Successful Twitter ad campaigns don’t happen by accident.
According to Twitter statistics, more than 6,000 new tweets are uploaded every second, so if you’re going to get your audience to care about what you’re promoting, you’ll need to put some work in to stand out from the crowd.
Not too much work, though.
With millions of new tweets filling up user queues every day, is it even worth it to try to reach your audience on the platform?
Lots of businesses have already said “yes,” and here are three reasons why:
Seems a little more worth your while now, doesn’t it? If you're already using Twitter for advertising, leave a review on G2 to share your insight.
5 must-haves for your Twitter adsNow, if you’re new to Twitter ads, there are a few must-haves you can rely on to get your campaign off to a good start. And since saying more would violate the first rule, let’s get started.
Twitter is designed for readers who scan, skim, and skip around. The platform’s original 140-character limit reinforced this tendency, but users still seem to prefer brevity even though the character count doubled in 2018. As an advertiser, you have to capture and keep your audience’s attention quickly if you want to engage and convert.
This goes for most online ads, but it’s worth repeating that your call to action should attract your prospect with specific benefits and steps to continue with your offer. Language like “Get Started Now” or “Free Access for 30 Days” typically performs better than a nebulous “Learn More” button.
Twitter offers multiple layers of audience targeting, but if you’re starting out, you’ll want to test an initial set of keywords to find out which ones are most relevant to your offer. From there, you can expand into targeting other niches like behavior, demographics, and device type.
What’s more engaging than a question? (See what I did there?) Twitter’s own data shows that when website card copy includes a “?”, it gets 25% more clicks.
Wait, what? That’s right, steal. A good idea is a good idea, and there are plenty of businesses and brands out there making brilliant Twitter ads that you can take inspiration from.
For this exact purpose, we’ve collected 10 of the best Twitter ad examples that you can use to build your own effective campaign.
This ad from Progressive is a textbook example of reaching your Twitter audience effectively:
Image courtesy of Astute Solutions
The copy is concise, humorous, and fits the message of rate transparency. Seeing Progressive’s spokeswoman in tears catches your eye, and highlights the differentiator of honestly comparing competitor rates to Progressive. Finally, the call-to-action is compelling and consistent with the ad’s core message.
It’s also worth noting that this Tweet is targeting buyers in the “convert” segment of Progressive’s conversion funnel. Typically, conversion funnels have four stages: attract, convert, close, and delight. If you notice, the word “insurance” never appears in the ad text. This is because the ad assumed the audience knows that Progressive is an insurance company due to where the audience is in the conversion funnel.
It’s important you always keep your audience’s location in the conversion funnel in mind — never sleep on traffic temperature. By nurturing leads that want to learn more in the context of the marketplace, you can further highlight the benefits and unique value of your offer and guide leads further into your funnel.
Collaborating with celebrities, industry leaders, and other influencers can help you gain more followers by expanding your audience beyond its normal confines.
In this example, Zyppah enlisted former Kazaam actor NBA star Shaquille O’Neal to promote better sleep:
Image courtesy of Shaq's Twitter
You may not have the budget to make Shaq the face of your campaign, but partnering with the right influencers could be just as useful. Working with influencers is a form of social proof that can generate more clicks and conversions for your campaign.
Amazon is an eCommerce giant, but they still need to keep people interested and engaged with their brand to maintain success.
Promoting flash sales like this on Twitter help to serve that purpose:
Image courtesy of AdEspresso
This particular offer is for Kindle and Fire accessories, which are both high-end Amazon products. Users who click the ad probably have one of these items already, so Amazon is basically rewarding customers who have already committed to their products.
Also, by making the offer time-sensitive, users have an added pressure to convert right away or risk missing out.
Holiday promotions are vital for a lot of e-commerce vendors. Twitter gives you a chance to reach customers who are actively looking for both the right gifts and a deal or promotion to capitalize on.
Web-based clothing vendor Threadless taps into these needs with this Twitter ad:
Image courtesy of Threadless' Twitter
The text might need a bit of tightening up, but Threadless provides an eye-catching visual, a compelling offer, and a clear CTA, all wrapped up under a literal Christmas tree — with a puppy on top.
