X and Morgan Stanley say their Cashtags feature lets users move from posts about a stock or cryptocurrency on X to E*Trade to place a trade. At an Advertising Week New York session, the companies described the product’s reach and their measurement plans but did not say how often exposure led to a completed trade.
The discussion featured Monique Pintarelli, X’s Global Head of Advertising, and Andrea Zaretsky, Chief Marketing Officer of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and E*Trade. The partnership is a live test of whether real-time financial interest can drive customer action and how to measure that connection.
Cashtags Connect Market Talk to Trading
Cashtags are clickable tags for stock or crypto tickers on X. Searching a dollar-sign ticker brings up related financial trends, news and conversation. Users can then follow a link to a partner such as E*Trade to trade.
“Powered by partners like Morgan Stanley E*Trade, you can actually convert and trade right from the product,” Pintarelli said.
Zaretsky described the path from a discussion about a company or coin to E*Trade’s trading experience. “With just the click of a button, you are taken right into our experience to execute a trade, become a client,” she said.
Measurement Starts Before Launch
The companies said they developed the feature around shared business goals: adding utility for existing customers and reaching new ones. Pintarelli said they built measurement into the collaboration so the teams could evaluate performance and make adjustments.
“We worked hand in hand to help shape the experience,” she said, adding that the teams were “building backward from measurement in a deeper way than we’ve ever done before.”
Pintarelli said X had nearly 900 million posts about business and finance in the six months before the session. She also reported nearly 200 million global impressions for Cashtags in the first few days of October.
Sports Strategy Extends Beyond Game Day
Cashtags is the partnership’s newest product collaboration. The teams began working together on NFL advertising and expanded into sports highlights and other placements.
Zaretsky said the advertising opportunity includes the buildup to a game, the event itself and the postgame conversation. “The conversation is not happening just on game day,” she said. She added that E*Trade sees about half as many views after game day as on game day.
The partners also used takeovers to reach a broad audience around E*Trade’s crypto launch.
Experts Join the Market Conversation
Morgan Stanley is also using X to put its experts into financial discussions. Zaretsky cited Amy Oldenburg, the firm’s head of digital assets, who posts about launches, speaking engagements and business developments.
The firm also partnered with X to reach founders through research and a white paper tied to its first founders conference. Zaretsky said Morgan Stanley uses client insights to tailor marketing across its 20 million clients, from first-time investors to people planning for retirement.
For marketers beyond financial services, the broader question is whether real-time interest in a category can connect to a useful next step and how well they can measure the results.
The panel described the planned measurement approach but did not report completed trades, customer acquisition or return on ad spend. Pintarelli said the product is still developing: “Cashtags is in its infancy.” The next evidence to watch is whether exposure leads to measurable actions such as click-throughs, trades or new customers.
