Twitter finds a way to aim your local ads EXACTLY where you want them
How can you target advertising on Twitter. But how you be sure your ad is getting to the customer in Birmingham (England) where your business is - and not baffling the consumer in Birmingham (Alabama) who's never heard of you? Twitter has the answer ...
That became clear when Adam Bain, Twitter's president of revenue, spoke at Ad Age's Digital Conference in New York this week.
"Geo-relevance for promoted tweets and accounts allows marketers to reach the audience in the right geographic areas," Bain explained.
"A regional chain that is only available in a certain part of the country can now promote their account or tweets in the right metro areas. If you want to advertise against the term 'jeans' to people in Cleveland, you can now do that.
"Tweet by tweet by tweet, for each organic and paid tweet, we're able to tell you how it's resonating, including follows and unfollows, so you can tell if you're turning off your followers."Geo-targeting on Twitter is available in 210 cities in the U.S. and more than 100 countries. Bain said Twitter would add more cities and countries over the coming year.
Analysts say a massive amount of money is available in the local ad market. Geo-targeted tweets are crucial for capturing the small businesses and marketers tied to a geographic area.
McDonald's Canada is already testing geo-targeted tweets. Sent out in Canada alone, these mention country-specific products such as peach pie and chocolate-coffee milkshake.
The slickness of the system is amazing. If a user said San Francisco was his location - but sent most of his tweets from Los Angeles, a Los Angeles-based company would be able to target him on Twitter.
Another big theme today was The Follower Dashboard. The idea is not new when it comes to Twitter's ad products. But the new analytics dashboard provides brands with greater insights into the audience of followers they've built on Twitter, said Ad Age. They can find out where they are, how they grew over time, their level of engagement -- and a glimpse at their other interests.
"This product is designed to answer the question that we've heard from marketers: Who are my followers?" Bain said. "Now, marketers can understand their audience and react better to that audience by refining their campaigns."