After beta-testing retargeting capabilities back in July, Twitter rolled out Tailored Audiences globally Thursday. The offering includes website retargeting along with third-party audience segments, supported by an eclectic crew of ad partners.
Advertisers can now “reach users on Twitter who have shown interest in your brand or category even away from Twitter,” wrote Twitter product manager Abhishek Shrivastava in a blog post.
However, unlike Facebook’s retargeting solution, Twitter’s program does not use real-time bidding, according to sources.
How Tailored Audiences works: A brand may wish to reach or recapture consumers who have just interacted with a brand’s site properties or creative. Through a new wave of partners that include ad networks, demand-side platform (DSP) providers and data-management platform (DMP) providers, a brand can match Internet browser cookie IDs with account holder IDs to surface promoted tweets in-stream (Twitter gives its users the option to opt out of Promoted Content).
Vendors include Adara, AdRoll, BlueKai, Chango, DataXu, Dstillery, Lotame, Quantcast, ValueClick and [x+1].
The offering also allows marketers to target against third-party segments, which Digitas has done on behalf of Delta Airlines during the beta period — reaching audiences such as “recent flight searchers” or “recent flight bookers.”
Essentially, Twitter now can access consumers and prospects who express intent outside the four walls of its own social platform.
Twitter has followed in the footsteps of Facebook’s audience buying road map previously — namely through the Facebook Exchange (retargeting), Partner Categories (third-party segments) and Custom Audiences (CRM hooks).
According to Twitter, inbound marketing technology company Hubspot recorded 45% uplift in engagement rates among visitors who had visited its Web properties and who had interacted with the Promoted Tweets campaigns through Tailored Audiences. Gaming tech company Krossover is also a beta advertiser. More to come.
Ryan Joe and Zach Rodgers contributed.
