June 17, 2015

How to Use Twitter Ads for Lead Generation

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Michael Jenkins
Michael Jenkins

CEO - Shout Agency
[email protected]

How to Use Twitter Ads and Twitter Advertising for Lead Generation

In an era where digital marketing reigns supreme, Twitter has solidified its position as a social media powerhouse, offering a unique environment for businesses to engage with their audience in real-time.

With over 330 million monthly active users, Twitter serves as an invaluable channel for connecting with potential customers, driving traffic, and generating high-quality leads.

A number of customers recently asked us how to use Twitter Ads to generate leads for their business. While Twitter Advertising have been out for over a year now, they are still unfamiliar ground for many online marketers.

However, some of the features of Twitters Ads make it an ideal spot to work on your lead generation efforts for your business. Specifically the promoted tweets and video views provide the best return on investments. Furthermore, the Twitter cards are undoubtedly one of the best ways to use this promotional strategy.

In the end, you will find that the ability to use these cards to generate leads directly on the social network makes it unique from Google and Facebook where you have to direct people to another location to generate leads.

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just starting with Twitter advertising, our comprehensive guide will equip you with the knowledge and insights needed to create campaigns that deliver tangible and measurable results. Get ready to unlock the true power of Twitter Ads and take your lead generation game to new heights! Let’s dive in!

How does Twitter Advertising Work

For anyone looking to get started with creating a Twitter Advertising campaign go to: Ads.Twitter.Com to get started.
You can then follow the easy step by step process we discuss below:
#1. Create a new Twitter ads campaign- The first thing you want to do when you advertise on Twitter is to create a new campaign.
The best campaigns are the website clicks or conversions or the leads on Twitter.  However, if you have an app that you want to promote then obviously create an app campaign instead. For the purposes of this article, we are not discussing follower, tweet engagements, or custom campaigns. Any engagement or followers you add to your account are just gravy in addition to the leads you generate.
#2 Compose your Twitter Ads card- Once you create the campaign, you need to compose a tweet for your campaign. If you have a tweet that you already created you can use that as well in the selected tweets option.
We discuss below why to use different cards and the specific call to action and image sizes for the different cards. The one thing to remember throughout this process is that when you compose a tweet do so with the end in mind. Think about what ultimate action you want from a prospect on Twitter.
# 3. Twitter Ads Campaign targeting- The next step is to identify your ideal prospective market. Twitter can help you segment this market by location, gender, keywords, Twitter handles, and interests.
For example, if you have an audience that follows someone else in your industry you can target your ads specifically at the persons’ Twitter followers. By inputting their Twitter handle: @username you let Twitter know that the best way to help you target your campaign is to followers of that specific user. Note: engagement can make or break your Twitter ad campaign. This is a big challenges for new users. Generally new Twitter marketers want to go hog wild and try to select as many handles as possible to widen their prospective pool. The problem with this shot gun approach is that they diminish their returns in the process.
For example, let’s say you want to hold a webinar on using Social Media. You could use @chrisbrogan handle. He specializes in helping businesses with social media.
However, when you also add in @neilpatel you could get mixed results. While Neil works with a similar audience, he focuses more on website analytics for small business owners. Twitters’ ad format prices your ads on your audience size, make-up, and also engagement rate. For lead or website cards are charged per engagement (i.e. a follow, click, retweet, favorite, or reply). Video campaigns only charge for “plays”. Therefore, if Neil’s’ followers have a lower engagement, because less of them are interested in social media you could decrease your conversion rate and increase your cost per engagement that Twitter uses to charge advertisers.
That means you could get a lot of engagement on a video ad and not pay as much for that engagement.

Formatting your Twitter Ads

Like we mentioned earlier, for lead generation on Twitter you either want video, website, or lead generation cards. Here are some of the best practices for formatting these ads.

Video Best Practices- It is ideal if you keep your videos on Twitter between 35-45 seconds. While some videos as long as a minute did okay, remember that this is the 140 character social network.

Twitter cards best practices- While a few types of Twitter cards exist, we want to focus on the website and lead generation cards. Both cards have a very visual element to them, so make sure that you use the correct images and sizes.
For example, lead generation cards should include an image that is 800×200 pixels. Web cards are 800×320.

Lead Generation Card – If you want to get leads straight from Twitter this is your option.

The Lead Generation card automatically pre-populates a prospects information, so they can sign up for your offer directly from Twitter. Lead cards then integrate with SalesForce, MailChimp, InfusionSoft, Marketo, and a few other CRM systems. This is great if you want to generate leads for a sales team, or actively use MailChimp or InfusionSoft for your newsletters. If you use another third party email marketing software, then you might want to use the Website cards.

Furthermore, with lead generation cards you can create a customised call to action to increase your conversion rates. After they sign up, the user is asked if the information can be sent over to you. When they agree, they are immediately redirected to whatever landing page you choose.

Website Cards-While Lead generation cards allow you to add prospects directly from Twitter, website cards request that your prospect goes to your website to learn more.

Unlike lead generation cards, you only have specific, pre-defined calls to action you can use for these cards. The benefit of using website cards is that you can get to know your prospect better. Plus, by sending prospects to your site you have greater control of the sales process.

Tracking your Twitter Ads Success

The final step in the process is to track your success. You need to determine if your approach is feasible. To do that, go to the Creatives section of your Twitter Ads dashboard. Then select the Cards section to see what your results are for specific campaigns.
From there, you have the ability to analyse and improve upon your campaign.

Final Thoughts

Twitter ads can be a gold mine for generating leads online. Unlike Facebook and Google, which has a lot of competition advertisers are just starting to look into this platform. That means lower costs to market on the site. Furthermore, by using the cards correctly you can generate a significant sales funnel for your business.
Let us know if you have any other questions about how to use Twitter ads to generate leads for your business and any other social media strategy questions you may have.

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        As Founder and Director of Shout Web Strategy, Michael Jenkins is at the forefront of digital marketing. Since it’s inception in 2009, Shout has built a strong reputation as one of Australia’s leading strategic SEO agencies, assisting online businesses to formulate, implement and track successful marketing strategies. Michael is a respected thought leader and digital strategist, specialising in online strategy, corporate SEO, Google retargeting, email and conversion rate optimisation, and online reputation management. Follow Michael on Google+, connect with him through LinkedIn or visit the Shout Web Strategy website.

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