Twitter Ads: A Simple Guide for Advertisers

Do you want to get clued into Twitter advertising? With a potential reach of ads of 486.0 billion, Twitter holds the 14th position among the world’s most famous social media platforms. Although Twitter falls behind Facebook or Instagram, the total number of users marketers can reach with ads on Twitter increased by 21 million (+4.5%) in the three months. The audience reach opens up several opportunities to market on Twitter. And with 53% of people ready to be the first to buy new products, Twitter can be a good opportunity for brands. But, like other platforms, it requires a lot of planning and research.

This guide will walk through the most common types of Twitter ads, show how to set up your Twitter ad campaign, and describe the cost of Twitter advertising. If you’re ready to drive more engagement to your business, keep on reading.

Benefits of Advertising on Twitter

Why do we actually talk about Twitter but not Facebook or Tiktok? Reason number one is that we’ve already covered these topics. You can check our recent articles:

• Facebook Shop: An Easy Setup Guide & Best Practices in Advertising
• How to Advertise on TikTok: The Ultimate Guide 2022
• How to Effectively Use Retargeting Ads: Facebook and Google Ads

But the most important reason is that there’re a lot of hidden opportunities that Twitter advertising hides. And we’d like to disclose them.

1. Potential engagement opportunities. With more than 300 million active users, Twitter offers massive engagement opportunities. This means that you can draw in more users, increasing your brand awareness. Also, Twitter users spend time there to be in tune with recent trends, politics, and news. With this, you can have an ocean of audiences ranging from politicians, journalists, celebrities, and business owners from different industries. The engagement rate is also higher because Twitter users are not tired of “ad fatigue” compared to Facebook and Youtube. Additionally, Twitter users are more curious than other social media platforms and are often used for discovery.
2. Unique features. The platform offers numerous features that can assist in enhancing engagement:
   • One of the main features is the App button, which leads customers to your preferred app store to download the app. If they already have the app, clicking the button will open it on the phone, making customers check out new content or features.
   • Branded hashtags, conversation buttons, and polls are great features to get people talking.
3. Reasonable cost. Concerning monetary figures, it’s well-known that Facebook advertising is cheaper than Twitter advertising. Twitter’s average CPM is around $3.50 compared to Facebook’s $0.59. But you have to spend more with the Meta-owned platform to get the same click-through rate and engagement you get with Twitter. This means that Facebook will likely be more expensive in the long run.
4. Less competition. If you look at PPC advertising, you’ll notice a lot of pages devoted to Google Ads, Facebook, and Bing. On the contrary, there’s almost nothing on Twitter unless you specify the platform in your search. But this doesn’t mean that Twitter is useless. Although it has a smaller user base than other advertising platforms, 145 million users are considered monetizable or able to see ads. Although this number may seem low, many advertisers prefer to bypass it when it comes to Twitter advertising. And because of the low competition, Twitter clicks and impressions can cost pennies.As you can see, Twitter’s greatest weakness — a smaller reach compared to Facebook — is also its greatest benefit for advertisers. It means that they can squeeze out a great return on your investment.

Types of Twitter Ads

In this section, we’ll dwell on different types of Twitter ads and how advertisers use them.

Twitter Follower Ads

This type of Twitter ad allows you to promote your Twitter account. It’s focused on users who don’t follow your brand and can help you grow your business’s Twitter following. Follower ads are displayed in potential followers’ timelines. They also show in search results and Who to Follow suggestions with a Follow button.

Twitter Promoted Ads

These ads look like regular tweets, but advertisers pay to display the content to people not following the advertiser on Twitter. These ads can be commented on, liked, or retweeted. But they’re always labeled as an ad and always show “Promoted” in the lower left-hand corner. They support various media formats and can be subdivided into video ads, image ads, carousel ads, text ads, and moment ads.

Twitter Amplify

With the help of Twitter Amplify, you can place pre-roll video ads from more than 15 pre-screened brand-safe publishers. Amplify sponsorships allow you to sponsor videos from a specific publisher during a moment of their choice and Tweet-level control for the campaign’s duration. But they’re not available to self-serve advertisers at this time.

Amplify Pre-roll

Amplify Sponsorship

Twitter Takeover

These ads allow brands to place a sponsored ad in the What’s happening section of the Twitter homepage and the Trending tab on the Explore screen. This ad includes a video, image, and GIF and pops up at the top of the Explore tab. Trend Takeover puts your message where the conversation starts — in the Explore tab. The tab puts what’s trending on Twitter in one spot.

Branded Hashtags

These types of Twitter ads allow you to add a visual component that automatically appears when someone uses your hashtag.

Twitter Ads Specs

Here’re a few parameters to know about the components that include every type of Twitter ad.

Text Ads

Tweet copy: 280 characters.

Image Ads

Tweet copy: 280 characters
Image size: 1200 x 1200 pixels or 1200 x 628 pixels unless you add features like conversation buttons, in which case the size is 800 x 418 pixels
Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 1.91:1
Acceptable file types: PNG or JPEG
Max file size: 5MB

Video Ads

Tweet copy: 280 characters.
Video size: 1200 x 1200 pixels or 1920 x 1080 pixels unless you add features like conversation buttons, in which case the size is 800 x 450 pixels
Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 16:9
Video length: Max 2:20, but Twitter recommends 15 seconds or less
Acceptable file types: MP4 or MOV
Max file size: 1GB, but Twitter strongly recommends keeping the file under 30MB
Thumbnail file types: PNG or JPEG
Max thumbnail size: 5MB

Carousel Ads

Number of slides: 2-6
Image size: 800 x 418 pixels or 800 x 800 pixels
Video size: 800 x 450 pixels or 800 x 800 pixels
Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 1.91:1 for images; 1:1 or 16:9 for videos
Acceptable file types: PNG, JPEG, MP4, MPV

Follower Ads

Tweet copy: 280 characters.
Follower ads automatically render a follower card, which does not include images or video (other than your Twitter profile and banner images).

