Twitter recently launched Quick Promote, a new advertising option that enables businesses to promote their top performing tweets directly within the Twitter Analytics dashboard.
Here's how it works: Twitter wants you to review your tweet stats in Analytics and choose which ones you want to promote. Simply pick a budget for each tweet and voila! Twitter will take care of the targeting for you.
In the blog post announcing the new feature, Twitter noted they'll automatically target users with interests similar to your followers, which is their determination of the people most likely to be interested in your message. In an August 2013 survey, Twitter found that users who see a relevant Promoted Tweet from an SMB are 32% more likely to visit that business.
It's being billed as a faster and easier way for SMBs to "get their best content in front of more people on Twitter."
But how well does it work, and should you give it a try?
HOW QUICK PROMOTE TWEETS WORK
You know, maybe you are super busy and I totally get that – I built my business from the ground up, too. Quick Promote seems like a decent option for busy marketers who just want to get more exposure and don’t really care as much about who actually sees it. Sometimes I’ll run a Twitter Promoted Tweet campaign with a $20 budget - so it’s annoying to spend +5 minutes configuring a $20 ad campaign.
When you set up a Promoted Tweet campaign the old way, you can layer on demographics, geo-location, interests and more to get closer to your actual customers. You can even upload a list of customer emails or phone numbers and create Tailored Lists, or do remarketing to reconnect with people who have already visited your site.
Quick Promote puts your tweet in front of an audience Twitter algorithmically determines to be similar to your own. It won’t be anywhere as targeted as you could do manually, but it doesn’t take as long to set up.
SO YOU WANT TO GIVE QUICK PROMOTE TWEETS A TRY…
Let's assume you're looking for a way to increase engagement and build your Twitter following. There's this ripple effect on Twitter, where the more shares and engagements a piece of content earns, the more exposure it gets, inciting more engagements. It's how content goes viral! So if you can spend $20-$30 promoting a specific tweet, it will earn you more organic activity, as well. It can help drive more traffic to your site and inspire more people to follow your account.
Check this out – this is a tweet I promoted just a few days ago. It was already performing pretty well and I could see that people enjoyed the content. I promoted it for $20.
As you can see, it earned over 3,500 paid impressions, but also over 5,800 organic ones. That's because many of the people who were exposed to my tweet as a promoted ad then shared it out to their networks. You can see the above information in your Twitter Analytics, then visit your Twitter Ads to see your cost breakdown:
Two cents per engagement, with 25% of people engaged! That's not bad at all, especially considering how many thousands of other people were exposed to the content.
I use Promoted Tweets for getting more traffic to my blog and driving more engagement to the content I share on Twitter. Quick Promote is a quick and dirty option for those types of goals.
WHEN NOT TO USE QUICK PROMOTE
Twitter's automatic targeting is definitely problematic for SMBs in a few ways. By default, Twitter usually targets audience members in the country in which you do business. What if you're promoting something regional, like an event in Portland, Oregon? Then you’re not going to spending your money wisely with Quick Promote.
Quick Promote also targets people like your followers – but what if the content you’re sharing is only applicable to a segment of your followers, perhaps those with specific interests? You’d be better off explicitly targeting ad campaigns to specific users with those interests rather than relying on Quick Promote.
To summarize, don’t use Quick Promote if you…
- Have a large campaign budget.
- Care a lot about ROI
- Are targeting specific regions or interests
If you fall into one of these categories, you really need to take the time to get the targeting options correct.
QUICK PROMOTE TIPS FOR SMBS AND LOCAL BUSINESSES
Adjust your bids. When you set your Quick Promote budget, the maximum bid is automatically set to optimize based on your campaign objective. However, you can (and should) check and edit your bids anytime from the Twitter Ads Campaign Dashboard. There, you can set a maximum bid per engagement.
Target only those regions in which you do business. If you're a small business operating locally, or a multi-location business, you probably don't want to engage people outside of your target regions. Go to the Twitter Ads Dashboard and reset the targeting with your preferred states/regions, cities or postal/zip codes.
Promote content that's already performing. Why waste money promoting content even your organic followers didn't enjoy? Promoted Tweets are an opportunity to show your best stuff off to specific audience segments. For example, I rarely bother promoting stuff with below 3% engagement rates, and look for stuff with +10% Tweet engagement rates.
If you can make even five minutes to go in and set your targeting yourself, you’ll generally be better off not using Quick Promote. It’ll help keep your costs under control and put you in front of a more relevant audience.
Have you used Quick Promote on Twitter? Share your experience and tips in the comments.
