Unveiling the Different Types of Twitter Ads: Which One Is Right for You?

Twitter is among the best social media platforms you can rely on to advertise your business. It became even more popular after the well-known tech billionaire acquired it.

By launching an ad campaign on Twitter, your business could be recognized by hundreds of millions of users. But, are Twitter ads worth it?

You don’t have to be a Twitter ads manager to learn how to run Twitter ads. In this article, we will teach you the different types of Twitter ads and other things to know about Twitter advertising. Ready?

Twitter Ads and The Potential of Twitter Advertising for Businesses

Before you launch your first Twitter ad campaign, you need to know the potential of Twitter in advertising businesses. This social media platform is a great option for self-serve advertisers since it doesn’t require going through a salesperson face-to-face.

With Twitter, you can ensure that your ad campaigns are focused on your target users. Right now, there are over 330 million Twitter users, making it a great platform to spread business campaign awareness among consumers.

Since Twitter has hundreds of millions of active years, your business can reach not only your targeted audience but also other consumers. This means that Twitter ads not only benefit large firms, but also small and newly established companies. But, before you can take advantage of this platform, you need to learn the different types of Twitter ads.

Among the Twitter ad formats, Twitter Takeover is one of the most used. This Twitter Takeover has two ad formats: the Timeline Takeover and the Trend Takeover.

The Timeline Takeover allows advertisers to place commercials at the very top of the user timeline or the Twitter homepage. Once Twitter users click it, they will be redirected to landing pages or product pages of the businesses advertised.

Meanwhile, the Trend Takeover enables businesses to place advertisements in the “What’s Happening” section. This kind of Twitter ad format includes different media formats, such as a GIF, video, and image. They will all appear at the very top of the Explore tab together with the linked ad.

The Trend Takeover and the Timeline Takeover is just among the Twitter advertisements you can try and combine. Via its official website, X stated that using three or more Twitter ad formats can greatly enhance your advertising objective.

The social media giant confirmed that using multiple Twitter ads can increase campaign awareness by 20% and improve purchase intent by 7%. Using multiple Twitter ad formats can help you expose people to your business while avoiding ad fatigue. But, which Twitter ad format should you use? Let’s find out!

Promoted Tweets: Boosting Reach and Engagement

Promoted Tweets, now called Twitter Promoted Ads, are just like regular tweets. But, don’t confuse it with organic tweets that don’t use promotions to reach followers.

Since Promoted Tweets can reach users who don’t follow your account, it is also referred to as “Twitter Follower Ads.” If you have enough budget to have multiple tweets that are Promoted Ads, then you can reach more potential followers.

In the Twitter Promoted Ads, businesses will pay the social media platform to reach people who are not following their pages. But, just like regular tweets, they can be clicked, commented on, and retweeted.

The main difference between the Promoted Ads/Follower Ads and regular tweets is that they are labeled as “sponsored. This Twitter ad format is a great option if your campaign objective is to boost your reach and engagement.

Promoted Accounts: Growing Your Follower Base

The Promoted Accounts ad format is quite similar to the Promoted Tweets. But, instead of promoting only tweets, this Twitter ad campaign will advertise your business’ entire Twitter account. 

In this Twitter ad campaign, you will pay the platform to promote your entire brand. The Promoted Accounts ad is usually better than Promoted Tweets because it is displayed under the “Who To Follow” section of the website.

This means that even if people scroll, your business Twitter account will remain in the lower right corner of the screen. On the other hand, Promoted Tweets might get skipped, especially when users are scrolling up fast.

The Promoted Accounts is a great option for you if one of your campaign objectives is to grow your follower base at a scale. If you can combine the Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets in your ad campaign strategy, then you can expect faster and better follower base improvements.

Promoted Trends: Driving Brand Awareness and Conversation

If you want to drive brand awareness and trigger conversation, then the Promoted Trends ad is the best option for you. The main essence of the Twitter ad campaign is to create momentous trending topics that will trigger several conversations.

The Promoted Trends is used to create awareness of brand events, such as product launches, sales, product returns, etc. This promoted social media content also capitalizes on the news cycle.

If you want to see a sample of Promoted Trends ads, you can go to the Explore tab and check the “For You” section. Once you see some videos or images with branded hashtags, then they’re Promoted Trends. You will also see the label “promoted” at the bottom of the content.

But, you need to take advantage of it as much as you can since Promoted Trends ads can only last for 24 hours. Aside from this, you also need to remember that this kind of Twitter ad is not available for self-serve advertisers.

This means that you need to coordinate with a salesperson if you want to use the Twitter Promoted Trends.