Amplify Pre-roll

Tweet copy: n/a
Video size: 1200 x 1200 pixels
Aspect ratio: 1:1
Video length: Max 2:20, but Twitter recommends 15 seconds or less
Acceptable file types: MP4 or MOV
Max file size: 1GB

Amplify Sponsorship

Tweet copy: n/a
Video size: 1200 x 1200 pixels
Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 16:9, depending on publisher content
Video length: Max 2:20, but Twitter recommends 6 seconds or less
Acceptable file types: MP4 or MOV
Max file size: 1GB
Twitter Live
Event page copy: 280 characters
Video size: 1200 x 720 pixels recommended; 1920 x 1080 maximum

Trend Takeover

Hashtag: 20 characters
Description: 70 characters

Trend Takeover +

Hashtag: 16 characters
Description: 30 characters
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Acceptable file types: GIF, MP4, PNG, JPEG
Max file size: 5MG image; 15MB GIF

Branded Hashtags

Emoji design: Max 72 x 72 pixels and must be clearly visible at 16 x 16 pixels

How to Run an Ad on Twitter?

1. 1. Set up your Twitter ads account. This is a basic step for those not yet signed up with Twitter ads. All you need to do is go to the Twitter page and click on “Sign in with Twitter.” Before advertising on Twitter, your account needs to have a certain level of engagement. Select your country and timezone, and click the “Let’s go” button.
   2. Choose your campaign objective. The first stage in creating your ad campaign on Twitter is to select your objective. For most businesses, there’re four main options:
      • Reach — getting more people to see your ad
      • Engagements — getting more retweets, likes, and link clicks
      • Followers — getting more followers
      • Website traffic — getting more visitors to your website

      

      The campaign objective will determine which engagement types and actions you’ll pay for. As an example, we’ll choose website traffic as the main objective.

1. Identify your campaign details. By clicking on it, you’ll see the Campaign details screen.

   There you can add your ad text and add necessary media content. Once you’ve made your choice, click Next to continue.
   Then narrow down your audience by identifying age, gender, and location and choose relevant keywords. Finally, choose how much you’d like to pay for each interaction.

   

2. Launch your campaign. Review the options you’ve already selected and edit them if necessary. When you’re ready, click the Launch campaign button. And that’s it!

How Much Does it Cost to Advertise on Twitter?

To put it simply, how much you’ll pay depends on you. You can monitor the amount you’ll be charged by setting up your budget during your campaign setup. Also, the cost of Twitter ads will depend on your ad type. There’re three ad types on Twitter: promoted accounts, promoted tweets, and promoted trends. Promoted accounts cost $2 to $4 per follow, promoted tweets cost $0.50 to $2 per action, and promoted trends — $200,000 per day.

Source

Other factors that influence Twitter advertising costs include:

1. Auction bids. The amount of your bid greatly influences Twitter ads to cost. And, like with any other auction, the highest bidder wins. This means that if you pay more than your competitor, your ad will get shown. If your goal is to win auctions, ensure your ads’ quality is high. Because the quality of your ads, the better the engagement, and the lower your costs.
2. Billable actions. Twitter ad cost also depends on your billable actions. For example, if you want to get click-throughs to your website and another business wants more app installs, there’ll be no set rate for these actions. You will decide how much to pay through Twitter’s auction model. And once a Twitter user installs your app or takes another billable action, Twitter will charge you.
3. Bidding types. Twitter offers three types of bids: automatic, maximum, and target bidding. Each of them can influence your total Twitter ad costs. With automatic bidding, you decide your budget, and Twitter makes the bid for you. With maximum bidding, you don’t need to spend your maximum amount on every bid. It’s enough to win over your nearest competitor. With target bidding, you’ll choose the price you want to pay for your target bidding when you’re launching your campaign on Twitter.
4. Advertising campaign types. Your Twitter ads cost will hinge upon which campaign you select and what you’d like to achieve from your advertising. Here’s a great example by Strike Social of what this could look like:

Twitter Ads Best Practices

In the end, we’d like to share with you a few powerful practices that will help you make your Twitter ads engaging.

1. Keep it short and simple. The research suggests that the best-performing Twitter ads use 50 to 100 characters. Use straightforward language and mention the most important keywords in the description and titles of the ad copy. The golden rule is every word counts!
2. Use a compelling CTA. Tell users what action you want them to take after looking through your ad. Be direct and motivate them to click on your ads using a CTA button.
3. Add captivating images. Try to stand out in a crowded Twitter feed and use high-quality images and videos in your ads. This can help you grab the attention of potential customers and encourage them to interact with your content.
4. Optimize for mobile. Most people use Twitter on their mobile phones, meaning that most of your target audience will be mobile users. Therefore optimizing for mobile can help you make your ads more visible. There’re numerous ways to optimize for mobile. In the devices section, you can use gifs or images and select your preferred mobile devices.
5. Track and analyze results. Finally, remember to track and analyze your Twitter advertising results continuously. Review your campaign data and determine which tactics perform well, and make changes if necessary. With the right strategies and tools, you can use Twitter ads to grow your audience and reach new customers.

Are Twitter Ads Worth It?

Twitter is a great opportunity for many businesses. Twitter ads are becoming increasingly popular among the audience and are actively incorporated into the news feed. It becomes harder to distinguish between promoted and real tweets, which is a huge benefit for marketers. We’d strongly encourage you to review your Twitter strategy and consider adding paid advertising. Revisit these Twitter advertising guidelines, and if you still need additional support, let us know. We’ll help you set up your Twitter advertising plan and get you started.