Commentary

Twitter Ads API in Real-Time, Is This The Marketer's Dream?

by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer, February 22, 2013

Twitter this week announced its Twitter Ads API, which opens the door for advertising to expand on the social media site. In addition, Twitter hopes the Ads API will push their annual revenue from 9 figures to 10, according to Brian Wieser, CFA, senior research analyst, Pivotal Research Group.

Everything on Twitter happens in real-time, but marketers have been unable to take full advantage of the millions of "Tweeters" quite yet. The lack of an API has not been solely responsible for this, but Wieser believes Twitter will now be able to offer similar ad campaign management to Facebook, which will make a huge difference for Twitter advertisers.

Twitter Ads API will help marketers promote tweets, contests, URLs, and other branding strategies at a more localized level, says Wieser. With that localized nature of branding comes a real-time element; marketers will find it easier to connect with the right audiences with what matters to them right now.

While other social sites like Facebook or Google+ are typically more personal, Twitter seems to bring groups of people together based on what's happening in real-time

The Bachelor is on? Cue the Tweets from people that "can't believe he picked her!"

It's a Sunday in September? Cue the football Tweets.

It's not the Tweets that matter, but what's behind them. Those Tweets originate from a person whose mindset at that very moment is clear: "I'm doing ___ and I care about ___."

The "right now" mindset on Twitter has today's marketer salivating. But because Twitter is used in such unique ways, marketers need to be cautious in believing that campaigns that work on Facebook will work on Twitter. Just because the Twitter Ads API will offer campaign management similar to Facebook's, as Wieser says, doesn't mean that the two are interchangeable.

Will Twitter eventually launch its own exchange? Will marketers be willing to move budget - likely away from Facebook - to Twitter? These questions and more remain unanswered, but the release of a Twitter API has real-time advertising moving in the right direction on the site.

programmatic, real-time, rtb, social media, twitter

2 comments about "Twitter Ads API in Real-Time, Is This The Marketer's Dream?".

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Pete Austin from Fresh Relevance, February 23, 2013 at 10:01 a.m.
Two problems: This assumes people tweet about TV in real-time, but surely anyone with $100 to spare buys a DVR and watches TV with a time delay (if not on a completely different day) so they can skip the adverts? And when people watch TV they are in "ad skipping" mode, so they should be less receptive to Twitter ads?
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Tyler Loechner from MediaPost, February 23, 2013 at 12:25 p.m.

Good points, Pete. Through my own observations, people do tweet about TV in real-time because that's when they have other people to talk to about it. If you watch it on DVR and tweet, you're just having a conversation with yourself...and that's not much fun. Good points though, not everyone watches it in real-time, what with Hulu and DVR. But those people are less likely to be live tweeting their every thought on the show.