Twitter ads can help promote your brand and get your tweets in front of more people.
Twitter advertising is a chance for your brand to show off its products and connect with new users who may be interested in what your brand has to offer.
The purpose of this guide is to educate you on the different types of Twitter ads, how to create your first campaign, and tips to remember when creating your ads. Additionally, this guide will provide you with ways to promote your brand.
Types of Twitter ads
Promoted Tweets
Promoted tweets are similar to regular tweets, but they are displayed to people who are not already following the advertiser on Twitter.
Ads on Twitter will look like regular tweets, but will say “Promoted” in the lower left hand corner. These ads can be liked, retweeted, and commented on just like regular tweets.
Promoted Accounts
Twitter ads that promote your brand’s entire Twitter account are more effective than ads that promote just one Tweet. They target users who don’t already follow your brand and can help grow your business’s Twitter following.
When you promote your account, it will be displayed in the timeline of potential followers, as well as in the Who to Follow suggestions and search results.
Promoted Trends
The topics are different every day, and they can be about anything. Twitter is constantly updating its list of trending topics, which are the most popular topics and hashtags being used at any given moment. These topics can be about anything under the sun.
Promoted Trends are advertised topics on Twitter that work in the same way as any other trending topic. The only difference is that the branded hashtag will show up as ‘Promoted’ for targeted users.
Promoted Moments
Promoted Moments are essentially Twitter story ads. Moments can be created on desktop and are essentially a curated collection of similar Tweets that tell a story. This format means your brand can also share Twitter story ads that are longer than 280 characters.
Brands can also sponsor Moments created by other brands.
Automated ads
Twitter is calling their new advertising solution, Twitter Promote Mode, an “always on advertising solution.” This solution will add the first 10 Tweets your brand creates each day to a Promoted Tweets campaign and target your selected audience. Twitter Promote Mode will also run a Promoted Account campaign.
This feature allows Twitter to automatically create ad campaigns for your brand, so you don’t have to put in the work to create new ones.
How to advertise on Twitter
1. Set up your Twitter ads account
If you’re new to Twitter ads, you’ll need to create an account. To do so, simply log into your Twitter account, then navigate to ads.Twitter.com. Enter your country and time zone, and click “Let’s go.”
This allows access to Twitter Ads Manager and its many features, like tracking advertising campaigns and analyzing metrics.
2. Choose your advertising objective
Think about what you want to achieve with your Twitter ads before you create them.
You can choose from the following objectives:
Awareness
- Reach: You want the maximum number of people to see your Promoted Tweet. You’re billed per 1,000 impressions.
- In-stream video views: You want to run a short video ad at the start of videos from Twitter’s premium content partners. You’re billed for each video view.
Consideration
- Video views: You want people to watch your videos or GIFs. You’re billed for each video view.
- App installs: You want people to install your app. You’re billed for each app install.
- Website clicks or conversions: You want people to go to your website. You’re billed per click.
- Engagements: You want to maximize engagement with your Promoted Tweets. You’re billed per engagement, but only on the initial engagement with each user.
- Followers: You want to build your Twitter audience. You’re billed for each new follower.
Conversion
- App re-engagements: You want people who already have your app to open and use it. You’re billed for each app click.
How much do Twitter ads cost?
The amount you spend on Twitter ads is entirely up to you and there is no minimum amount required. The budget you set is the total amount you are willing to spend.
Once you’ve made your selections, click Next.
3. Set up your ad group and bidding
Name your ad group, select a start and end time, and choose how much you’re willing to pay for each interaction. If you choose automatic bidding, Twitter will set your bid to get the best results at the lowest price based on your budget.
4. Target your audience
The targeting options help you choose the right audience for your ad and maximize your budget. You can target your ad at users based on certain demographics like gender, age, location, and language. You can also target your ad based on interests, events, behaviors, and even the specific keywords and TV shows users Tweet about.
5. Choose ad placement
After you’ve chosen what location you want your ad to be displayed, click “Next.”
6. Launch your campaign
After you have looked over all the choices you have made, click on “Launch campaign” to begin your ad.
Tips to help your brand with its Twitter advertising
Make your brand and business clear
The people you want to target on Twitter are probably not already following your brand, so use images and videos that make it clear what your business is, and write effective copy.
Since your ad might lead users to your Twitter profile, it’s important to have a great Twitter bio and profile. A strong profile could persuade users to follow you and engage with your brand’s social media posts.
Write concise, engaging copy
Use as many or as few characters as you need to get your point across quickly.
Include a clear call to action
Your audience shouldn’t be left confused; a great ad will have a clear call to action.
If you want your audience to do something specific, like follow you on social media, click on a landing page, or download your app, make sure to let them know.
Running a sale? Include the percentage
Twitter has found that people are more likely to click on an ad that mentions a percentage discount than one that mentions a specific dollar savings.
Use high-quality images and video
An unclear or incorrectly sized image or video will not be effective for your Twitter advertising campaign. Make sure you are following Twitter’s standards for image and video size and quality so that all of your content is clear, visually appealing, and attention-grabbing.
Pay attention to big events
Events that are talked about a lot draw people to Twitter. This is something Wendy’s took advantage of in 2019 by tweeting about March Madness.
Analyze, test, and test again
See what ads your competitors are running and get inspired to create your own.
