• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 10, 2015

After much delay, Twitter is finally ready to start showing Promoted Tweets to users without accounts -- and those who are not currently logged in -- the social giant said Thursday.

No niche segment, Twitter counts about 500 million consumers that visit its property each month without logging in. The plan is to roll out the change gradually with selected domestic advertisers, as well as those in the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia.

“This includes people who click on links to Tweets in Google search, who will now be able to consume branded, Promoted content alongside organic Tweets,” Deepak Rao, Revenue Product Manager at Twitter, notes in a new blog post. 

Initially, what is being called a “test” will support campaigns driving Web site clicks, conversions or video views, according to Rao. “To start, these Promoted Tweets and Videos will appear on profile pages and Tweet detail pages on desktop Web only,” he explains.

Twitter could use the additional ad revenue. The embattled tech company recently said it expected fourth-quarter revenue to reach between $695 million and $710 million, which is considerably lower than analysts’ earlier estimates of nearly $740 million.

Anthony Noto, Twitter’s CFO, blamed the forecast on decreasing demand among advertisers. We are “seeing less growth in advertisers than we have in the past,” Noto told analysts on a third-quarter earnings, in late October.

While demand is declining, Twitter is betting that it can attract bigger ad budgets with what it believes are superior ad products, according to Adam Bain, Twitter’s recently promoted COO.

“Money is starting to move over into higher-performing [properties] like Twitter,” Bain told analysts, in October. During the third quarter, Twitter said revenue rose 58% to $569 million -- up from $361 million a year ago and better than earlier estimates.  

Clearly a company in transition, Twitter’s board recently renamed co-founder Jack Dorsey as CEO, announced plans to cut up to 336 staffers, and named Omid Kordestani -- formerly Google’s chief business officer -- as its new executive chairman.