• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 8, 2017

Is Twitter an asset to TV networks?

In partnership with Nielsen, the network has some new data to suggest it is.

In a series of new studies commissioned with the research firm, Twitter provided an average of 6% incremental audience reach to TV across four measured cross-platform campaigns.

Twitter is not reaching just any audience, according to Tim Perzyk, senior director of market insights and analytics at the company.

On the contrary, “Twitter extends the reach of TV campaigns to connect with a young, hard-to-reach audience,” Perzyk notes in a new blog post.

In one study, a large CPG brand -- Twitter withheld the name -- ran a campaign during a major global sports event, which included a Twitter “first view” promoted video ad.

The brand saw a 22% incremental reach with its target audience on Twitter, versus advertising on TV alone, Nielsen found.

More to the point, the study also found that Twitter’s incremental audience skewed younger. Specifically, 18-to-24s consistently showed the largest gains in incremental reach via Twitter, compared with all other age groups and targets.

“Generation Z” (those aged 20 and younger) consumed 50% less TV than Generation X and 66% less TV than Baby Boomers, Nielsen recently found.

Yet, Twitter saw an average of 25% incremental reach to TV among those aged 18 to 24 across the four campaigns measured.

Each of the campaigns implemented relatively broad audience targeting. Most of the campaigns targeted 18-49s, both male and female.

Twitter had a higher percentage of its impressions reach target audiences than did TV, to a tune of 40% more on average, across the four measured campaigns.

In fact, the study found that Twitter outperformed the Nielsen digital-on-target-percentage norms by an average of 14% for the measured campaigns.