Twitter advertising services seem to have been mushrooming lately. BeTweeted, Twivert and SponsoredTweets are a few examples of the new services I’ve noticed joining the ranks of early movers Magpie and Malaysia’s own Twitter advertising network, ChurpChurp.
Twitter advertising is definitely something new, but what are the results and the ROI? This post attempts to shed some light on the question and to help businesses decide whether it’s worth it to use Twitter advertising in their marketing arsenal.
How it works
Twitter advertising involves 3 parties – the advertiser, Twitter users and service provider who acts as the middle man. While the exact implementation details differ for each service, these are the steps in the Twitter advertising process:
1. Define audience. This involves the advertiser selecting a target demographic either with a self-service tool or with assistance from the service provider.
2. Create an advert. The advertiser creates an ad which includes a tracking link enables the advertiser to track how many times the link was clicked. SponsoredTweets calls these ads ‘offers’.
3. Twitter user matching. Since Twitter advertising relies on Twitter users tweeting on behalf of the advertiser, there is some sort of matching or approval process which allow the Twitter users to choose whether or not they would like to be part of the campaign.
4. Twitter users tweet about the campaign. Twitter users can write their own tweets and include the details and tracking link the advertiser has specified. Some service providers even vet the tweets before publishing them. All services have some sort of disclosure mechanism.
5. Twitter users get paid. Fee structure is pretty different for each service provider, with some offering fixed budgets and others with more complex CPC or CPM models. At the end of the day, the Twitter user shares the advertiser’s fees with the service provider.
Some results from ChurpChurp
When ChurpChurp launched their service some time ago, I signed up as a Twitter user on their network. To date I have helped promote 3 campaigns, and there are the results:
Adidas-Project Alpha Bloggers Roadshow
Total clicks: 722 (stats)
Happy – Talk Is Cheap Campaign
Total clicks: 961(stats)
X Pax
Total clicks: 1,127 (stats)
Each of these campaigns had about 100 Twitter users tweeting about the campaign. The exact number is not available (unless ChurpChurp is willing to share) since Twitter doesn’t keep tweets longer than 2 months in its public timeline, so they are not visible in the bit.ly stats pages.
These seem to be the typical results of a campaign on ChurpChurp. If not mistaken, ChurpChurp even promises advertisers a minimum amount of tweets. In the Happy Prepaid example, you see a 2nd round of tweets about a month after the initial campaign, presumably to make up for the volume of tweets.
The minimum cost of a campaign on ChurpChurp is RM500. Assuming you get an average of 1,000 clicks, that’s a CPC of RM0.50.
I don’t have results from other Twitter advertising service providers to benchmark against for 2 reasons – their audience is mainly outside of Malaysia and I don’t want my Twitter account to be full of ads. However, I have my own benchmarks to compare with ChurpChurp.
Some results from my own tests
For DiGi’s PimpMyBroadband contest, I tracked clicks to my contest entry and got these results:
David’s entry for PMBB
Total clicks: 873 (stats)
I also tracked my pal Mike Foong’s (@mikefoong) entry:
Mike’s entry for PMBB
Total clicks: 1,041 (stats)
At that time, I had about 950 followers while Mike had about 550 followers. (I remember because I suffer from a bad case of Twitter envy). So how did Mike with less followers get more clicks than me?
Well, Mike is a very charming guy. He’s got lots of friends and I have to admit that he’s probably better at nurturing his Twitter relationships than I am. He also pimped his entry more than I did.
Conclusion: Should businesses use Twitter Advertising?
What do these results mean? For one, Twitter advertising definitely works and can get visitors to your website or landing page. At about RM0.50 CPC, it can also be an affordable alternative to Google AdWords and Facebook advertising.
Twitter advertising providers can help businesses generate word of mouth buzz quickly and with significant reach. They play an important role in bridging advertisers and Twitter users and make the process of advertising on Twitter less of a hassle and more streamlined.
However, you may not necessarily need to use a Twitter advertising provider if you can establish relationships with trusted influencers yourself. As we saw with Mike Foong, a single Twitter user with less than 1,000 followers can get over 1,000 clicks. If you can get a few Twitter users like Mike to be fans or evangelists of your business, they would generate hundreds or thousands in ‘media value’.
Finally, think of Twitter advertising not as traditional advertising, but as a sponsored conversation. Sponsored conversations exists in between PR and advertising, and is best when you can create a win-win offer between yourself and the Twitter users. See this piece by Josh Bernoff for more advice.
All the best with your Twitter advertising, and if you’re going to try ChurpChurp, tell them about this blog post 
Photo credit: Noël Zia Lee
If you want to learn more about how to use Twitter for business, please consider registering for my Buzzmedia Bootcamp: Social Media Basics 1-day training seminar.
