If you keep up with news and trends in the social space, you may have heard that Twitter recently launched its long awaited Ads API. If you’re behind for whatever reason, here’s a quick recap:
The Twitter Ads API is a new tool that will give marketers the ability to leverage various third-party services to improve the creation, management, and measurement of their advertising campaigns. These tools are being provided by Adobe, Salesforce, HootSuite, TBG Digital, and SHIFT, who have been identified as the first round of partners to sign on for the initiative.
Whether you’re a corporate powerhouse with an abundance of financial resources, or a small business fighting for visibility in your local market, the Twitter Ads API aims to bolster social business for all.
1. Easier Access to Ads
Until recently, Twitter presented two options for purchasing ad space: you could contact its sales team, or use the self-service tool, which allows you to buy units through a web-based interface. While the addition of self-service certainly made the process easier, it still reduced the buyer to a limited set of options. The Twitter Ads API introduces an all new world of flexibility.
Like the Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer program, the API gives marketers the freedom to purchase and manage their advertising solutions with a variety of third-party partners. The units come with easy access and functionality beyond Twitter’s core ad platform.
2. Greater Ad Scalability
One problem with Twitter’s existing ad platform is the inconvenience it imposed on big spending brands and agencies managing ads for their clients. Buying multiple units was a cumbersome process to say the least. Not only does the Ads API offer added flexibility, but added scalability as well.
GraphEffect from SHIFT is the component that allows brands to create, manage, optimize and integrate Twitter campaigns with existing marketing initiatives. Ads can be purchased at a scale that accommodates the buyer’s needs, while access can be extended to support team members, clients, partners, or whoever needs it. This same functionality is available through the app in the Facebook Preferred Developer program.
3. Improved Ad Targeting
Advertising networks are constantly working to improve their targeting capabilities. It’s no secret that the more relevant the ad content, the better it is received by the audience. Twitter is looking to improve its targeting capabilities by partnering up with Salesforce, one of the biggest names in the cloud computing sector.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is designed to enhance Promoted Tweets, Twitter’s core advertising product. The platform utilizes a combination of listening analytics and engagement tools to help marketers create ads that get better results. Hootsuite and Adobe are offering similar functionality via their own integrated social management dashboards.
4. Richer Insights
The Twitter Ads API may show its most value on the reporting front. Twitter’s built-in analytics platform, though useful, is also basic, limiting you to details such as clicks, retweets, and replies. Through integration, its analytical capabilities extend to deeper metrics, and the ability to measure marketing campaigns across multiple social platforms. This functionality is courtesy of TBG Digital and its aptly named One Media Manager.
Social media marketing specialist TBG Digital calls One Media Manager an ROI platform that measures consumer engagement in real-time. While it connects to Twitter, it keeps track of your efforts on Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and various other sites.
5. Easier Marketing
Whether it’s optimizing Promoted Trends with Marketing Cloud or using One Media Manager to measure your efforts across the social web, the new API offers an easier way to market with Twitter. Brands have access to a broader landscape of tools designed to take advantage of the platform’s buzz, reach, and activity. Perhaps the biggest selling point is the ability for most of these tools to integrate with existing channels while keeping centralized management in mind. This is a huge plus for businesses executing strategies on multiple social networking sites.
Twitter joins rivals Facebook and LinkedIn in unleashing an ads API for developers to play with. While it wasn’t the first to make such a move, this deal is being hyped up as one that could have a monumental impact in the social marketing arena. The belief is that in the end, these new and improved tools will help create a better experience for users — one that in Twitter’s view, must coexist with advertisements. Early results from Adobe indicate that this could be a positive step ahead for the company.
Sources
http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2013/02/salesforce-marketing-cloud-launches-twitter-ads.html
http://www.tbgdigital.com/twitter-api-partner/#
http://blog.shift.com/blog/2013/2/20/shift-announces-twitter-ads-api-integration.html