Twitter is preparing a major upgrade to its advertising offerings according to a story in the Wall Street Journal today. The Journal reported that Twitter will introduce 15 types of new ad products in the next six months.
First up in the next few weeks — and already visible for some Twitter users (see screen grab) — is an ad unit that sends users who click directly to Google or Apple app markets. Facebook has offered similar “app install” ads since 2012, and, according to the Journal, Facebook users downloaded 245 million mobile apps last year after clicking on the ads in their News Feeds.
The ad units are especially popular with game developers such as Candy Crush maker King and some industry observers believe they account for at least half of Facebook’s mobile ad revenue. In the fourth quarter of 2013, Facebook’s mobile revenue accounted for more than 50% of the total for the first time.
Twitter first started selling ads in 2010, offering the option to pay for promoted tweets in user feeds. However, some data suggests that many Twitter users don’t find such ads relevant.
Now post-IPO and still yet to turn a profit, Twitter is obvious working hard to change that. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo demoed some of the new ad products to advertising executives last week, according to a WSJ source.
Like the app-install example, many of the new offerings will use Twitter Cards, which enable deeper interactions with users without taking them away from the Twitter environment.
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