Furthermore, content that provokes a positive, uplifting reaction (like a puppy under a tree) can strengthen your followers’ relationship with your brand by providing momentary relief from the stresses of the holiday season.
In this ad from Spotify, the music streaming service follows a number of the best practices we mentioned. The copy is concise, the call to action, “sign up now,” is specific, and the offer is clear.
Image courtesy of AdEspresso
The noteworthy element of this ad is the three-month trial period for $0.99. Extended free trials (or super-cheap trials) employ a psychological technique called risk reversal, which reduces your potential customers’ fears about signing up for your product or service.
Because the buyer can use the product for next to nothing, the burden to prove worth shifts to the seller. But if your product is effective, most users won’t want to opt-out when the time comes to pay the regular price.
Spotify has used offers like this to build a paid subscriber list of more than 87 million users. We can’t promise that level of success, but trial periods are a strong incentive, especially for subscription-based products and services.
Skillshare connects people who want to learn new things from world-class practitioners (as well as teach them).
By tweeting video trailers of free classes taught by industry experts, people have a chance to check out the teacher and learn about the course’s content before signing up:
Google processes 40,000 search queries every second. Want to make sure your website stays front and center? Rand Fishkin’s got a FREE class on everything you need to know.
— Skillshare (@skillshare) August 27, 2018
This particular ad starts with a Google statistic to provide context for the offer — keeping one’s webpage “front and center” by watching a free Skillshare video.
Also, don’t forget about your conversion path! The link in this Tweet sends the reader to a class landing page, where they can then sign up to take the free course instantly.
This is another chance to use Twitter as a part of your overall promotion scheme — in this case, for an upcoming event.
Event promotion on Twitter works best if you can get users talking and generating related content, and it works even better if all of that discussion happens in the same place.
In this example, HubSpot is promoting their 2018 INBOUND Conference, and they’ve set up a hashtag — #INBOUND18 — for Twitter users to connect before and during the event.
As you can see, the hashtag appears both in the profile text on the right, and in the Pinned Tweet text on the upper left:
Image courtesy of Bizzabo
By creating and promoting a unique hashtag for your event, you’ll gain momentum and have a better chance of trending on Twitter, which will put you in front of a much larger audience.
Most companies don’t have Progressive’s widespread name recognition (or ad budget) and have to reach their audience through more limited means.
Oberlo, a B2B dropshipping platform, is one such company. And they’re building a following by using Twitter ads to offer personal inspiration as much as business acumen:
Image courtesy of Orberlo's Twitter
Oberlo relies on a mix of education and motivation to cover the topics and frustrations that their audience of new entrepreneurs and small businesses are struggling with. The offer in this Tweet is low-stakes — a free, branded desktop wallpaper with an encouraging quote — but works brilliantly as part of a larger awareness campaign around Oberlo’s brand.
Understanding the makeup of your audience and reaching them with relevant content is a highly effective way to reach your niche without producing intensive, high-budget content.
Italian home-and-garden store Agricola needed to drive traffic from multiple audiences to their new online store. Because their market is rather niche, the company decided to craft a strategy around targeted content created in advance to engage with actual followers of specific accounts.
Agricola’s Twitter ads used website cards to highlight in-store promotions, but that was only one piece of the puzzle. They also targeted followers of popular accounts that were relevant to their audience and tested different images and ad copy:
Image courtesy of Twitter Business
Agricola’s efforts led to 210 times more site visits, or a 21,000% increase if you want to brag on their behalf.
Some businesses have success by running in the opposite direction of Agricola’s well-charted path. Instead of a detailed content strategy, you can capitalize on Twitter’s trending topics and piggyback on what users are already talking about.
As an example, this Twitter ad from GetTaxi UK looks like it was slapped together in a hurry, with shortened text-message speak, misspellings, and squished images:
Image courtesy of Klientboost
The results? GetTaxi’s Twitter ad reduced their cost per install by 30% compared to other mobile channels, and 34% more app registrations per install compared to their average. The lesson? Inserting your offering into current events in real-time can capture early adopters and power users on Twitter.
There are lots of examples and opportunities you can steal borrow from to advertise successfully on Twitter. Of course not all of the examples above will be a good fit for your Twitter audience. Start with the strategy and tactics that mesh well with your offer and your audience, and keep track of your ads’ performance to make improvements over time.
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