March 9, 2022
Last update
3.9.2022
08 MIN.
Need the know-how on Twitter ads? Here's a complete guide to Twitter advertising in 2022.
Marvellous
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With over 300 million users worldwide, Twitter is a great platform for brands to promote their products and reach their target audience.
While social media platforms like TikTok are all the rave right now, Twitter still pulls its weight when it comes to social media advertising.
Still on the fence about Twitter advertising, here are some proof in numbers:
Based on these statistics, you can see that Twitter is an effective channel driving brand reach and boosting customer engagement. So in this article, we'll see how you can advertise on Twitter and best practices to help you run successful campaigns.
Let's get started.
There are different types of Twitter ads you can choose from. And your goal for running a Twitter marketing campaign will determine the ad type you will choose.
This type of ad allows you to promote your brand’s Twitter account. It is great for boosting your brand’s following. It targets users who are not following your account but might be interested in your brand.
The ad is shown in the search results and ‘Who to Follow’ section of the users feed. Promoted accounts will include a Follow button and are labeled as ‘Promoted’.
Promoted Tweets are regular Tweets that are boosted to reach a larger audience of users that are not following the advertiser on Twitter. Just like normal Tweets, they can be retweeted, liked, and commented on. The main difference is that the Tweets are labeled as “Promoted”
Promoted Tweets can show up in the user's timeline, search results, and profile. The promoted tweet can also include a video that will autoplay when a user comes across it on their timeline. If the video is less than 60 seconds, it will be on an automatic loop.
Twitter Trends is a collection of the most popular topics and hashtags on the platform in real time. Users can interact with trends on their timeline or by going to the trends list in the Explore section.
Brands can purchase Trend spots that will be displayed in the timeline and Explore section of their target users.
When a user clicks on your Promoted Trend, they are shown search results for that topic or hashtag with a promoted Tweet from your brand at the top of the results.
In January of 2020, Twitter introduced Promoted Trend Spotlight.
This ad type is a Trend Takeover product and is displayed before the Trends list.
Promoted Trend Spotlight supports GIFs, static images, as well as 6-second videos. The ad is displayed at the top of the Explore tab on both mobile and desktop.
Each user is shown the promoted ad for their first two visits, per day. After the first two visits, the ad is then moved to the standard Promoted Trend placement and organic editorial content replaces it in the Spotlight placement.
The ad format is available in only 15 countries for now – the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, and Thailand.
If it’s your first time creating a Twitter ad, you’ll need to set up an ad account. Just log into your Twitter account and go to ads.Twitter.com. Choose your county and Time Zone to get started.
This will give you access to Twitter Ads Manager. You will track your campaign and analyze metrics using the Ads Manager.
Next, you will follow these steps to set up your Twitter ad campaign.
The first step is to choose your campaign objective. Depending on the objective you choose, Twitter will offer you the best engagement types and actions to take for your ad.
Here are the different campaign objectives you can choose from:
Next, you will give more information about your ad campaign. Choose your Campaign name and set your daily/total budget. After that, you decide on the time frame of your ad.
In the Advanced section, you can either choose Standard (your ads will be shown slowly throughout the day) or Accelerated (your ads will be shown at a fast pace; best for time-constrained campaigns).
The next step is to start creating ad groups. Under ad groups, you will set up your budget, demographics, targeting, creatives, and ad placements so that your ad will be more specific to meet your campaign goals.
You can create multiple ad groups at once but if you are just starting with Twitter advertising, it's best practice to start with one. After you have run multiple tests, you can then set up multiple ad groups at once.
To get started, click on the drop-down menu under “Ad Groups” on the left-hand corner of the screen. Then you fill in your ad group details. Choose your ad group name, specify the time frame, choose your budget, and your goal.
For your bid strategy (how your budget will be spent), choose “Autobid”. This option will maximize your budget at the lowest price.
You can create a highly specific target audience for each ad group. At a base level, you can choose who you want to target by gender, age range, location, and language.
You can also target your audience based on the device they use. For instance, you can create an ad to target only users browsing with iOS.
If you have an existing custom lookalike audience, you can choose to include or exclude them from the ad group.
Twitter also offers different advanced targeting options so you can customize your ad group more efficiently. For instance, you can target a user based on the keywords they've searched for. You can also target ads to relevant users based on their interests, events they attend, and conversations or movies they engage with on the platform.
There is also the option to target based on follower look-alikes. This option will allow your ads to reach users who share similar interests or traits to the followers of a specific account.
The next step is to decide where you want to show your ads on Twitter. You can choose to place ads on the user’s home timelines, profiles, and search results.
