Twitter doubles ad reach to 700 million in bid for mobile ad dollars

The introduction of a new “Audience Platform” will offer brands the opportunity to run their campaigns not just across Twitter’s own site and apps but also on external mobile apps (see picture above).

The platform replaces the “Publisher Network” that Twitter launched last year. It enabled brands to reach not only Twitter’s audience but also some of the one billion mobile devices using the MoPub Marketplace, a mobile ad exchange that Twitter bought in 2013.

Twitter says it has now calculated the total audience at 700 million unique users across Twitter and the audience platform. That includes the more than 300 million people that use Twitter every month.

Twitter’s VP of Europe, Bruce Daisley, says: “This is a really significant moment for Twitter’s ad strategy. The launch of the Audience Portal means for the first time, advertisers working with us are able to reach an huge audience in excess of 700 million – more than doubling our reach in a single click.”

New options for brands

The audience platform adds a range of new creative formats and engagement opportunities for brands including the ability to boost video views or drive tweet engagements. Previously brands could only drive mobile app installs and app engagements.

Marketers will also be able to convert promoted tweets into video, native ads, banners or institials. For example Promoted Video campaigns on Twitter could be turned into in-app video ads while an app install ad on Twitter becomes a banner ad.

Twitter users will be able to retweet and favourite brands’ tweets from the ads they see appearing in mobile apps. Twitter is also introducing call to action buttons such as “learn more” to drive user interactions.

Is advertising on Twitter worth it?

The platform will be available to all of Twitter’s “managed clients” globally – so the bigger brands spending significantly on the site. Until now it has only been tested by a select number of clients.

According to research commissioned by Twitter and conducted by MediaScience, users spend 123% more time with ads on the Twitter Audience Portal than traditional mobile interstitial ads. They also found an 11% increase in positive sentiment about a brand while cost-per-engagement fell by 30%, according to the report.

Samsung Mobile UK, the first UK brand to use the ads, claims it experienced a 365% increase in video views while cost-per-view fell by 84%.

However marketers are yet to be fully convinced by advertising on Twitter compared to other social networks. A survey of US marketers conducted by Forrester found that 78% think Facebook advertising offer business value, with Twitter lagging behind on 66%. It is also on a par with other social sites such as YouTube and LinkedIn.

Twitter is keen to attract more ad dollars from outside its walled garden as it struggles for user growth. In its most recent quarter user numbers were up by just 15% to 316 million and there are growing concerns that its audience is plateauing.

Revenue growth has also slowed, coming in at $502m in Q2 at an increase of 61% year on year. In the same quarter a year ago its revenues more than doubled.

Twitter has plans to attract more users by, for example, making the site more appealing to logged-out users and introducing event targeting. It is also looking to find ways to grow its ad business beyond Twitter.com and its own apps to boost business with reports it is looking to introduce ads onto publishers’ websites.

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