Twitter Video Ads: Captivating Audiences with Visual Content

One of the highly popular ad formats on the social media platform is Twitter Video Ads. This Twitter video ad format’s main purpose is to bring life and influence people to visit an app or website. It can also drive consumers to engage with your brand’s message.

Twitter Video Ads are effective as they can captivate users with visual content. In this adoption, the social media platform allows businesses and advertisers to apply videos up to 10 minutes long. But the default feature is only 2 minutes and 20 seconds.

Although you can post long videos, Twitter recommends keeping your content 15 seconds or less. Remember, on this social media platform, most users only want quick information. By posting short Twitter Video Ads, you can ensure that they are completely engaged until the end.

Many businesses prefer Twitter Video Ads over Image Ads since they are more engaging and pleasing to the eye. There are numerous Twitter Video Ads you can choose from such as the Twitter Amplify, which will show your video ad right after users open their app.

Twitter Carousel Ads: Showcasing Multiple Products or Services

The Twitter Carousel Ads are considered a new ad type on the social media platform. It is quite similar to the Twitter Collection Ads. However, the Carousel Ads don’t have a primary hero image. Instead, this ad format uses numerous images to showcase multiple products.

You can use Twitter Carousel Ads to post two to six image or video slides. Most advertisers use photos that can be combined as one image. This can also be done with videos that can be combined into a single footage when watched.

Twitter Carousel Ads are quite similar to Facebook’s Carousel Ads. They give advertisers an opportunity to present numerous products and showcase their brand story in multiple slides.

What’s great about Carousel Ads is that they are available globally to all advertisers. This Twitter ad format can support multiple objectives such as website traffic, video views, reach & engagement objectives, as well as app objectives.

Website Clicks or Conversions: Driving Traffic to Your Website

Twitter offers a website traffic campaign service. Numerous objectives are targeted under this campaign, such as website clicks, conversions, video views, engagements, etc. Once you’re sure that you will use the Twitter website clicks campaign, you will be asked to select one of the ad group goals.

Let’s see them below:

• Website Clicks: Your advertisements and other marketing efforts will be shown to consumers who will likely click them.
  
• Conversions: Your commercials will be shown to users who will likely engage with your business or take action on your website based on the key conversion event you choose.

The conversion ad group goal focuses on triggering the purchase intent of consumers. Meanwhile, website clicks focus on increasing your business’ engagement with users.

Now, which one is for you? Website clicks or conversions? To pick the right one, you need to set audience targeting criteria that will benefit your business. If you want to increase your sales, choose conversions. But, if you prefer getting more engagement, then website clicks are better.

App Install or App Engagement: Promoting Mobile Apps

Twitter also offers the app install or app engagement campaign. This marketing initiative is the best option if you want to encourage users to download your app or engage with it in other ways.

This Twitter ad initiative will promote your app’s visibility to users who are most likely to convert seamlessly from Twitter to your specific app store of choice. Thanks to this, your business app can experience increased app downloads.

The Twitter app install campaign is a great option if you want to showcase your application’s features to audiences who haven’t had your app downloaded yet.

Another benefit that the Twitter app install campaign offers is that it can decrease your cost per purchase by 33% compared to when activating against app install optimization alone.

Once you use this Twitter ad campaign, you can post Twitter advertisements with “install” or “open” buttons, which will direct users to your app. They can even decide if they want to receive branded notifications from your business.

Twitter Lead Generation Cards: Capturing User Information

Twitter Lead Generation Cards were made globally available by X in August 2013. The Lead Generation Card is a part of the platform’s Twitter Cards suite.

What Twitter Cards do is bring rich experiences and useful tools within an expanded tweet. Meanwhile, the Lead Generation Card allows users to express their interest easily in your business.

In this Twitter ads campaign, you can post promoted tweets that users can expand to see what your business offers. There’s also a call-to-action button that could encourage consumers to engage with your brand.

What’s great about Twitter Lead Generation cards is that they no longer need users to manually provide their information. They will be able to see their names, usernames, and email addresses before they click the CTA button.

Thanks to these features, Twitter Lead Generation Cards can help you collect leads, support existing marketing campaigns, and build email subscription lists.

Twitter Event Targeting: Reaching Relevant Audiences during Events

Twitter event targeting capabilities can help you and your business easily plan for, discover, and activate events on posts. These features enable you to target events up to two weeks before they garner interest and reach the target audience.

After that, the Twitter event targeting capabilities will allow you to target events for up to three weeks to keep users engaged. This advertising campaign is great for businesses that aim to be part of a moment and join the trending conversation.

What Twitter event targeting campaign offers is the ability to target events that have a ramp-up and a ramp-down period. If your main goal is to reach consumers who participate in events aligned with your business, then the Twitter event targeting campaign is your best option.

