Twitter Advertising is Here: Promoted Accounts, Tweets & Trends

It looks Twitter has finally opened up for advertising and any business can now get en route on the “journey with the most engaging innovative ads on the web”.

Currently there are 3 advertising options available on Twitter:

  1. Promoted Accounts — “Part of Who to follow, Twitter’s account recommendation engine, Promoted Accounts highlight your account to users most likely to find it interesting. Twitter looks at your account and followers to identify similar accounts and similar followers, for amazing accuracy. “
  2. Promoted Tweets — “When you promote a Tweet, only the most relevant users see. Promoted Tweets are offered on a Cost-per-Engagement (CPE) basis, so you only pay when a user Retweets, replies to, clicks on or favorites your Promoted Tweet.”
  3. Promoted Trends — “Promoted Trends is the exclusive opportunity to feature a Trend related to your business at the top of this Trends list. When a user clicks on the Trend, they are taken to the conversation for that trend – with your Promoted Tweets pegged to the top of the timeline.”

You cannot yet set up a campaign as quickly as, say, on AdWords or Facebook, but have to fill out this form on their website to be considered (note how there is no option for advertisers with budgets under $10,000):

Start advertising on Twitter

I have just done so, and landed on:

Thank you page doesn't exist

Obviously, the still have things to polish there.

It will be interesting to see what Twitter advertising develops into. Will it bite yet another part of the paid search marketing pie (in addition to the part that Facebook has bitten off earlier)? I do not believe so — at least not in its present packaging. It is obvious that (a) Twitter is currently targeting a totally different type (and size) of advertisers, and (b) their models (especially that cost-per-engagement one) are different from cost-per-click. It doesn’t mean that it may not change with time though.

What are your thoughts?

Related commentary by others:

4 thoughts on “Twitter Advertising is Here: Promoted Accounts, Tweets & Trends”

  1. Hey Geno,

    Thanks for the post and info. I applied and am very curious of what their targeting abilities will be. If I get approved ill be sure to send some screen shots.

    See you in vegas?

    1. Michael, the pleasure is all mine. Yes, please do hit me up if you get approved and see things from the inside.

      Yes, I’ll be in Vegas. See you soon.

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