Twitter's tailored audience advertising tool now official

After experimenting with tailored ads since July, Twitter is all ready to launch a new ad tool for advertisers called tailored audiences. Essentially, Twitter advertisers will now be able to ensure their sponsored tweets show up only to users who’ve accessed their site or used their services. 

In a blog post announcing the official launch of this feature, Abhishek Shrivastava, Product Manager, Revenue for Twitter said that after testing tailored ads for users for several months, Twitter decided to release the tailored audiences ad feature for advertisers globally. Calling it a “new way for advertisers to define your own groups of existing and potential customers, and connect with them on Twitter with relevant messages,” Shrivastava explained how cookies will work for Twitter’s ad partners.

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These ads will be visible to users who’ve visited a particular service online. Say, a clothing brand wishes to display promoted trends only to people who’ve visited their website in the past. The brand may have to share browser cookie IDs through an ads partner with Twitter, which will then match information with the user’s account to display promoted tweets to them. Advertisers, of course, will keep receiving stats about how many people clicked on the ad, viewed the link and more. 

Twitter says that its tests from this year showed some impressive results for businesses. HubSpot, an inbound marketing software platform, reportedly saw an increase in its engagement rate to the tune of 45 percent. Multiple other brands, including Delta Air Lines reported great performance of Twitter’s beta tailored ads campaign.

Of course, a feature like this raises the obvious question of privacy for users who do not wish to be targeted by these ads. Twitter has reiterated that users are allowed to opt out of this feature. If you do not wish to be bombarded with these ads, you can head on to privacy settings on your Twitter profile and uncheck the box next to Promoted content. If you have Do Not Track enabled on your browsers, Twitter promises it will not receive information about you from ad partners. 

Meanwhile, Twitter has also said that it is exploring more ways to bring targeted ads to brands. “Targeting recent visitors to your website is just one way to use tailored audiences. We believe there are many other possibilities. Think of it as the way to define your own groups of existing and target customers, and connect with them on Twitter,” Shrivastava wrote.