Of course, there will be moments when you will not see an event that aligns with your brand message. But, Twitter promises that its event targeting campaign has hundreds of events across the globe.

The social media giant explained that if the event you want to focus on is targetable, then it would appear in the event targeting form at least two weeks before it happens. But, if the event isn’t targetable, then it will not show up at all.

Twitter Moments Ads: Participating in Trending Conversations

If you’re having a hard time standing out from other businesses, then the Twitter Moments Ads can help you. Unlike other Twitter ads, the Moments Ads can create and curate longer-form content to tell interesting stories.

This means that you can curate trending conversations into a single moment and include your promoted ad. You can combine live commentary and notable Twitter conversations to tell a powerful or interesting story.

There are different types of Moments Ads on Twitter, such as the following:

• Trending story comments: Combination of user comments regarding trending stories, global events, etc.
  
• Inspirational storyline: Curation of tweets about inspiring stories that are aligned with your brand message.
  
• Fun round-ups: You can combine trending memes or other entertaining media stories that are connected with your brand message.
  
• Company news: If you’re a small business, you can curate big company news on Twitter, especially those that generate a bit of buzz on the social media platform.
  
• Positive customer experiences: If your customers are sharing their positive experiences with you on Twitter, collect them all and use them on your Twitter Moments Ads.

Twitter Moments Ads can be one of your best Twitter ads options if you want to stand out from other competitors on the social media site.

Targeting and Segmentation Options for Twitter Ads

Within the Twitter ads library, the social media site offers targeting and segmentation options that will help you create ads appropriate for your target audience. These options are Custom Audience, Demographics & Devices, and Audience Types.

These targeting options use the AND and OR functions. The AND function means that users interested must match all criteria in order to receive an advertisement. Meanwhile, the OR function means that the person can match any of the selected criteria to be eligible to receive an ad.

Now, let’s dig deeper and understand what these Twitter ads targeting and segmentation options are:

• Demographic & Device: Demographic & device targeting is the key to a good Twitter ads campaign. It has the AND function since if users don’t match your demographic targeting, then they will not receive an ad from you.
  
• Audience Types: This targeting and segmentation option serves as the OR function. This means that if a person matches even just one of the criteria, then they will receive your ads.
  
• Custom Audiences: The custom audiences targeting option will help you target the same audience who already know your brand. This feature enables you to target audiences on your email lists, Twitter IDs, mobile advertising IDs, follower handles, and app/web activity. This is very useful in dynamic product ads or Twitter retargeting ads.

These targeting and segmentation options are essential so you can launch campaigns that specifically target the audiences you want to reach.

Budgeting and Bidding Strategies for Twitter Advertising

Creating effective budgeting and bidding strategies for Twitter advertising is essential. This is because Twitter ads cost a lot of money, so you need to carefully plan your digital marketing strategy on the platform.

When accessing Twitter ads services, making an action usually costs $0.38. But, this still depends on the types of Twitter ads you’ll use and the actions you’ll make.

Learn more below:

• Follower ads: $2-$4 per follow;
• Promoted ads: $0.25-$2 per action;
• Twitter takeover: $200,000 per day.

But, remember, the overall costs of your Twitter ads don’t reflect your entire campaigns spending on Twitter. This is because the platform will also charge you based on the actions you make relevant to your ad objectives.

They are the following ones:

• Pre roll views: Cost per view;
• Video views: Cost per view;
• App installs: App clicks or impressions;
• Engagements: Cost per engagement;
• Followers: Cost per follow;
• App re-engagements: Cost per app click;
• Reach: Cost per 1,000 Tweet impressions;
• Website traffic: Cost per engagement.

By making budgeting and bidding strategies, you can ensure that your money will be used for the right Twitter advertisements and actions.

Measuring and Analyzing the Performance of Twitter Ads

Measuring and analyzing the performance of your Twitter advertisements will help you know if they are effective. When doing so, it is important to consider your ad placements.

You need to check if your Twitter ads are placed on the user timeline, search results, or only on specific Twitter profiles. 

Now, here are some of the Twitter ads metrics you need to analyze and measure:

• CTR: The click-through rate (CTR) tells you how many people clicked on your advertisement after seeing it.
  
• Conversion rate: This metric tells you how many users completed your desired actions after clicking your ads.
  
• CPC and CPE: The cost per engagement (CPE) and cost per click (CPC) are metrics that can help you understand the efficiency of your ad spending.

Measuring and analyzing CTR, CPC, CPE, Conversion Rate, and other Twitter ad performance metrics will tell you if the money you spend is worth it. Since you learned everything there is to know about Twitter ads, you can start making your first Twitter ads.