• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 13, 2012

Automation continues to move deeper into Twitter's ad platform, taking it closer to offering services similar to Google and Bing. Marketers on Twitter can now select from several matching options when entering keywords: exact match, phrase match, basic keyword match, and negative keywords.

The services offer targeting of more granular search terms for advertisers using Promoted Tweets. Negative keyword targeting allows marketers to restrict Promoted Tweets when users search for certain keywords.

"For instance, if you sell bacon, you can now keep your campaigns more than six degrees apart from Kevin Bacon by using “Kevin” as a negative keyword," explains Kevin Weil, director of product management at Twitter.

Negative keywords have advantages and disadvantages. The match types provide the system with another signal to serve up ads, based on searched words and phrases. One disadvantage points to filtering out wanted traffic if marketers are careful.

Importing keywords from campaigns running on other sites saves marketers time and money. Twitter has also introduced an "Import multiple keywords" button for marketers. The tool accepts exported keyword lists from other search advertising platforms or a cut-and-paste from a document. 

Twitter has also introduced the ability to automatically match Promoted Tweets in search results to relevant trending topics. The feature relies on relevance signals about Promoted Tweets to help increase campaign coverage automatically. The tools rolled out worldwide.