With over 300 million monthly active users, Twitter offers immense potential for brands looking to connect with current and prospective customers.
However, cutting through the noise on the platform requires an effective advertising strategy tailored specifically to Twitter’s unique audience and engagement patterns.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the Twitter ad formats and approaches that consistently generate the highest levels of engagement, conversions, and return on ad spend based on real-world case studies and expert insights.
By the end, you’ll understand exactly what kind of advertising works best on Twitter to maximize your marketing results.
Table of Contents
Overview of Twitter Ad Options
Twitter provides a variety of paid ad formats natively within its platform. Here is an overview of the core ad types available:
- Promoted Tweets – Regular tweets boosted to reach wider audiences.
- Promoted Accounts – Pushing your Twitter profile as a “recommended account to follow.”
- Promoted Trends – Placing a trending topic at the top of the “What’s Happening” timeline.
- Promoted Moments – Boosting engagement with your tailored Twitter Moments.
- First View – Premiering video content at the top of users’ feeds when opened.
- Conversation Cards – Encouraging direct engagement and actions like sign-ups, installs, and more.
Brands can target ads based on parameters like keywords, interests, behaviors, device types, follower look-alikes, and more. Costs work on an auction-based system.
Understanding the unique benefits of each ad format is key to determining what works for your specific goals and audience.
Also read: Agency Twitter Ad Management
Ranking the Best Performing Ad Types
While results vary based on execution, industry research, and historical data reveal certain Twitter ad formats consistently outperform across key metrics:
1. Promoted Tweets
Short, engaging copy along with visual media like images, GIFs, or videos. Tweets allow the inclusion of calls-to-action with external links. One of the most versatile formats.
2. First View Video Ads
Full-screen auto-play video ads before viewing content. Strong results for brand awareness and video views.
3. Conversation Cards
Clickable cards that drive conversions like app installs, email sign-ups, catalog requests, etc., without leaving Twitter.
4. Promoted Accounts
Boosting your brand’s Twitter profile to gain new relevant followers. Supports community growth.
5. Promoted Moments
Scrollable collection of Tweets focused on specific events, announcements or campaigns. Maintains user focus.
6. Promoted Trends
Placing a branded trend at the top of the timeline yields massive reach. Very high costs make it prohibitive for most brands.
Optimizing spending towards the ad formats with the strongest performance history will maximize your chance of Twitter advertising success.
Most Effective Ad Creative for Each Format
The visuals, copy and experience of your ads also have a major influence on results across Twitter’s different formats. Here are proven creative best practices:
Promoted Tweets
- Concise, scannable copy
- Emotional appeal
- Visual imagery and video
- Strong call to action
First View Video Ads
- Branding in the first 3 seconds
- Show value clearly
- Make the first 7 seconds engaging
- Close with clear CTA
Conversation Cards
- Clear call to action
- Strong visuals
- Minimal data requirements
- Clear value exchange
Promoted Accounts
- Brand bio, links and hashtags
- Professional profile photo
- Engaging cover photo
- Improved follower-to-following ratio
Promoted Moments
- Unified visual style
- Clear narrative or theme
- Mix of content formats
- Strong opening and closing tweets
Optimizing your ad creative based on the established best practices for each Twitter format gives your campaigns the highest probability of cutting through and generating results.
Most Effective Campaign Goals and Targeting
Beyond the actual ad unit, the goals and targeting parameters set for your campaign also impact performance. Here are proven strategies:
Brand Awareness
- Broad interest, hashtag and keyword targeting
- Target competitors’ followers
- Prioritize reach and impressions
Website Traffic
- Retarget site visitors
- Follower look-alikes
- Location targeting
App Installs
- Target mobile devices
- Tailor creatives per platform
- Interests related to app purpose
Lead Generation
- Laser-focused targeting
- Offer gated content or discount
- Conversation Card optimization
Tweet Engagement
- Hashtag and @ mention targeting
- Engage influencers
- Conversation prompting creatives
The most effective Twitter ad campaigns align ad objectives, formats, creativity and targets into a cohesive strategy tailored to the desired outcome.
