- 17 April 2013
Twitter Advertising Introduces Keyword Targeting
Twitter announced today that advertisers would have the ability “to reach users based on the keywords in their recent Tweets and the Tweets with which users recently engaged.” This step is a logical step in the progression of targeted advertising. Google has done this with its banner ads. It has happened to everyone: search for a pair of shoes through Google search and then later that evening the banner ads are for Amazon Shoe Discounts. The “promoted” tweets that Twitter has been running for months are less specific and do not target specific consumers or users. With Keyword Targeting Twitter says that users will tweet about their interests like a brand of shoes, to pull from my earlier example. If a certain brand is mentioned, that keyword can be targeted by the manufacturer or by a specific vendor and eventually a advertising tweet will appear in the users Twitter feed. Twitter is careful to point out, however, that user experience won’t be interrupted by extra ads:
“Users won’t see any difference in their use of Twitter — we’re not showing ads more frequently in timelines, and users can still dismiss Promoted Tweets they don’t find relevant. In fact, we believe users’ experiences with ads will improve as a result of this feature as they see more relevant Promoted Tweets.” -Nipoon MalhotraTwitter provides this helpful tutorial on how to set up a keyword targeting advertising campaign:
Marketers can already specify the geographic location, gender, and device type of the user they want to target, but now marketers will have the ability to specify the keywords to target; advertising on Twitter is now going to be fully customized.
How could this make for a better user experience?
- Relevance - It might make the ads matter more.
- Money saving - Targeted Campaigns could cut down on the cost of advertising, because now the advertiser knows that the ads are not just blanketing an arbitrary population of Twitter users.