Twitter Advertising 101: All you need to know about Twitter ads

Here is all you need to know about the ad products Twitter is offering, how they function, and the impact they create on the users.

In order to stand out today, brands must lead with innovation to create engaging content that provides new participatory and immersive experiences for audiences, advertisers can choose from these Twitter ad products to pursue the desired objective when Twitter is a part of their media mix.

Here’s a look at some of the Twitter ad-products that brands have been leveraging to attain their goals, broadly divided into three categories - takeover, video, and conversation starters.

Takeover

With the decreasing attention span and an abundance of content online, premium placement matters, and Twitter has launched these takeover products.

Promoted Trend Spotlight

This pairs the stopping power of video with Twitter’s premium real estate - the Explore tab. The Spotlight is complementary to the Promoted Trend - combining the strengths of both to optimize the service’s reach, capture attention, and differentiate a brand.

First View with Promoted Trend

It is a video product that places a brand’s creative video asset at the top ad slot on people’s Twitter timelines for 24-hours - making it the first ad that people see when they visit their timeline on the Twitter app or twitter.com. The platform claims a recent rebuild of the First View ad format, drove an average of 30-40% more impressions per advertiser.

In the Indian market, First View is offered along with the Promoted Trend or with the Spotlight and Promoted Trend - bringing together the strengths of Twitter’s premium takeover properties. Twitter mentions coupling the First View with a Promoted Trend and the Spotlight nearly doubles ad breakthrough and increases ad recall.

Promoted Trend

It is a 24-hour takeover of Twitter Trends in the Explore section of the Twitter app or twitter.com - placing a brand’s campaign hashtag at the top of the list.

This Promoted Trend acts similar to any other trending topic, and users are able to interact and engage with it in the exact same way. It brings attention to the brand’s message and surfaces engaging conversations. Lenovo (#BeLegiondary), Zee5 (#MafiaOnZEE5), Spotify (#ListeningPartyWithDiljit), among many others, have delivered campaigns with this product. 

Video

Across platforms and objectives, video is one of the most successful creative formats to drive immersive brand engagement, and on Twitter, marketers are choosing from a dynamic suite.

Promoted Video

It is an auto-playing video placed into people’s Twitter timelines to catch their eye and engage them in the conversation that the brand is trying to establish. 

Live Video

Brands can create immersive experiences and broadcast a moment to engage with their audience in real-time. By maximizing the reach of an event through Twitter Live, brands can ensure that they are reaching a broader audience. 

Amazon Prime Video for Mirzapur Season 2

MX Player for Aashram

Hyundai India for #TheNextDimension

Video Website Card

It is a flexible creative format that utilizes the power of a video asset to build curiosity and drive users back to the brand’s website to learn more or take action at the moment. It works best for advertisers whose aim is to drive traffic to their websites.

Cisco Systems India

Hyundai India for the New TUCSON

Conversations

For forward-thinking brands, content participation is becoming increasingly more important than content consumption. To enhance audience experience and build engagement, Twitter is bringing alive content and campaigns on the service through its various opt-in products -

Conversational Cards

They are Tweets, often accompanied by a static or video creative and a call-to-action button associated with a hashtag, to lead people into the conversation.

Conversational ads

These are Promoted Tweets that utilize the attraction of an image or video to engage people and encourage them to interact with the brand via the conversational card. 

Samsung India

Amazon Prime Video India

Instant Unlock Card

It drives conversation as it encourages people to send Tweets about a brand by offering them the ability to unlock exclusive content after their Tweet is shared with all of their followers. It turns an existing video creative into an interactive experience that would lead to sustained buzz for a brand.

Netflix India

Media Polls

Brands can engage followers by adding a poll question to Tweets, thereby allowing brands to know their audiences better. By engaging in a Poll, people are directly letting the brand know what they like or dislike or would want more of. Adding visual elements to polls gives users something specific and eye-catching to orient the question around.

Samsung India

Spotify India

Promoted Tweets

They are Tweets that are paid for by advertisers to reach a wider group of users or to spark engagement from their existing followers. These appear in people’s Home timelines, at the top of search results on Twitter and elsewhere on the platform, and are clearly marked as "Promoted”. 

Samsung India