29 million impressions, only $71 earned: How to make money from traffic on X?
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29 million impressions, only $71 earned: How to make money from traffic on X?
Only interactions from high-quality paying users can be monetized.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: MAD Vincent
Translation: Chopper, Foresight News
I did exactly what they said: spammed comments endlessly, chased traffic by piggybacking on top accounts, rushed to every trending topic—chasing exposure like it was chips in a bull market.
After 29 million impressions, X paid me $71.49.
This is a warning. In 2025, anyone still chasing impressions on X isn't seizing opportunities or working hard—they're just the sucker inheriting bot traffic.
The Lie Everyone Believes
Somewhere along the way, the crypto Twitter (CT) community reached a consensus: "More exposure equals more money." That used to be half-true. But in 2025, it's become pure nonsense.
Today’s impression count is nothing but a flashy vanity metric—shiny and addictive, yet utterly useless for real earnings. It can make your analytics dashboard look as bullish as a moonshot chart, while your bank balance remains pathetically low, like an abandoned dust wallet.
I learned this lesson the hard way.
My Personal Experiment (a.k.a. How I Got Rekt)
In mid-December 2025, I launched this aggressive traffic experiment: posting over 200 comments daily, targeting only top accounts’ posts for visibility, not limiting myself to any niche—pure, indiscriminate spam across all topics.
Movies, games, politics, crypto, memes, sports… if it was trending, I commented.
Soon, my activity started getting "responses" on the platform: "Bro, I see you everywhere," "The algorithm must love you," "These stats? Straight-up explosive growth."
Now, here are the actual results: 28.9 million impressions, 267.7k engagements, 119.5k likes, 11.8k comment replies, 3.1k bookmarks, 20k profile visits, 37.5k followers—with verified users making up about 41%.
I posted only four original threads per day; all other traffic came from "comment-section surfing." On paper, these numbers look overwhelmingly strong. Yet at payout, I earned just $71.49.
That’s when it hit me: impressions don’t pay. High-quality, paying-user engagement does.
X’s monetization logic has changed—it no longer rewards reach, but who’s engaging with you.
If your engagement doesn’t come from paying verified users, it’s as good as nonexistent.
The Real Monetization Rules on X in 2025
There’s no mystery here—just a truth many refuse to accept. Here are the real rules.
The only interactions that count toward monetization are those from paid verified users: replies, reposts, bookmarks, and likes—and only when they happen within monetizable reply threads.
Some interactions yield zero monetization value: free user actions, bot-farmed volume, spikes in impressions without verified user participation, and "fake virals" lacking any verified engagement.
A single comment from a paying verified user may be worth more than 100 bot likes.
Also, engagement types carry different weights. Replies and reposts rank highest, followed by bookmarks, then likes—the lowest.
So if your engagement profile shows high likes, few replies, and low verified ratio, your account may look hot—but holds zero monetization value.
The Unspoken Bot Traffic Trap
Piggybacking on top accounts’ comments may seem like a fast follower-growth hack, but it’s actually a bot-traffic distribution engine.
Here’s what really happens: your comment gets pushed to bot networks → impressions spike → engagement looks healthy → at payout, the platform filters out all invalid traffic.
That’s why you get absurd outcomes like “29M impressions, $71 earned.” This isn’t a system glitch—it’s the platform enforcing its rules precisely.
This Strategy Is Killing Your Account
This isn’t just low ROI—it causes irreversible damage to your account.
Bot Follower Contamination
In just days, my account gained over 2,500 bot followers. These bots drag down:
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Your verified user ratio
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The platform’s trust score for your account
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Your future payouts
Follower Base Dilution
Your audience stops being targeted and turns into worthless noise. Both the algorithm and advertisers see right through it—and your earnings reflect that instantly.
Algorithmic Demotion Penalty
Posting 200+ comments daily → easily triggers rate limits. No clear content focus → fails to signal a coherent account identity to the algorithm. Eventually, your account gets flagged as "likely spam."
Creator Burnout
You think you’re dominating the feed—then your bank notification hits like a gut punch. Most creators quit right here.
What I Did Instead
I completely overhauled my approach: removed 2,500 bot followers, purged 5,000 zombie accounts, stopped comment-section surfing, and focused on building a real fan community.
Short-term, my metrics dropped. But long-term account health began recovering.
In the next payout cycle, my stats shifted: lower impressions, higher engagement quality (check the engagement rate %), more precise follower growth, and significantly reduced creative pressure.
The Metrics That Actually Matter
If you want to earn on X, aim for these:
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3%-5% engagement rate
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High-retention threads driven by replies
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45%-50% verified user ratio
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Consistent original content output
Lower impressions? No problem. High-quality engagement is what counts. Hit these, and you’ll shift from “Why is my income so trash?” to “Oh, this actually works for sustainable monetization.”
The Final Truth
Impressions are like the siren’s song—luring you into thinking you’ve seized the moment, that you’re central to the platform, giving you an illusion of importance.
But they bring zero revenue. What pays are interactions from high-quality paying users. In 2025, X doesn’t reward “traffic speculators”—it rewards “content builders.”
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@MadVincent666