If you want to be successful with Twitter ads, don’t just stick to one format. Try A/B testing to see how changing your ads can improve engagement.
Tips to Promote Your Brand
1. Implement Twitter cards on your website
Twitter cards are a great way to make your tweets stands out by showing visual content from a link.
There are 5 types of Twitter cards, including the large image card used above:
- Summary card
- Summary with large image
- Player card
- App card
- Cards markup
2. Build your Twitter following
There are several ways to increase your twitter followers which can in turn improve your business.
A good way to get more involved on Twitter is to follow other users who post similar content to you and then engage with them regularly.
Being more active on Twitter can take a lot of time, so I recommend the following:
- Automate your tweets (more on this below!)
- Create a posting schedule and stick to it
- Carve out time daily to respond to other tweets instead of scrolling aimlessly
3. Identify and engage with influencers
Twitter influencers are essential for a successful marketing strategy.
Connecting with influencers can open the door to increased:
- Twitter followers
- Engagement
- Website traffic
Building relationships with them exposes you to that audience!
There are 2 ways to engage with influencers:
- Interact naturally with their content
- Pay them to market your business
Start by interacting naturally with their content.
4. Use Twitter lists to manage your feed
If you follow a lot of people, your timeline can become very full. Lists can help you organize the tweets from the people you really want to hear from, and save you time.
Here’s how to make a Twitter list:
- Go to the “Lists” tab in your profile.
- Click “Create a List.”
- Populate the list by choosing accounts directly from the list of people you’re following or by going to individual accounts and clicking, “Add to list.”
Here are a few easy tips for finding lists created by other people:
- Type in an influencer’s handle to find their public lists here.
- Analyze other lists created by those whose lists you’ve added.
- Go to any influencer’s page, then click on “View Lists.”
5. Use Twitter Custom Audiences
The Custom Audiences feature on Twitter allows you to target your ads at viewers who are most likely to be interested in your product or service. By targeting your email list and website visitors with ads on Twitter, you can increase the chances that they will take the desired action.
6. Tweet regularly
If you want to grow your Twitter following quickly, post tweets more often. This doesn’t mean you should go overboard and post 100 tweets per day–aim for 10-40 tweets per day instead.
7. Vary your content
People use Twitter to find information that is important or useful to them. Finding this content and supplying it to them is your task.
Think about the following options:
- Videos
- Pictures
- Articles
- Infographics
8. Use the right hashtags
If you haven’t been using hashtags, now is the time to start. They are effective in making your tweets visible to more people. In fact, brands that use hashtags regularly get 50% more engagement! Use a tool like Ritetag to help you choose the right hashtags.
First, enter a keyword related to your industry.
Then, Ritetag will provide you with a long list of relevant hashtags along with metrics on:
- How many times a hashtag has been used
- How many retweets those tweets got
- How many of the tweets contained links
- How many contained images
- How many views they received in total
Ritetag can help you to choose a more appropriate hashtag, and the results may give you ideas for your next Tweet.
Read through some of your favourite Instagrammer’s tags and get inspired.
Here’s how:
- Go to the page of an influencer in your field
- Look at their recent tweets and hashtags
- Use similar content and hashtags in your tweets
9. Research your competitors’ audiences
Who are the people that your colleagues in your field are already interacting with? Are there people in your industry that others are already following?
If you want to find people who haven’t been spotted yet, Twitonomy could be a great way to do it. Enter your competitors’ usernames and see if any names come up repeatedly.
10. Monitor Twitter for keyword mentions
You can search keywords (like the following) to identify people looking for somewhere great to eat in your area:
- “food recommendations”
- “where to eat”
- the name of your city
Start to build relationships and make new contacts this way:
- Identify keywords that are relevant to your business
- Search for those keywords on Twitter
- Interact naturally with users around those keywords
- Watch your followers and engagement grow
11. Set up UTM tracking
You’ll want to track which tweets are driving the most clicks so you can better assess which content is performing the best. UTM tracking is an incredibly helpful way to get more info about engagement. By adding extra information to the links you share, you can track how others engage with them. To get started with UTM tracking, you need to create unique URLs for each link you post on social media. For example, if you have a Twitter ad in place, but you’re also sending out organic tweets, you’ll want to track which tweets are driving the most clicks so you can better assess which content is performing the best.
UTM tracking allows you to create individual URLs for every link so you can add information about whether a link is from paid or organic traffic. You can set up these URLs using Google’s Campaign URL Builder. The tool asks for information about your link and then creates a unique URL that Google Analytics can track.
12. Pin your tweets
Twitter lets you pin a tweet to the top of your timeline. This way, when somebody views your profile, they will see that tweet first. Pins are a way to curate a viewer’s first impression of your Twitter profile.
13. Use great headlines
The Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer tool can help you find the best combination of words to make an impact by giving you a score for each headline.
So, what does that mean for your Twitter?
- Optimize blog titles to make sure you get clicks when you share them on Twitter
- Optimize your tweets to grab viewers’ attention
14. Use Twitter analytics to analyze and optimize
When you look at your analytics in detail, you can learn what your audience likes best:
- Images
- Links
- Videos
- Hashtags
Twitter Analytics will track metrics such as impressions, engagement, clicks, etc.
Forming new relationships with your Twitter followers can be very beneficial to your business. The Twitter tips in this article will help you follow the PRISM framework to create these relationships.
The result?
Increasing your brand’s profitability!