Promoted account
A promoted account appears in the 'who to follow' section. The goal is usually to gain new followers for an account. In the image below, you can see Xbox as a promoted account.
Promoted trends
Promoted trends are promoted tweets that appear on trending topics. Someone who clicks on a trending topic will then see an overview of relevant tweets, with a relevant promoted tweet almost always at the top. Promoted trends work particularly well for branding, but can also contribute to a discussion on Twitter about a certain topic.
From what budget?
For a few months now, it has been possible to purchase these advertising options directly from Twitter, via a Dutch list to data account team. Please note that the minimum spend is 15,000 dollars, which you can spread over three months. The payment method varies. Sometimes you pay per interaction (a click on a link, a reaction, or a retweet), but there may also be a fixed fee per period. For example, last year reports emerged that the costs of a promoted trend could amount to 100,000 dollars per day.
Alternative Methods to Advertise on Twitter
In addition to purchasing directly from Twitter, you can also advertise through an intermediary. In the Netherlands, The New Media Factory (TNMF) has had the right to place promoted tweets for some time now. TNMF has a much lower minimum spend; you can advertise on Twitter for 250 euros per month, plus a variable amount per click. This makes a campaign on Twitter possible for relatively small parties. It is important that the promoted tweets are not placed from your own Twitter account when purchasing indirectly, but from a special account of TNMF. An additional advantage is that you let someone else say something about your product, which can promote your credibility.
Finally, there is an unofficial method of advertising on Twitter, namely by placing commercial messages on specific Twitter accounts via agencies such as Twitmij. The owners of these accounts allow sponsored messages and receive a fixed fee per placement. Last year, there was a commotion when it turned out that some famous Dutch people recommended a film via Twitter for a fee, even though they had not even seen the film. Thomas Acda, Peter Heerschop and Carice van Houten were able to claim 100 to a maximum of 500 euros per tweet in this way, 925.nl revealed . See the examples of the tweets in question.
In the United States, it is commonplace for celebrities to advertise via Twitter. Snoop Dogg, for example, earns up to $8,000 per tweet via intermediary ad.ly. And he is not the only one: just take a look at this overview .
Dutch case: selling books
Back to the Netherlands. This fall I decided to start a campaign with promoted tweets to boost the sales of my book 'Social Media Expert in a Week'. Because my budget was limited, I quickly ended up at TNMF. I decided to write a series of tweets that could be used as promoted tweets. I had the link in the tweet refer to the special page on my own website about my book and a page with reviews. I also made a list of several dozen relevant keywords for each tweet. Then the campaign could start.
Almost immediately, my campaign via TNMF achieved a click ratio of many percent. During the campaign, I further optimized the tweets, which quickly increased the click ratio to over 8%. And: the first sales started trickling in. Not large numbers – the CPO was many times too high to make a profit on book sales – but definitely proof that sales via Twitter are possible.
As a test, we decided to adjust the landing page in the tweets. No longer to my own website, but directly to bol.com. A bull's eye: the conversion rate doubled. To be honest, there were still too few sales to make up for the investment, but with a book like this I didn't expect that either. See the screenshot from the dashboard below.
Conclusion?
Sponsored tweets are a great option to quickly attract relevant visitors to your website. For products and services with a relatively high (absolute) margin, advertising on Twitter can be interesting to generate sales. Of course, advertisers must realize that placing (paid) messages on Twitter can lead to a reaction. If you are prepared for that, it is certainly worth getting started.
Do you have experience with advertising on Twitter? And did you do it independently or did you use an agency? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.