Are Twitter ads still worth it in this day and age, or is your ad spend better off being invested in other popular platforms like TikTok, YouTube or Facebook?
It’s a question that’s on many a marketer and business owner’s minds right now as they get set to make 2022 their most successful year yet.
It’s also a question that I’m finally going to answer once and for all in today’s guide as we discuss whether advertising on Twitter remains a relevant and effective way to grow your brand in the coming year.
Understanding Twitter Ads
With 206 million daily active users compared to Facebook’s 1.93 billion and YouTube’s 315.12 million, Twitter may not be the most dominant social media platform, but the fact that it’s generally easier to spread your message via comments and retweets means it still holds plenty of appeal as an advertising platform.
This explains why, in 2020 alone, the company generated 86% of its $3.7 billion in revenue directly from advertising.
How Twitter Ads Compare to Google and Facebook Ads
Of course, Twitter is far from the only platform doing well with advertising.
Google continues to be the undisputed king of this particular realm, with Google Ads having the largest reach. Yet those ads are predominantly text-based and don’t really offer any way to truly engage with audiences beyond having those audiences click through to a website.
Though not quite as large as Google, Facebook Ads offers a happy medium between Google and Twitter, still offering a large reach and detailed targeting along with the ability to advertise using visual content and engage with audiences in real time.
While Twitter doesn’t have the same reach as its two main competitors, it does have a very active audience that tends to be passionate and knowledgeable about the things they’re interested in.
This can make it an effective medium for developing communities and building brand loyalty in a way that other platforms simply don’t afford.
Different Types of Twitter Ads
Twitter also has the advantage that they offer numerous ways to promote content, including:
- Carousel Ads: Users can swipe through up to six edge-to-edge images or videos in a single tweet and click on to go through to your app download page or landing page. Here’s an example from Gopuff, a delivery service:
Delivery is never surged. Always just $1.95.
— Gopuff (@gopuff) June 4, 2020
Get $5 off your first two orders using code TWX.
- Takeover Ads: Make your ads the first things people see when they open Twitter with Timeline Takeover or Trend Takeover. You can also place your ads alongside trending topics and conversation starters, ensuring that your brand is always at the forefront of any hot topic. Takeover ads give you exclusive ownership of Twitter’s premium real estate.
- Amplify Pre-Roll Ads: Featuring your ad as a pre-roll included with popular video content on the platform in a similar fashion to YouTube advertising. According to Twitter, “ads paired with premium video served in-feed deliver 2.2X brand favorability and 1.7X purchase intent compared to the same ads in a non-feed environment.”
- Video Ads: Have video ads you’re ready to share with the world? Twitter’s video ads option ensures that the right people see those ads at the right time. This is alongside regular sponsored posts, so you have multiple options to choose from when it comes to determining the right way to promote your brand on Twitter.
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The Future of Twitter Ads in 2023 and Beyond
The most interesting part is that all of this – all these unique ad formats and engagement options – seems to be just the very beginning of what looks to be an exciting time for the development of Twitter ads.
The company’s product team has been continually improving their ad product to better serve both users and advertisers, as well as continuing to adapt to changes and developments in smart device technology.
And they show no signs of slowing down. As the year rolls on, it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise at all to see them introduce even more unique formats, updated optimization models, and new post-install products such as in-app purchase optimization.
5 Reasons Why Twitter Ads Are Still Worth it in 2023
So, now that we understand a little bit more about Twitter ads and how they work, it’s time to consider just some of the reasons why they are still worth it in 2023 and whether the platform is still worth your investment.
If you ask me, I believe that spending on Twitter ads is absolutely worth it. Here are just five reasons why:
1) Twitter Ads Are Cost-Effective
If we’re talking purely monetary figures, it’s no secret that Facebook advertising is typically cheaper than Twitter advertising.
Twitter’s average CPM (Cost Per Million) is around $3.50 compared to Facebook’s $0.59.
That said, this is a false economy since you have to spend significantly more with the Meta-owned platform to get the same kind of engagement and click-through rate (CTR) that you get with Twitter, meaning that Facebook is likely to work out more expensive in the long-run.
Even if we don’t concern ourselves with what other platforms are doing, it’s still worth considering Twitter’s key strength from an advertising perspective:
A highly engaged community of smart people who are already actively getting involved in conversations around your niche, ultimately meaning a greater opportunity to reach more relevant people and get them talking to you and about you.
That kind of Return on Investment (ROI) alone makes Twitter ads a cost-effective approach to growing your brand online.
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2) Twitter Ads Get High Click-Through Rates
As I’ve already discussed, Twitter is not a company to rest on their laurels. They are continually developing their ad products to ensure an optimal experience for both advertisers and end-users alike.
Though carousel ads have been around for a while and remain popular, the company has recently upgraded them so that each image or video within the carousel can have its own unique headline and/or URL, allowing for more targeted advertising.
