Twitter follows Facebook, Google with re-targeting ads

Twitter, the second largest social network site plans to allow advertisers to use databases of users in order to send them promotions only to people who have already shown interest. Those ad techniques has been adopted by Google and Facebook already.

If proved successful the advertising stunt would increase Twitter advertising rates without having to increase number of adds, seen as critical by users as they are annoyed of having to deal with them. New re-targeting idea might bring to users a far better quality of advertisement.

“Users won’t see more ads on Twitter, but they may see better ones,” Kevin Weil, Twitter’s senior director of revenue products, said in a blogpost cited by Financial Times. He explained the change requires an adjustment in the company’s privacy policy but assured that Twitter offered “simple and meaningful” ways to opt out of the scheme.

The way re-targeting works is by customers who have signed up for a business’s newsletter, purchased products or visited its website can be targeted with ads that tempt them back, such as a coupon for discount.

Re-targeting practice can improve an advertiser’s return on investment because ads are aimed at those who are more interested in the service and highly more likely to make the purchase. For Twitter, a more relevant ad that a greater number of users click on means more income from advertising. Company is paid for ads depending on the degree of “engagement”, rather than on how many people see the promoted tweet.

According to analyst predictions Twitter is supposed to double its revenue from advertising this year.

With recent debates on online privacy and spying scandals, Twitter executives understand well that security of users information is critical for advertising. They have taken steps to ensure greater protection for user privacy than its rivals. Users would have the option to chose in their account settings and Twitter adheres to “Do Not Track” options that are built into modern web browsers.

Twitter cautious moves have been favored by bloggers and analysts.