Successful advertising on Twitter

Issued by Incubeta

23 Jun 2015

Advertising on social media is popular. Facebook marketing has shown good results. But less known are the possibilities that advertising on Twitter offers. Experience and knowledge are rare on this medium.

Possibilities on Twitter

Campaigns on Twitter show that advertising leads generated via Twitter have a significant reduction in cost per lead, compared with other marketing channels. The 8 to 24 times higher CTR than ads on Facebook is a reason to embrace Twitter advertising. Last year, Twitter launched an easier, more effective way for advertisers to create and optimise their Twitter ad campaigns. These objective-based campaigns, reports and pricing are available to all advertisers globally.

Road map Twitter advertising - more to come

Twitter is making it possible to measure in DoubleClick when conversions result from views and other actions on Twitter. Later this year, a new attribution model in DoubleClick will help to get a fuller understanding of how Twitter Ads served on mobile or desktop drive conversions. Additionally, Twitter inventory will be available through DoubleClick Bid Manager, (DBM) making it easier to centralise buying through DBM to create and manage our clients campaigns on Twitter. Next step will be serving personalised and dynamic tweets with specific information about visited sites.

How can you use Twitter advertising in each phase of the touch-tell-sell model.

1. Phase determination

Why you choose to use Promoted Tweets can have different goals. Don't choose just one, and then set a campaign goal fit for several phases in the TTS-model in order to reach different objectives for each phase. Possible targets are:

Grow and increase followers - Touch phase
Website clicks or conversions - Tell phase
Tweet engagement - Tell phase
App installs or engagements - Sell phase
Leads on Twitter - Sell phase

Possibilities within Twitter for targeting ensures that you can tweak your campaign relentlessly to reach the right audience at the right time.

Twitter cards

Using Twitter cards will display additional information in the tweet view. Twitter cards also ensure that the website or tweet that you want to promote is visible on Twitter and other applications such as search engines. This extra information about a product item is displayed on Twitter under the tweet. For example, the product is displayed when attaching a link to a web page in a tweet where a Twitter Product Card is active.

* Example of a Twitter card within a tweet

2. Twitter in the Touch phase - unique reach

A good use of Twitter in the Touch phase can be using trending topics (#trendingtopic). During New York fashion week, hashtag #NYFW is trending. At this moment, tweeting about cheap flights to New York will make sure you will reach people with an interest in fashion and New York. Responding to TV programs also works well in this phase. Relevance is the key. Experiment with your content at this stage to gain insights. Keep in mind that this will also increase your cross-screen targets and the possibilities of getting synergy out of your TV (ATL) media budgets.

3. Twitter in the Tell phase - Private audience reach

In this phase, you are going to interact with your existing database and Twitter followers. Make sure you send relevant tweets with a distinctly unique component that means following you on Twitter has added value. Keep your audience involved and provide regular updates. Also in this phase, ideally utilise the 3rd-party data import functionality that Twitter offers, link existing CRM data and profiles to Twitter users. You can also link mobile device IDs!

4. Twitter in the Sell phase - Re-targeting and add CRM data

Extend your reach by seamlessly bringing users to your website via Tweets. A direct call to action is a must at this stage (use Twitter cards!), and make sure your promoted tweet has a clear message. Be clear in what you are selling, and connect to previous actions. Have a congruent story.

5. How to correctly attribute

Use the Twitter engagement' tools to measure the effectiveness of a campaign. Engagement is the sum of the following three components:

Campaign: replies: As a follower sends a direct tweet to your Twitter account. The disadvantage is that this tweet alone will appear in your timeline. Example: "dqna: super good play"
Retweets: As a follower or fan who retweets you directly and will communicate with his followers. Example: "RTdqna: We now have a brilliant deal for Twitter advertising"
Mentions: As a follower or fan your Twitter account mentions in his tweet. Example: "The deal for Twitter advertising @dqna is really super sharp."

Finally, the basics:

Remember when sending any (promoted) tweet: