Twitter, the influential social network, has evidenced its commitment to driving mobile advertising to the forefront of its business strategy. As it continues to enjoy monthly engagements from over 1 billion iOS and Android users on its MoPub ad network, Twitter kicks off an international roll-out of mobile app promotion ads. These specialized ad units guide users toward app downloads or to previously installed apps through a method known as deep linking.
Alongside this, Twitter is pioneering their cost-per-app-click (CPAC) pricing and a dashboard that monitors user engagement. With CPAC pricing, advertisers are only invoiced when a user either accesses the App Store or Google Play through the ad, or opens the app directly from Twitter. This innovative advertising model has been under trial with Twitter since April of that same year.
Certainly, Twitter isn’t acting in isolation. Faced with the challenge of standing out in overpopulated app stores and seeking creative means to attract fresh users, app publishers have been drawn to Google’s recent application of app install ads on search and YouTube functions. Facebook’s app install ads, for example, have spurred tens of millions of downloads. This illustrates the potential Twitter sees in this strategy.
Ken Lynn, a product manager overseeing revenue at Twitter, mentioned that “This announcement is for Twitter only but we seriously contemplate a deeper integration with MoPub in the future. The aim is to broaden the outreach of mobile app promotion.”
In its early stages, Twitter’s mobile app promotion ad units have demonstrated much promise. The mobile game, Dots, utilized this new ad unit to advertise the latest version of their game, TwoDots, achieving over 1 million app installs during its testing phase.
These ad units, however, are solely designed for iOS and Android mobile users, intentionally leaving out Windows Phone, and BlackBerry users. Currently, there are no indications of plans to extend this ad unit to those platforms. Lynn elucidated that the user base of Twitter is primarily Android and iOS users.
Twitter’s investment in mobile advertising emphasizes the importance of smartphones and tablets in their revenue model. In the previous quarter alone, mobile advertising generated 72% of Twitter’s total revenues, equivalent to $181 million of the total revenues of $250 million.
Further, Twitter seeks to enhance the analytics and reporting tools available for app publishers. Ad keyword targeting will be integrated with Twitter’s existing mobile units, empowering publishers to set placements based on various parameters including interest, keyword, gender, geographic location, language, mobile device, and more.
The interface of the new ad unit utilizes Promoted Tweet app cards, allowing publishers the liberty to personalize with their own graphics and descriptions or utilize the app’s icon and descriptive text from the related app store. Publishers will have the capacity to track diverse actions, including installations, app launches, account creations, and payments in the case of premium apps.
Updated in 2025 to align with recent developments.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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