Advertisers on Twitter often would like to ensure that their Tweets are only displayed to potential customers who are most likely to purchase their service or product. Hence Twitter has a feature called Custom Audiences, which allows the advertiser to select the users to whom their promoted Tweets will be shown.
In this Twitter ads tutorial, we are going to explain what Twitter custom audiences are, the types of Twitter custom audiences you can create and how to create a Twitter website custom audience from scratch.
What are Twitter Custom Audiences?
Advertising rates on Twitter are high, and many businesses with a limited advertising budget would like to ensure that their advertising money is not wasted showing the Tweets to users who will never purchase.
Hence Twitter has a custom audiences option in its Tools menu, which allows the advertiser to show the promoted Tweets and other promotions only to a selected number of users who are most likely to convert into customers. The advertiser can use the custom audience feature to review the Twitter users who will be shown a particular ad campaign.
If the number of users in the custom audience is less than 100, it will give the message, too small, and these users cannot be targetted for advertising. Advertisers should be aware that the Tools menu is only visible if the advertiser has added a credit card to his Twitter account.
The 3 types of Twitter Custom Audiences
Custom audiences are typically used for remarketing and targeting existing customers and followers. There are three main types of custom audiences on Twitter
- Twitter Custom Audiences Lists – these lists will consist of specific Twitter users who may be customers or subscribers to the mailing list. The advertiser can upload their email address and Twitter will try to match the email address with the Twitter user. Matching the users may take some time, up to one week. Alternately the advertiser can provide a list of the Twitter handles of the customers or influencers who should be targetted. The list can be uploaded as a csv file.
- Twitter Custom Audience based on Website activity – most of the internet users who visit the website are interested in purchasing either the product or service being sold. The business can target these users, collecting their data using the website tag provided by Twitter in the Twitter ads section.
- Twitter Custom Audiences based on App activity – Many businesses have developed an app allowing users to get information, and they can track those who register or install the app. Conversion tracking tools are available which will collect data on who is using the mobile app, so that these app users can be targetted using Twitter advertising
How to create a Twitter Website Activity Custom Audience?
The website activity audience often has some of the best conversion rates among the different Custom Audiences on Twitter. This audience is collected using the Website tag provided by Twitter to collect information about the visitors to the business website or visitors who have registered or taken other actions on the website.
The advertiser should have Twitter’s conversion tracking pixel installed on the website, or the advertiser can use the partners for tag management which are accepted by Twitter. The website tag is a code snippet that Twitter provides, and it should be placed on all or specific pages of the website.
After the website code is added, the cookies of all the visitors will be collected and matched with the Twitter ids. Only if the website visitor has a Twitter account, he will be added to the website custom audience.
The tag should be placed between the <body> section of the website code. It will take some time for the custom audience to be built based on the number of visitors to the website. If the website audience has less than 100 users, the audience cannot be used for advertising since it is too small, due to privacy reasons.
How to use Twitter Custom Audiences?
Many internet users may not convert into customers immediately due to multiple reasons although they may be interested in purchasing the service or product. The custom audiences option of Twitter is one of the most effective remarketing tools available, sending personalized offers and messages which could greatly improve the conversion rate.
Many businesses have regular customers, and they do not wish to waste money advertising to these customers. The custom audiences feature of Twitter also allows the advertiser to exclude specific customers from their advertising campaign.