Twitter said today that it has added the ability for advertisers to target ads at people based on keywords from those users' recent tweets.
In a blog post this morning, Twitter characterized the new feature as "an important new capability -- especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent -- because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context."
To be sure, millions of people are letting the world know what they're thinking in real time by sending out tweets about what they're doing, links they've noticed, news they're interested in, and much more. All of this provides clues that will no doubt be valuable to marketers -- much as advertisers have been able to target ads based on the Web sites users visit.
In its post, Twitter said a good example of how this new system would work could be when a user tweets about the latest album from a favorite band. If that band happened to be playing a concert nearby, the venue could "run a geotargeted campaign using keywords for that band with a tweet containing a link to buy the tickets." Then, the user would likely see a promoted tweet pop up in their timeline alerting them to the concert and the availability of tickets.
Twitter also called out a test done by GoPro, the maker of popular action-oriented HD cameras, which got about two million ad impressions and an engagement rate as high as 11 percent based on promoted tweets that were put in front of users based on targeting keywords from their tweets.
Twitter said that aside from seeing these more targeted promoted tweets in their timeline, users wouldn't notice any difference under the new program.