How to reach your target market using Twitter Ads

Twitter uptake in Australia is continuously growing. Based on recent data, Australia now has more than 2.9 million Twitter users. With this many users, more content is competing to appear in everyone’s news feed.

Getting noticed in your target market’s news feed now requires more effort than ever, the same goes for other social media platforms. So it’s no surprise that to stand out and cut through the noise on Twitter you’ll now need to consider advertising.

Twitter Ads is an option worth considering, especially if the majority of your target market is on Twitter. Twitter Ads is a cost-effective way of generating leads and increasing brand awareness. Many companies have benefited from using this medium to market their businesses. Hootsuite’s director of marketing, Cameron Uganec, said they are able to track the ROI from Twitter leads right down to revenue and it showed that Twitter Ads, overall, have been one-third the cost of other paid channels they’ve used to drive enterprise leads. Thus, Hootsuite is planning to allocate increasing budget to Twitter Ads.

What exactly are Twitter Ads?

Twitter Ads are designed to help all types of businesses to accelerate their growth by putting their brands in front of potential customers at the right time. The ad formats are pretty straightforward and less complex than those offered by Facebook.

There are three types of Twitter Ads available to businesses:

Promoted Tweets

A Promoted Tweet is similar to a promoted post on Facebook, both show up directly in users’ timelines. Promoted Tweets allow you to create and highlight a particular content or status update and to be seen by your current and potentials followers. Instead of aimlessly sharing content or messages, hoping to reach your target market, now you can deliver the message to a wider audience who matches your target market. Just like regular or “organic” Tweets, Promoted Tweets can be retweeted, replied to, favorited, and so on. Use Promoted Tweets to offer deals, promotions or coupons. You can also drive leads using the Lead Generation Cards. Or, drive website traffic by asking users to click on your best content. You can also take advantage of Twitter Cards as an additional tool to add rich photos, videos and media experience to your Promoted Tweets to drive even more engagement.

Here are examples of Promoted Tweets:

Promoted Accounts

This is a good option if you want to be seen by people relevant to your business and build followers vs sell a specific offer.ThePromoted Accounts format will help you gain relevant followers that have the potential to be highly qualified leads. Through this, users don’t have to search for your name to see you. Twitter will strategically place your name in the users’ timelines, under the users’ ‘Who To Follow’ tab, and in search results, ensuring people will see you. You can choose to have your brand promoted to users based on a wide range of targeting options. Consequently, this format lets you acquire unique users to engage over time – and best of all, you only pay for every new follower. This strategy is not only great for increasing brand awareness or web traffic. It’s also useful in driving purchases, leads, downloads, and signups.

Promoted Trends

Starting a trending topic is a sure way to gain exposure for your business. With Promoted Trends, the topics or hashtags you create will be moved to the top of the Trending Topics list, and be clearly marked as “Promoted”. People can then integrate your hashtag into their Tweets. Users who click on a Promoted Trend see Twitter search results for that topic, including a Promoted Tweet from the advertiser at the top of the page. Promoted Trends are also displayed on Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Android, and Tweetdeck. This is a perfect way to start a conversation with you at the centre of the topic, launch new products, run major campaigns or target key dates to drive mass awareness for your brand.

See samples below:

Whether you’re looking to promote a product, generate leads or grow followers, Twitter Ads can help you reach your marketing goals at a fraction of the cost of other channels. The platform is easy to use and setting up a campaign is not complicated to learn.

Twitter Ads offer various targeting options for advertisers:

• Existing followers
• Users like your followers
• Tailored audiences (cookie IDs, email addresses, Twitter user IDs)
• Keyword
• Interests (more than 350 subtopics)
• Location or Geo-targeting
• Gender
• Language
• Device, OS, carrier or new mobile user
• TV show (integration with live broadcasts, push/pull functionality)

If you haven’t considered Twitter ads as part of your marketing strategy, then you could be missing an important marketing tactic for your business. Twitter’s strength is in mobile as the majority of its active users engage on the platform from their mobile device. So if you’re looking to connect with a mobile audience, this is the right channel for you. Lastly, to get the most out of any Twitter advertising campaign, be sure to target your ad campaigns precisely, and set up conversion tracking.

But remember, you can easily waste precious budget if you are not familiar with Twitter and not clear on if it’s the right audience for you. Seek help from an independent marketing expert for advice and direction when formulating your social media strategy.

Since starting her outsourced national marketing consultancy Marketing Angels in 2000, Michelle Gamble has helped hundreds of SMEs get smarter marketing. Michelle helps businesses find more effective ways to grow their brands and businesses.