Latest report claims Twitter is adding a slew of new advertising types over the next six months to attract e-commerce companies and mobile-game developers to boost its ad revenue.
Twitter will be rolling out 15 new types of timeline ad formats in different batches that will appear in users’ feeds in line with the Twitter card style. The first batch is expected to be released in a few weeks.
According to the Wall Street Journal report, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo showed 7 of these 15 formats to a group of ad execs in an ad themed meeting at company headquarters last week. A Twitter blog post from February also mentions the ads and their functionality within Twitter cards.
Some of the formats will allow one-click sharing of user details to advertisers, a good way to get people join sweepstakes and subscribe to online services. The cards being displayed on users’ timeline can be expanded like any other tweet to reveal a button linked to the advertisers’ source of download. Just as the download begins, users will be redirected to their twitter feed with the game or apps downloading in the background.
Twitter’s ad revenue doubled during Q4 of last year, up to $219.6 million compared to the previous year. The report also notes that Twitter has been experimenting with a “click-to-call” button, and is reportedly working with payments company Stripe to create shoppable Twitter ads.
“Beyond advertising, Twitter has also begun improving methods of targeting users by offering a wealthier trove of data in recent months, a move that follows Facebook’s footsteps,” read the report.
“In December, Twitter signed or expanded partnerships with large third-party data marketers such as Datalogix Inc. and Acxiom Corp. that allow advertisers to target users based on their consumer behavior when they are not on Twitter.”
The report pointed out that Facebook uses a similar ad campaign that is said to be responsible for more than 245 million mobile app downloads in 2013. Facebook first introduced the initiative at the end of 2012, which is now a large part of the company’s mobile ad revenue.
