Twitter to Feature Retargeting Soon

To our partner search engine optimization resellers, read up: Paid search is about to take another step forward in another social media platform.

Twitter users can expect more relevant ads to appear in their Twitter feed as the social network begins to experiment with ad retargeting. As of now, the experiment will only be available for users in the United States, and it will not be include mobile apps because of the absence of identifying cookies.

Selecting Promoted Tweets through Site Cookies

In order to display relevant ads as accurately as possible, Twitter will be collecting browser-based cookies and email identification to match up users with business ads they may be interested in. This is done by sharing your mailing list or browser-based cookies with Twitter. Your “ads” – the promoted Tweets – will be displayed in the Twitter feed of users who have previously visited your site or signed up for your newsletter.

Retargeting tweets from advertisers will help ads on Twitter become more useful for its users. According to Kevin Weil, Senior Director of Product and Revenue of the social network, “Users won’t see more ads on Twitter, but they may see better ones.”

Protecting User Privacy and Information Security

As word of Twitter’s upcoming experiments with retargeting spread online, many expressed their concern over Twitter’s method of collecting information for retargeting. Weil explained in the blog that the process is safe, and will not collect any further information other than that required for retargeting promoted tweets:

“To get the special offer to those people who are also on Twitter, the shop may share with us a scrambled, unreadable email address (a hash) or browser-related information (a browser cookie ID). We can then match that information to accounts in order to show them a Promoted Tweet…”

“This is how most other companies handle this practice, and we don’t give advertisers any additional user information.”

In addition, Twitter’s current features already offer users options that prevent advertisers from collecting additional content from the ones provided by the social network for retargeting. Twitter gives users the Do Not Track (DNT) option. You will not receive browser-related information from your target audience if they have DNT enabled in their browser.

What This Means for Search

If you used Twitter before for branding and social engagement, you can now add another use to the list: targeted paid search platform. It will be easier for you to segment and reach your market according to their interests via Twitter. Careful research has to be done when thinking of the terms your target audience is using to seek out your services on the social network, but this new feature is a step towards contextual marketing.

We’d be happy to help you set up your retargeting campaign on Twitter once the feature comes out. Talk to your account manager today to get started or sign up to become our partner for free. Keep checking our blog for more updates on SEO!