In April of 2010, paid Twitter advertising started. However, despite the numerous articles and media attention, and more importantly attention within the performance marketing community, it’s nowhere near the size of Facebook or Google. What does this mean, and is Twitter ready for affiliates to use as a source of paid advertising?
Twitter is expected to do almost 140 million this year in advertising, and according to eMarketer, by 2013 it will do $400M. However, those numbers are probably just a guess since there is no historical perspective on how Twitter advertising growth, and more importantly, the actual effectiveness still being questioned.
In fact, most marketers have said that twitter as a free advertising tool is dead, and paid tweet companies have come and gone over the last year with almost no company making a profit paying people to tweet.
Currently there are three ways to advertise on Twitter
Promoted Tweets: These are tweets that show up in search results or can be targeted to followers. They show up at the top of the time line when a user views their account and can be geo-targeted. The model actually is pretty cool, as you only pay for ads that are engaged, such as clicked on or retweeted.
Promoted Trends: This is trend topics that allow users to explore possible current topics. It sounds great for brands, but really not all that good for direct response affiliates. Also sold on a similar model that you only pay if there is engagement.
Promoted Accounts: If you want more followers, this is a great way to promote your brand. I’m not sure that this is effective for anyone, because more twitter followers doesn’t seem to equate always to better sales. However, unlike the “get more followers” services which aren’t targeted, this can be targeted to really those actually interested in your topics.
I’d love your opinions, are you using twitter? Have you found it effective for any affiliate campaigns or promotions?
