With competition in the social networking heating up, Twitter has been exploring various methods to woo advertisers to the micro-blogging site. It recently ended invite-only period and opened signups for self-serve ad platform to all users (available in U.S. initially). And now, new reports suggest the company is working to incorporate geo-targeted ads for retailers. This means brands can show promoted tweets to users who mobile apps within a proximity of their retail stores.
AdAge reports the network will allow advertisers to target people who are in proximity of particular latitudes and longitudes. The feature could see implementation by the fourth-quarter of this year.
“This kind of radius-based geo-fencing could potentially be useful for the likes of a pharmacy chain like Walgreens or even a quick-serve restaurant like McDonald’s. It’s for marketers who are looking to drive up their in-store traffic with the carrot of a deal or a special, or just by tipping people off to their presence in the immediate vicinity,” says the AdAge report.
It’s notable Twitter currently allows advertisers to have city based ads and does not drill down to pin codes, like Facebook has been doing since 2011.
The report further quotes Sephora’s VP-interactive media Bridget Dolan as saying geo-targetted Twitter ads could help in alerting people about events and new products available in stores. She adds geo-targeted tweets could bring larger investment in Twitter ads.
“Whether you’re looking at your phone because something popped up from [Apple’s] Passbook or you’re on Twitter, I think geo-local is going to help drive store traffic,” Dolan is quoted as saying.
Localised advertisements is certainly going to help Twitter increase user engagement and adoption of the network for marketing.
Rivals such as Google and Facebook have been reaping the benefits of local ads for quite some time. Facebook, recently updated its ad section to give advertisers a simpler and uniform process for creating and sharing advertisements on the network. Facebook is also mulling over auto-play video ads.