Twitter Rolls Out New Tools for Advertisers

Twitter Bird Logo IRLTwitter has unveiled a raft of new features aimed at advertisers today, with the roll out of mobile app install ads leading the pack.

The ads, which have been beta tested over the the past few months, will appear in Twitters news feed just like promoted posts currently do, and will link directly to apps on Apples App Store or the Google Play Store.

Mobile app install ads are already incredibly popular on Facebook, accounting for 59 per cent of its total revenue in Q1 of this year, up from 30 per cent in Q1 2013. A large part of their popularity derives from Facebooks ability to target users based on a large number of factors, and Twitter will need to prove it has similar abilities to target ads effectively if it hopes to compete.

Twitter has partnered with a wide variety of mobile measurement companies to enable advertisers who take up the new app install ads to measure the full conversion impact of their campaigns, including initial installs and in-app conversion events. The partners include Adjust, AD-X, AppsFlyer, Fiksu, Grab, Hasoffers and Korchava.

Mobile attribution analytics company Kochava has worked heavily with Twitter during the beta testing. Its partnership with Twitter will extend the new app install functionality to Kochavas customer list while still providing them with the analytics tools that Kochava supplies.

“With the launch of Twitter Mobile App Promotion, an entirely new and extremely valuable channel has opened up to advertisers and the need to track and measure the effectiveness of this new channel is critical to its success,” said Charles Manning, Kochava CEO. “Opening up Twitter and offering the same best in class actionable mobile data means advertisers can optimise the return on their Twitter advertising investment from initial impression to lifetime value.”

Mobile ad optimisation company Fiksu have also announced that it is integrating its technology with the newly released app install ads following its participation in the beta testing phase. Fiksu for Twitter will provide its advertisers with programmatic real-time optimisation using a massive database of mobile information.

“Fiksu for Twitter delivers a full range of optimisation options that enable our mobile app marketing clients to more effectively reach their intended audience of possible app users,” said Micah Adler, CEO and founder of Fiksu. “Our integration with Twitter means our mutual clients can take advantage of our deep experience in mobile app install ads combined with Twitters immediacy, massive mobile reach and audience targeting possibilities.”

In addition to the rollout of app install ads, Re/code has reported that Twitter appears to be testing a Buy Now button. The button appeared on tweets by shopping app Fancy, and caused a checkout page to open up within the Twitter mobile app. Twitter have declined to comment, while executives at Fancy said that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for them to include this kind of function without Twitters approval.

Twitter announced a deal with Amazon in May that enabled Amazon shoppers to add products to the online shopping basket using Twitter, but the integration did not allow Twitter users to pay for products directly from the tweet, which is what the new technology appears to be aiming for.