Twitter cards are an easy way to start advertising on Twitter. They take about five minutes to create and they are designed for the conversion-focused advertiser. On April 25th, Twitter released website cards as an additional advertising option to Twitter lead cards. The creative needed for both is practically identical, however, the function is where things begin to change.
1. Website vs. Lead Generation Cards:
When creating a campaign, the first thing that you need to decide is if website or lead generation cards are a better fit for your advertising needs. Website cards take the Twitter user away from their browsing and to your website. After that, it is your landing page’s job to do the work to get the individual to buy, download or fill out a lead form.
If all you need is email information, I would recommend lead generation cards. With lead generation cards, the Twitter user clicks a button, while going through their Twitter feed. You get their email address and they don’t have to leave Twitter. It allows the user to continue to browse uninterrupted.
2. Ad Creation:
Before you create a campaign, the card creative should be designed first. To create a new card, go to Creative tab and select Card from the drop down menu. From there, it is time to select your preferred card: Lead Generation or Website. For the most part, ad creation is pretty simple and should not take much of your time. Website cards will need an image, a title and the website URL, but after that, the website card is complete.
Lead generation cards require only a few more steps. The creative is essentially the same, each card has an image and a description. For lead generation card, you will need a few additional features: a call-to-action for your button, a link to your privacy policy and a link to your website. While lead generation cards don’t require the user to exit Twitter, the option is still available for them to learn more about you before they commit.
3. Campaigns
To start advertising for either type of Twitter card, a campaign is necessary to promote the tweet. If you already have a created campaign where you would like to advertise your Twitter card, the next step is easy. After the ad is created, you simply need to edit the card, go to the promotion tab and select the campaign where you would like to promote the Twitter card. If you would rather keep your cards in separate campaign or need to create a new campaign, , targeting, daily budget and bids are all set at the campaign level.
There is only one setting that is important when creating a new Twitter campaign for your cards. When given the option of how to promote your tweets, select “Manual Tweet Selection”. While automatic is good for engagement purposes, to use Twitter cards, you will want to select them manually to give yourself more control.
4. Targeting:
There are four types of primary targeting that can be layered with devices, gender targeting and platforms. Depending, on the primary targeting that you use, there would also be the option to choose where the Tweet will appear – on user’s timelines or verses the search results.
Looking at the Twitter targeting that is available, there are four primary methods: keywords, television, interests/ followers and tailored audiences.
- Keywords: Keyword targeting works similar to search engine keywords. The promoted tweets would be shown to anyone, who is associated with those keywords. This can include keywords within their own tweets, searches and if there is any engagement with other tweets that contain those keywords.
- Television: TV conversation was released worldwide at the end of April, but has been available to advertisers in the US and UK for months. TV ad targeting is not for everyone. It is supposed to let marketers continue their commercial advertising on Twitter and is essentially only useful for advertisers that have national television commercials.
- Interests and Followers: Interests and followers target individuals, who are your followers, are like your followers or have a particular interests. Interests and followers can be layered to refine your audience to a smaller size.
- Tailored Audiences: If you decide that you would like to use tailored audiences this allows to you create lists based around Twitter IDs and email addresses. However, you need to use a supported partner to use this type of targeting.
Whichever type of targeting that you choose to use, you are ready to advertise. In the Tweets section of the campaign creation, click ‘promote a new Tweet’. From there, click the symbol for Twitter Cards and choose the card that you would like to use.
Twitter cards are designed to focus on conversions. Whether you just need an email address or would like to send someone to a landing page to convert, it is a short and simple process to get started.