Next, you'll choose what you want to promote. Depending on your campaign objectives, Twitter will give you different Creatives options to choose from. For instance, if you want to increase your reach, Twitter will ask you to select a published tweet.
Finally, review your ad to ensure that all details of the campaign are correct before you launch it.
If you want to run successful Twitter advertising campaigns, here are some best practices to follow.
Your bid is one of the main factors that will determine the frequency at which your ads will be shown to your target audience. It's best to start with an auto-bid so your bid will be competitive in the auction. This will ensure that your ad is served to the relevant audience.
After you have monitored your bid and gotten the initial data, you can then increase the bid for your best-performing campaigns or campaigns that are close to meeting your objectives.
While Twitter allows you to use up to 280 characters in a Tweet (plus more with threads), the best performing ad copy is within 50-100 characters. It's best that your Tweet copy focuses on one specific message and is straight to the point.
If you want to pass more information with your ad, do so by directing viewers to your landing page or using a visual aid like images or videos.
The creatives you use in your ads play a crucial role in the success of your ads. Stats show that 97% of users focus on visuals on Twitter. So the visuals in your ads must be eye-catching. It should capture your key message or the product you are advertising.
Your visuals – whether it is an image, video, or GIF should also have a clear connection with your Tweet copy.
In @Popeyes’s post, they use mouth-watering images of their fast food offers to entice viewers to click on the link.
Your call-to-action will tell users what steps to take after viewing your ad. It should be clear and straightforward. A call-to-action is very important when running a campaign with engagement objectives, but it is still a best practice for all campaigns. Examples of call-to-actions include “follow us”, “click to install”, or “download now”.
To choose a suitable call-to-action, focus on your objectives, what you want your target audience to feel when they see your ad, and what you want them to do after viewing it.
Exit points are clickable elements that can drive people off from your ad. Example is the use of #hashtags or @mentions. Try to keep your ads free of them. For every ad in your post, use only one exit point. This can either be a link to your website or your app.
Creating a sense of urgency is a good way to maximize the effectiveness of your Twitter Ads. When a task is urgent, people are more likely to take action. Your ads should also give people a reason to take immediate action.
Adding words into the ad copy that conveys a sense of urgency speeds things along. It pushes users that are considering taking a specific action to do so now, so they don’t miss out.
In @perfectbar’s campaign, they create a sense of urgency by adding “for a limited time” in the ad copy.
Some effective ways you can harness the power of urgency in your ads include:
The best approach to running Twitter ads is to have multiple tweets for one campaign. You should also change the creatives (images and videos) for each of the tweets. For instance, you can run a Video Ad with a website button, a Tweet with an image, and a plain text tweet all in one campaign. Using multiple ad formats will ensure that you have something that will satisfy a large spectrum of your audience.
If you are just starting out with Twitter ads, it might be difficult to identify your target audience. To see success, it best to explore different targeting options for your first few ads. After a couple of weeks of experimenting, you will give a strong idea of the type of audience that engages most with your ads and build from there. You can also use Tweet Engager to target audience groups that have engaged with your content in the past.
For ads that feature popular conversations on the platform (for instance, a current trend or an upcoming event like the Super Bowl), use Twitter’s unique conversation targeting option. It will allow your ads to reach people that are active in a specific conversation.
According to Twitter, video is the strongest medium on Twitter. There are over 2 billion video views on Twitter each day, which is 67% YoY growth. Tweets with video also attract 10x more engagements than Tweets without videos. And Video Ads save more than 50% on cost-per-engagement.
Using video in your advertising campaigns can make them more affordable and will significantly increase audience engagement.
Some tips on your how to maximize the effectiveness of video ads:
Don't just launch an ad campaign and neglect it. Periodically check the performance of your campaign while it's running so you can make adjustments where needed. When you monitor your ads, you will find out which Tweets need to be optimized for better performance or replaced entirely.
There you have it! We have seen how to run a successful Twitter ad campaign from start to finish.
Which of these tips will you implement in your advertising strategy?
Leave your thoughts in the comment section.
Note that you should also monitor your organic Tweets. This will give you a good idea of what will work best for your Twitter ads. Find out the kind of content that gets the most engagement from your audience. You can then use this insight when creating your ads.
Iconosquare offers advanced Twitter analytics and reporting to help monitor your Twitter profile. You can monitor your Twitter based on clicks, retweets, likes, engagement, and reach.This will allow you to make data-driven advertising decisions. Try out Iconosquare.
Hi! I'm Marvellous, huge fan of Iconosquare as a product, and determined to help experienced social media marketers thrive in the various aspects of their career.
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