(Content edited in January 2025)
Twitter is known as a social platform, a news service, or even a miniature blog. But how many businesses regard it as being a
powerful marketing resource? Twitter is the perfect medium to spread the digital word about your brand.
With over 500 million Tweets created by an estimated 68 million monthly users, Twitter crafts telling and accurate profiles based on interests, wants and needs. In South Africa, there are over 8 500 000 daily users, each of whom sends out powerful signals based on their Twitter behaviour. This equates to numerous opportunities for advertisers to create ads to target relevant users.
Scale your Audience with Promoted Tweets
Promoted Tweets are essentially standard Tweets with a larger “range” dependent on the budget allocated to them. The idea behind promoting (boosting) a tweet is to allow it a wider reach. Because of Twitter’s algorithms, an ordinary tweet receives minimal exposure. All Promoted Tweets are explicitly labelled “promoted” so that the user understands that what they are reading is an advertisement. Marketers who are willing to invest funds to ensure that their Tweet reaches a larger audience can present their brand in an impactful, relevant, and real-time way.
Promoted Tweets can appear anywhere on Twitter. Users can find them on search sites, timelines, and even profiles. They are targeted to relevant audiences depending on language, gender, user interests, handle followers, device, location, and keywords. In addition, a marketer could target email addresses from CRM systems. Alternatively, you may choose to remarket to existing users. This is a powerful set of options for getting content in front of an audience that is likely to engage with it. The beauty of Promoted Tweets is that you can manage costs, leverage messages, and align with goals.
How to use Promoted Tweets to Drive App Downloads
Promoted Tweets can be used to drive app installs by attaching an app card to them. The app card not only allows you to showcase your app to users but comes complete with an actionable button which encourages an easy, direct manner of installing the app. Twitter is after all a mobile-first platform and is therefore perfect for promoting app downloads.
If you are running a paid app download campaign, it is critical that Twitter is part of the mix. Not only is it a great medium but will also help you benchmark other paid platforms while allowing you to better spend your budgets across the most profitable channels.
Using Promoted Tweets to Drive Website Traffic and Conversions
Do you want people to visit and engage with your website, fill out a form, or complete an action? Website cards are especially useful in this situation. A website card combines an image, a URL, and a call-to-action into a single effective tweet. The card is added to the Promoted tweet and is aimed at the appropriate audience. When used in conjunction with Conversion Tracking, performance may be measured and insights gained as to the efficiency of the tracking.
The Twitter Method of Rating Campaigns
Twitter rewards advertisers who follow best practice guidelines. These marketers are ideal performers who pay less for Twitter exposure. Furthermore, adverts with strong engagement are given preference in the auctions. By adopting best practices and obtaining high engagement on advertising, you will outrank high-bidding competition.
Twitter rewards advertisers who follow best practice guidelines. These marketers are ideal performers who pay less for Twitter exposure. Furthermore, adverts with strong engagement are given preference in the auctions. By adopting best practices and obtaining high engagement on advertising, you will outrank high-bidding competition.
Twitter uses a metric known as “Ad Score”. This score determines which ad wins an auction to display an advertisement to a user.
Total Score = Probability of Engagement x Maximum Bid
The following factors contribute to the probability of engagement:
- User engagement of the current ad
- Current users’ historical engagement rate of ads
- Account and campaigns performance history
The Importance of Website Tracking
Tracking offers numerous advantages:
By installing a website tag and connecting it to your Twitter account, you can see which initiatives are producing the best marketing results.
With the tracking tag, you can also use automatic bid tactics to increase conversions.
Finally, tracking makes it easier to create audience lists. Audience lists are created based on user behaviour, such as tracking conversions, sign-ups, or simply grouping users who have repeatedly visited specific product or brand pages.
Tagging Effectively and Accurately
Place a snippet of website tag code on each page of your site.
This can also be done using Google Tag Manager for improved accuracy.
Don’t forget to tag your mobile site, if you have one, as that is where the majority of your traffic will come from. Remember to adjust the conversion window period based on the item’s sales cycle.
This is just a summary of how to get your business noticed on Twitter. Of course, there is much more to it, but get started today. In the digital age, there is no better moment than now. Spread your reach to a large number of followers, take advantage of all that Twitter’s social ecology has to offer, and dare we say it: give your brand wings!
