Promoted Tweets – Twitter Advertising has Launched
The launch of the new Twitter advertising model (launched 4/13/2010) provided a lot of buzz within the Internet marketing community this past week. As a service to our readers Rise read through many of the blogs and news articles available and has bullet pointed what we believe is the most important information on the topic. Below you will see an example of the new Twitter Ads (Promoted Tweets) and bullet points on the facts regarding the Twitter ad model. We also included our thoughts on the latest news to send the Internet marketing industry abuzz.
Twitter Ad - Starbucks
Current Facts
1) The name of the service is Promoted Tweets.
2) The ads appear as Tweets, identifiable as sponsored by the “Promoted by XYZ company” in the bottom left corner as seen in the above example.
3) Ads will only appear when someone searches a keyword that the advertiser has bid on, unless retweeted.
4) Ads will always appear at the top of the page, even as more real-time results relevant to the search query are made available.
5) If one rolls over the ad with their cursor it will turn yellow.
6) Ads will be measured based on their resonance, which is a Twitter performance metric that takes nine factors into account including: click-through-rate, volume of retweets, and the number of people who clicked on the link within the Tweet/Ad.
7) If an Ad does not reach a resonance threshold it will not appear anymore and the advertiser will no longer have to pay for it.
8) Advertisers will be billed on a CPM basis.
The Future
1) Ads will be shown in Twitter’s user streams instead of just being based on search. It is unclear how users will be targeted but geographic location, the shared interest of people they follow, and contextual ads based on an individual user’s tweets are expected.
2) Different pricing models other than CPM are expected in the relatively near future. CPC seems like a no-brainer, possibly CPA?
RISE’s Thoughts
- Twitter’s cautious and phased approach to the rollout of the advertising model is extremely smart in its effort to make sure not to annoy users and turn them away in droves. The resonance scoring system highlights this concern and will seemingly ensure that it is alleviated.
- Promoted Tweets will be a great reputation management tool for companies especially when dealing with negative occurrences or crises as Twitter users search for news about hot topics (e.g. 2010 Toyota Recall) via the portal.
- The fact that the ad will stay at the top of the search results will make Twitter a great real time promotional tool for coupons and giveaways as the advertiser can avoid being “lost” in user streams.
- We are optimistic about the advertising model and feel that it will work. We’re excited to see the reaction once the Promoted Tweets start appearing in user streams and believe that the long term perceived benefit to users (e.g. excellent discounts on things you want such as coffee, plane tickets, and entertainment) will outweigh the inevitable negative short term reaction.
In order to review the initial reaction to Promoted Tweets amongst Twitter users we recommend viewing a slide show of Tweets that the Huffington Post compiled. Other sources used to aggregate information for this blog are available below:
Read Write Web – Twitter’s Advertising Scheme is Delightfully Boring…..
New York Times – Twitter Unveils Plans to Draw Money From Ads
Wall Street Journal – Twitter to Start Rolling Out Advertising
Mashable – How Companies Should Approach the New Twitter Advertising Model
More From RiseInteractive
- Google and Bing Go Social – Twitter and Facebook Updates to be Included in Search Results
- Twitter’s New Advertising Model
- Display Advertising 101
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- Twitter expected to rollout advertising as early as next week | Ledfrog.com (Brandon Hann)