Key Twitter Ad Best Practices
Based on analysis of top-performing ad accounts and expert guidance, here are the most important best practices to follow:
- Visual Media – Tweets with images, videos or GIFs gain more impressions and engagement.
- Concise Copy – Get your message across in the scannable Twitter format using emojis.
- Strong CTAs – Every ad should lead the viewer towards a specific action or next step.
- Website Retargeting – Remarket people who have visited your website for higher conversions.
- Testing – Try different combinations of creative, targeting, and messaging to find your sweet spot.
- Timely Hooks – Make ads relevant to current events, holidays, or topics to capture interest.
- Audience Insights – Research competitors and influencers in your space for inspiration.
- Bidding Optimization – Use automatic bidding strategies to optimize costs and results.
- Platform Synergy – Carry over strong-performing creatives from other channels like Facebook.
Following these established best practices will significantly improve your chances of Twitter ad success. But always test new approaches tailored to your brand and audience.
Top Advertisers on Twitter
Looking at the brands spending the most on Twitter ads provides insights into what works. Here are the top 5 biggest advertisers on Twitter:
- AT&T – $149 million
- Verizon – $136 million
- T-Mobile – $71 million
- Comcast – $68 million
- Disney+ – $54 million
Key themes include major brands in telecom, streaming entertainment, finance, CPG, and quick-serve restaurants. Advertising focuses on seasonal promotions, engagement campaigns, and acquisition.
Studying category leaders helps identify industry trends and opportunities to inspire your own advertising efforts.
Twitter Ad Campaign Case Studies
Here are real-world examples of successful Twitter ad campaigns utilizing the platform’s top-performing formats and strategies:
Microsoft’s Xbox – Promoted Video Views with First View Ads
Microsoft wanted to promote awareness for their Xbox Game Pass subscription. They ran 6-second First View video ads targeting ages 18-35 interested in gaming. The short videos achieved strong branding results with a 13% increase in ad recall.
PetSmart – Website Traffic with Promoted Tweets
Targeting consumers passionate about pets, PetSmart served Promoted Tweets driving to their e-commerce site. This generated 11 million Twitter impressions and lowered their cost-per-click by 25%.
RXBAR – Lead Gen with Conversation Cards
Protein bar brand RXBAR used Twitter Conversation Cards to collect emails for a coupon offer. The low-friction cards achieved a 55% higher conversion rate compared to other channels.
Adobe – Brand Awareness with Promoted Trends
To drive visibility for their Creative Cloud apps, Adobe purchased Promoted Trends for relevant #Adobe and #Create hashtags, which achieved 500 million potential impressions.
As these examples show, matching campaign goals with the right Twitter ad formats and targeting is key to success.
Troubleshooting Poorly Performing Twitter Ads
If your Twitter ads are underperforming, here are some common issues to check:
- Targeting is too broad and untargeted
- Ad creative doesn’t stand out and connect emotionally
- Messaging doesn’t communicate value clearly
- No strong or relevant call to action
- The bidding strategy is not aggressive enough
- Account needs more followers and engagement
- Poor click-through-rate from a link or card action
Addressing these types of problems can significantly improve Twitter ad results. Be sure to A/B test new combinations to find what resonates.
Twitter Advertising Costs
Average costs for top Twitter ad formats include:
- Promoted Tweets – $0.50 to $2 per engagement
- Promoted Accounts – $1 to $3 per follower
- Promoted Trends – $200k to $350k per day
- First View ads – $0.10 to $0.30 per view
- Conversation Cards – $0.50 to $3 per conversion
Limited budgets can start at $10 per day to test performance. Expect average CPMs of $7 across most placements. Monitor analytics closely when scaling spend.
Conclusion
Success with Twitter advertising requires matching campaign strategies to formats that are proven to work – from visually Promoted Tweets, high-impact first-view video ads, and direct response Conversation Cards.
Executing based on established best practices while innovating creatively will drive optimal results.
With the right combination of preparation, testing, and optimization, brands can engage target audiences on Twitter in a measurable, cost-efficient way that delivers against core business goals.
