Twitter's ads bounce to cell phones
The microblogging site rolls out its advertising expansion to mobile. Now users will see trend, tweet, and account ads on their Twitter mobile app timelines.
By way of advertising, Twitter's mobile platform is about to look a lot more like its Web site. The microblogging giant announced today that "promoted" tweets and accounts will appear in Twitter timelines on mobile apps for iPhone and Android.
"Today, we are taking an important next step in making our Promoted Products available to those users," Twitter wrote on its blog today. "This will help ensure that people see important Tweets from the brands they care about."
Before today, Twitter's mobile users saw limited advertising in its search function, but now promoted trends, tweets, and accounts will mirror its Web site--with people seeing promoted tweets and accounts from brands they follow in their timelines. As users scroll down, "the Promoted Tweet will flow with the rest of the Tweets in your timeline."
Twitter first introduced ads to its Web site about two years ago and has since steadily rolled out new and different features. Just a couple of weeks ago, the microblogging site announced it would start allowing tens of thousands self-serve ads in March in a promotion with American Express.According to All Things D, when marketers buy ads, they will get promotions on both the Web and mobile, rather than being sold two separate products. As of now, the only device where ads won't show up is on iPads.
In 2011, Twitter's ad revenue was $139.5 million, according to Emarketer, and is expected to grow to $259.9 million this year.