Twitter to deliver ads on external sites

Twitter has confirmed that it will feature ‘Promoted Tweets’ on Flipboard and Yahoo Japan, as it looks to expand its reach for advertisers beyond immediate followers.

Today (3 Feb) a company blog post announced that the platform’s first partners will be Flipboard and Yahoo Japan. The news comes after it was suggested that Twitter would use third-party sites for ads earlier in the year. 

‘Promoted Tweets’, or ordinary tweets purchased by advertisers, can now be seen by users within Twitter content sections on a publisher’s platform.

It is not yet clear which brands will use the service. Twitter used Nissan to highlight how Promoted Tweets would work on third-party sites.

The blog says: “Nissan could run a Promoted Tweet campaign on Twitter, with specific creative and targeting, and simultaneously run the campaign off Twitter, with the same targeting and creative in the Flipboard app.“

A small number of tests with Flipboard have shown promising results for Flipboard and the advertisers, according to Twitter.

Last month (12 Jan) Chris Pearce, joint CEO of TMW Unlimited told Marketing Week that the move would allow Twitter to reduce its reliance on acquiring new users to gain ad revenue.

The platform now has 284 million users, but the growth rate is slowing. The company reported in Q3 2014 that it saw 185 billion tweet impressions outside of Twitter, which will allow it to target outside of its own user base.

Earlier in the year Andy Pringle, performance media director at Performics UK told Marketing Week that Twitter’s new move may provide value for advertisers as it could improve campaign targeting.

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