By adaptive - July 30th, 2013
Linking TV ads to supporting Twitter posts is now shown to be a powerful partnering of engagement channels that is having a direct and positive impact on sales.
Twitter has been testing its TV ad targeting service for a couple of months, and has now officially released the service to the business community. As Twitter point out:
“In our tests over the last few months with brands like Adidas, Holiday Inn Express, Jaguar, and Samsung, advertisers using TV ad targeting saw significant improvements to key brand metrics, such as message association and purchase intent (as measured by Nielsen Brand Effect for Twitter). During a handful of studies, users that Twitter identified as being exposed on TV and then engaged with a Promoted Tweet demonstrate 95% stronger message association and 58% higher purchase intent compared to users identified as being exposed on TV alone.”
On top of increased brand metrics, advertisers using TV ad targeting generated engagement rates that were 27% higher than their historical averages.
“The Twitter TV ad targeting beta helped the Holiday Inn Express brand target consumers who watched TV shows featuring our new #StaySmart television commercials,” said Heather Balsley, SVP Americas Holiday Inn Brand Family, IHG. “By using captivating messaging alongside Direct Response messages, video assets and interesting #StaySmart facts, we’ve been able to garner exceptionally high user engagement for our Promoted Tweets. Because engagement rates have been significantly higher, it’s enabled us to continue to drive new followers and create engaging conversation with consumers via @HIExpress.”
Twitter acquired BlueFin Labs in February, which the new Twitter ad tracking service is based upon. Mike Fleischman, product manager at Twitter commented: "Twitter’s Nielsen studies say the combo deliver 95% stronger message association and 58% higher purchase intent than TV ads alone."
Also, research from Custora had shown that CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) from earlier in the year had shown that Twitter offered 23% lower than average CLV, although the research did point out that this could be because of the propensity to offer discounts via tweets.
As Custora comment: “The savviest marketers in the new era of e-commerce will be looking beyond just where customers are coming from. They’ll be looking at the value of new customers acquired across channels, platforms, and geographies. And it turns out - not all customers are created equal. The study is an effort to reflect on the rapidly changing landscape of customer acquisition and shed additional light on what’s shaping the future of e-commerce growth.”
What is clear is that Twitter can see a direct link between its ability to track comment and more importantly, sentiment based on a campaign that could have primarily TV exposure. As Nielsen state, "Promoted Tweets are now not the unknown quantity they once were. “Across all beta studies analyzed, exposure to a Promoted Tweet impression drove a 22% average increase in message association compared to users not exposed to Promoted Tweets. This finding demonstrates that, although Promoted Tweets are priced on a cost-per-engagement basis, advertisers don’t only benefit when users engage. Even a Promoted Tweet impression can be valuable for brands.”
And the new Promoted Tweets deliver increases in purchase intent, as Nielsen outlined: “Users who engage with a brand’s Promoted Tweet report on average 30% higher brand favourability and 53% higher purchase intent than non-engagers. This study result highlights the value of an engagement on Twitter and the importance of reaching a relevant audience with compelling Tweet copy to further drive Tweet engagement.”
“The ability to measure the brand impact of our campaigns is immensely valuable and something we strive to understand across marketing vehicles,” said Shiv Singh, global head of digital for PepsiCo Beverages (@shivsingh). “We’ve run brand effect surveys on Twitter for a couple PepsiCo brands, and they’ve allowed us to connect Twitter campaign performance to more standard brand metrics. The survey results demonstrate to us the effectiveness of Twitter Promoted Products, while also providing insight for optimizing future campaigns.”
Clearly an integrated approach to social media marketing is the way forward for all brands. The results from Twitter and Nielsen are the final proof that social media marketing in isolation is far less effective. Consumers are adopting a second screen mentality, but TV is still central to many corporations’ marketing. Couple this will strong social media messages, and your business will see massive gains in ROI.