This has paid dividends for those investing in ad spend on the platform, resulting in a 20% increase in click-through rates across all objectives compared to single asset ads.
Twitter’s unique style of content delivery has allowed it to generate a higher average click-through rate than other platforms.
On average, Twitter ads with links have a CTR of 2%, compared to:
- 0.72% on Facebook
- 0.94% on Instagram
- and just 0.06% on LinkedIn
In other words, if driving more traffic to your website is what’s really important to you, it’s worth spending your ad money here.
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3) Twitter Ads Are Effective at Spreading Your Message
One thing that we simply can’t overlook with Twitter is how good it is for getting your message far and wide.
Sure, platforms like Facebook and TikTok may be the bigger platforms, but both rely on algorithms to determine who sees your promoted content and who doesn’t.
With Facebook, in particular, this often means that you get a kind of “walled-garden” effect, where even the most popular posts don’t typically spread very far and the potential to go viral is limited at best.
With Twitter, that’s not the case.
Though you can still use audience-targeting features while setting up your ads as you can with other platforms…
Twitter does a much better job at ensuring that more of the people who follow you and are active on the platform actually see your promoted content.
This means that you’re going to reach more people and, providing you do a good job with your ad, you’re going to get more people liking, commenting and retweeting, sending your ad far and wide beyond your own core audience. So you have a much greater chance of creating viral content that takes on a life of its own and presents opportunities beyond the platform itself.
After all, it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve heard of people generating millions of impressions on their ads one week and being invited to speak on CNBC the next, further raising their profile in a way that you just don’t hear about with regards to advertising on other platforms.
4) Twitter Ads Offer Unique Features
Again, this all comes back to the product team’s hard work in optimizing the ad experience for both advertisers and Twitter users.
The platform offers a number of unique features that can significantly help to improve engagement:
- One of the main ones is the App button, which takes customers straight to your preferred app store to download your app. If they already have the app installed, clicking on the button will open the app on the customer’s phone, which can be an easy and effective way to get people to check out new features or content.
- Polls, conversation buttons, and branded hashtags are also great features for getting people talking, while the website button is a simple, solid solution for upping those aforementioned click-throughs.
5) Twitter Ads Are an Untapped Opportunity
It’s no secret that many marketers and advertisers overlook Twitter, focussing instead on the likes of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and, of course, Google.
This ultimately creates a red ocean, an overcrowded market where everyone is competing in the same space, driving up the bid price for specific keywords and lessening the impact of each ad.
With Twitter, what you’ve got is as close to a blue ocean as you’re going to get in the digital advertising space. Though it’s not completely bereft of competition, it is fair to say that there’s nowhere near the same number of competing brands, giving you an untapped opportunity to get out meaningful, effective ads at a cost-efficient price.
Dive Deeper: How Apple’s iOS 14 Release May Affect Your Ads (& What to Do About It)
Twitter Ads and Mobile Advertising
If you’ve read this far, you may be starting to see the benefits of advertising on Twitter, yet still be skeptical after reading all the news surrounding the introduction of Apple’s iOS 14 updates at the tail-end of 2020:
If you recall, iOS 14 brought with it a new feature that allows users to opt out of being tracked online by the apps they use. The move caused a furor among some social media companies that rely on tracking to serve targeted ads on their platform.
Though that could have been off-putting to some advertisers, Twitter did at least take steps to ensure that Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency features were not totally disruptive to their advertising products.
In the summer of 2021, the company announced that, while they had delivered opt-in or opt-out prompts to 100% of iOS 14 users, the number of people opting out had been lower than expected. This is certainly reflected in their numbers. In Quarter 3, the company reported revenue growth of 37%, resulting in $1.28 billion in revenue, with even greater numbers expected to be reported by the end of Quarter 4.
Meanwhile, the platform had also extended its support for view-through attribution via the SKAdNetwork to continue to provide some level of reporting to advertisers.
In other words, while iOs 14 may have changed the game somewhat, it certainly hasn’t had much, if any, detrimental impact on Twitter’s ability to deliver relevant and effective ads to users.
The Verdict: Are Twitter Ads Worth It in 2023?
So, with all that being said, what’s the answer? Are Twitter ads still worth it in 2023?
If you ask me, the answer is a resounding yes. Sure, iOS 14 may have impacted things to some degree, but nowhere near to the point that it renders Twitter an ineffective or inappropriate platform in which to invest your advertising spend.
Instead, doing so allows you to tap into an uncrowded market that’s heavy on engagement and light on competition. And that’s just the beginning.
The unique advertising options, high-level of interactions, and helpful features such as App and Website buttons all give Twitter a distinct advantage over many of their competitors in the online advertising space.
Sure, they may not be the cheapest platform to advertise on, but when you consider the kind of click-through rates, interactions, and overall ROI you’re going to get from it, there’s no doubt that yes, Twitter ads are absolutely more than worth it in 2023, and for a good while after that.
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