Twitter Tailored Audiences Go Mobile

In April, Twitter announced the release of a new mobile app focused ad platform. Bought on a “CPAC” basis (cost-per-app-click), these ads either drive users directly to an app download page or open an existing app a user already has (used to measure engagement). Previously, the only way to target mobile Twitter users was through Twitter’s standard interest / demographic targeting, and through tailored audiences, but now, they’ve added a little twist to the latter.

Whilst tailored audiences aren’t a particularly new feature for Twitter advertisers (or for those traversed in the ways of Facebook advertising), the social media giants have expanded their scope by now offering tailored audiences across mobile apps.

What is it?

Well firstly a bit about tailored audiences across Twitter. Tailored audience targeting is a relatively sophisticated way in which brands and companies are able to target individuals who have engaged with their content or site.

When a user lands on a brand’s site one of Twitter’s third-party ad partners (dependent on who has been chosen) will collect this data and place the user within a tailored audience created within the Twitter Ads platform. This diagram from the official Twitter blog sums this process up quite nicely:

Where mobile now comes into this is, instead of being able to create a tailored audience list from just those who have visited your site or engaged with a piece of content, advertisers can now target those users who have shown particular behaviours within certain mobile app. The example Twitter use, again on their official blog, is “For instance, you can target users who have installed your app but have not yet signed up or made a purchase.”

What does this mean?

Twitter’s main line on introducing this feature was so that advertisers can see “the highest possible ROI in your app install and app engagement campaigns”, which is probably true. The focus is to make mobile advertising a compelling offering to advertisers and to make the platform more accountable.

Instead of burning impressions / engagements on an audience that might not be that invested in your product or app, there is some guarantee that mobile tailored audiences wittle these people down to those who are more interested, or those who are likely to be more interested.

Not only that, but Twitter have also allowed advertisers to use combinations of tailored audiences, so those users who have been targeting online can also be served the same CPAC campaign as those targeted on mobile. All-in-all this does make Twitter very much a one-stop-shop for driving mobile engagement.

And if you’re a consumer reading this, don’t worry, you’re not in the crosshairs of all advertisers. Twitter include an option within their privacy settings that allows them to deselect “Tailor ads based on information shared by ads partners” amongst others.

So it seems like Twitter continue to roll down two very distinct paths; mobile and ecommerce. With the news recently that Instagram has now overtaken Twitter in terms of global users these two aspects of the company’s business have never been more important if they are to retain that social media crown.