertising and] there’s no paid advertising on Threads, it’s more of a POV around what are you seeing, what’s the usage looking like, how do we play in that space,” Sims said on the latest Digiday Podcast episode. Threads usage appears to have gone down significantly since its launch in early July. According to Sensor Tower, daily usage was down 82% in less than a month. Nonetheless, Sims sees Threads staying in the conversation for “at least the next six, eight months.” At which time Meta may finally introduce ads on Threads after playing coy on its ad plans with ad buyers so far. “All we know is that it’s not this year [when Meta will introduce ads to Threads]. That’s the only thing that we’ve heard,” Sims said.