Twitter is just for crazy American politicians, right? I’ve heard Twitter described as “short bursts of inconsequential information.” There are tons (and by tons, I mean hundreds of millions) tweets sent every. single. day. Does that mean your advertising on Twitter gets lost among the chaos?
Actually, ad engagements on Twitter are increasing. Ad engagement is up 23% over the last year! People go to Twitter to discover new things. If your business has a Twitter account with regular posts, good advertising (users love video), and an honest approach, you can see a big benefit. Millions of Twitter users follow small businesses and make purchasing decisions based on the content they see on Twitter.
Like other social media advertising, Twitter helps advertisers reach their target audience through targeted marketing. According to Twitter, an astounding 80% of users are affluent millennials, so advertising on the platform can put your brand in front of savvy shoppers that influence trends.
You Pay for Performance
When advertising on Twitter, you play to pay. In this case, it works out for the advertisers! When you promote tweets on Twitter (like boosting posts on Facebook), businesses only have to pay when they’ve achieved their marketing objective.
This sounds too good to be true.
But it is!
Say your goal is to drive people to your website. You only pay for your Twitter ads when users click through to your website. Organic impressions and engagements are just free cherries on top of the Twitter sundae. So if your goal is for clicks to your website, you only pay Twitter when people click through, but you still get tons of free impressions in the process!
On LinkedIn, you can run brand awareness campaigns as well as campaigns based on gaining followers or garnering engagement. The same is true for Twitter, but you only have to shell out the $$$ when you’re successful. In contrast, LinkedIn makes you pay whether you reach key performance metrics or not ?
Me, waiting for LinkedIn to come out with pay-for-performance marketing options
With Twitter, if you run a campaign to gain followers, you only pay for the number of users who click Follow. If you run an app install campaign, your business only pays for the number of times the app was installed. You don’t have to worry about your advertising dollars going to waste, because you only pay when you are successful! ?
Twitter Ads are Extremely Targeted
There are 145 million monetizable daily active users on the platform and growing. That is an immense pool of possible buyers. With Twitter’s targeted advertising, you have the opportunity to narrow your marketing efforts to those most likely to buy, click, contact, etc.
You can use Interest Targeting to match with people that have relevant interests (e.g. “style and fashion” if you’re an e-commerce clothing store). There are 25 interest categories and over 300 sub-topics, so you can get extremely narrow in your search or broaden it for wider appeal. You can also target follower look-alikes, so you can choose to target followers that are like a competitor’s audience, or someone with a similar fanbase. You can also target based on language, gender, geography, behavior, device, or keywords. There are a lot of options!
Twitter also offers engager targeting, meaning users that have interacted or seen your recent tweets will be targeted for this ad type. Re-targeting people who have already engaged with your brand is an extremely effective tool. This allows you to communicate with people who may already be familiar with your brand and need the final incentive to purchase, go to your website, call for a consultation, etc.
Reach a Specific Audience
In general, U.S. Twitter users are younger, more educated, and more affluent that the rest of the U.S. adult population. Younger means that they are used to purchasing online, signing up for newsletters, and engaging with businesses on the internet. More educated and more affluent indicate that they have more disposable income and can spend more on non-essential (essential is housing, food, transportation) items. All of this can mean good things for your business! ?
I’m a BIG fan of Twitter’s ad targeting. With it, you can target a specific keyword, hashtag, or geographic area very inexpensively, allowing you to reach interested users without breaking the bank. Again, you only pay for the paid impressions/engagement/clicks and any organic interactions are free!
Twitter Ads are Affordable
One of the BEST parts about advertising on Twitter? It’s cheap! I don’t mean cheap like knockoff store-brand cereal that tastes like sawdust. I mean cheap like an amazingly good deal.
With just a few dollars and a custom audience list (that targets your potential customers based on interests, hashtags, keywords, remarketing, identifying factors, etc) you can make a big impact. Cost per ad engagement (CPE) is actually down 12% over the last year while engagement is up, particularly for video advertising.
I can tell you’re skeptical. You’re thinking, yeah right, if print media is so expensive and even Google Ads can get pricey, how on earth can Twitter Ads cost just cents per click? Twitter has a sophisticated system, so using their immense audience and highly targeted advertising, the platform gets relevant ads in front of users who want to see them.
With low prices, you have the freedom to invest a very small amount, say $100, and measure your results without much risk. ?
Twitter Advertising is Worth the Investment
If you aren’t willing to spend ANYTHING on advertising, then you’re going to need to stick to organic traffic. But understand that even SEO, writing blog content, and updating your social media takes time.
Even if you’re doing everything yourself on your website and social media, including writing content, updating the site, and posting to social media, that’s still costing you money. It’s costing you time. That time that you could be spending on other things.
Only you can measure the value of your time. But if you can get 200 clicks on Twitter for $20 or spend three hours writing, editing, and updating a blog post, which is the better deal? ?
I also want to remind y’all that everyone does things to invest in their career, like book and conferences. Those are seen as essential because they are investing in yourself. Why not take the same approach to your business? Instead of looking at Twitter Ads at a marketing expense (if you’re averse to that kind of thing. I don’t know why you would be, but if it matters to you), call it an investment in your business!
Advertising on Twitter is a chance to get an incredible ROI for very little time and money investment. That’s why I recommend it to my clients!
Basically, Twitter has figured out how to offer ads that are extremely targeted and affordable, and with millions of users that use the platform daily, that’s an incredible chance to get your business in front of a lot of eyeballs.
If you’re interested in how you can harness the power of Twitter to your business advantage, let’s talk!