Twitter Ads Go Mobile, But Advertisers Can’t Target That Way (Yet)

Twitter is expanding its ad inventory with the announcement today that Promoted Tweets are coming soon to the official Twitter apps on the iPhone and Android devices. They’re not, at this point, expanding to the iPad. But it’s logical to assume they’ll eventually make their way to the iPad as the fourth stage of Twitter’s […]

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twitter-mobile-adTwitter is expanding its ad inventory with the announcement today that Promoted Tweets are coming soon to the official Twitter apps on the iPhone and Android devices.

They’re not, at this point, expanding to the iPad. But it’s logical to assume they’ll eventually make their way to the iPad as the fourth stage of Twitter’s ad expansion (which began on Twitter.com, then rolled out to the m.twitter.com mobile website and now includes the iPhone and Android devices).

It’s an important step for Twitter as it aims to expand its revenue base. The company announced in September that 55 percent of its active users access the service via mobile devices.

Twitter is traditionally very methodical about rolling out its ad products, and this will be no exception:

  • Promoted Tweets will begin to show up in the timeline of Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android “in the coming weeks.”
  • In the beginning, Promoted Tweets will show to only a limited number of users and only from brands/accounts that the users are already following.
  • They’ll also behave like any other tweet, meaning they’ll appear just once and will scroll away with the rest of the timeline.
  • Twitter also says there will be limits on the number of Promoted Tweets that a user will see each day.

Promoted Accounts, a separate Twitter ad product, was recently expanded to Twitter’s iPhone and Android apps via recent app updates. Those are visible in the “Who to Follow” suggestions.

For Now, No Mobile Ad Targeting

Today’s news comes just a couple weeks after the announcement that Twitter is opening up its self-serve ad platform to a larger group of small business advertisers.

Many of those SMBs would probably like to be able to target their Twitter ads to mobile users — and, even better, target them geographically — but that’s not possible yet. Twitter tells us that all regular ad purchases will include mobile display by default.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Matt McGee
Contributor
Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.

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