Twitter's Native Ad Format Kicks Off Sunday

Twitter plans to start testing a new native ad format with select brand partners this week.

As its name implies, the new Promoted Moments product will populate Twitter’s new Moments service with ads.

“Promoted Moments … will look and feel just like all other Moments … except they’ll be authored by a brand and be featured in the Moments guide for 24 hours, with a Promoted badge,” Bobby Grasberger, manager of brand strategy at Twitter, explains in a new blog post.

The first Promoted Moment is slated to go live on Sunday and feature the new sports drama “Creed” from MGM, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema.

Grasberger said Twitter plans to put Promoted Moments to the test over the next couple of months.

Twitter debuted Moments service earlier this month. Formerly named Project Lightning, the service surfaces timely stories in clearly defined blocks, squarely aimed at the millions of consumers who have yet to embrace Twitter in its current -- and what many call confusing -- form.

The new ad units come as Twitter appears to be losing its grip as a top marketing platform. By 2017, in fact, Instagram is on track to overtake Twitter for the first time in terms of popularity among marketers, according to a new forecast from eMarketer.

The number of U.S. companies using Twitter for marketing purposes will continue to grow, but penetration will increase by just 1.4 percentage points between this year and 2017, eMarketer expects.

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