There are several options available when it comes to advertising on Twitter. 
The first ones are through the Twitter Ads self-serve platform. These ads work on a cost per click (CPC), cost per impression, cost per engagement (CPE), cost per install (for apps), cost per video view or cost per follower (CPF) basis. Signing up is pretty easy: just go to https://ads.twitter.com/ and follow the instructions.
CPE is for promoted tweets and it means you will only pay if a user has clicked, retweeted, followed, replied or favourited your ad. CPF if for promoted accounts and you only pay if a user clicked on the Follow button from your ad. In the settings of your account you will be able to specify the language you’re targeting, the time zone, your daily budget and maximum CPF or CPE.
It is important to say that Twitter makes more than 50% of their money through their mobile app so make sure you’ve opted in to mobile ads if you start advertising on Twitter.
Promoted accounts
| Medium: Twitter Advertising Platform | Pricing: CPF (Cost Per Follower)|
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Interests and followers
If you decide to select this option, you will be able to target specific users and their followers. You will also have the possibility to enlarge your audience by adding specific interest categories such as beauty, business, food and drinks, sports and many others. Finally, you can also select the gender of your audience and exclude list audiences.
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Tailored audiences
Selecting this option will allow you to import specific lists of email addresses or Twitter ID’s you wish to target. You will then also have the possibility to select a specific gender and target location.
Promoted tweet
| Medium: Twitter Advertising Platform | Pricing: CPC (Cost Per Engagement)|
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Keywords
Using this option will allow you to target users using specific keywords in their tweets or searches. The interface will also let you choose your matching option (broad, phrase, broad match modifier, negative and negative phrase). You can also select where your promoted tweets will appear: on timelines or in s
earch results.Finally, in addition to gender
targeting and list audience exclusion, you can specify on which devices your ads appear: iOS devices or Android devices (with further filtering available on specific devices and operating systems), desktop or laptop computers, Blackberry phones and tablets or mobile web on other devices. -
Television
Selecting this targeting method will allow you to target users following or mentioning specific TV shows in their tweets. As with keywords, additional targeting options are available: devices, gender and list audiences exclusions
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Interests and followers
Please refer to Interests and Followers under the Promoted Accounts section just above, the same applies for Promoted Tweets.
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Tailored audiences
Please refer to Tailored Audiences under the Promoted Accounts section just above, the same applies for Promoted Tweets.
Promoted trends
| Medium: Account Manager | Pricing: Around $200,000 per day |
This is obviously only for well established brands with a big marketing budget. Your promotion will appear on top of the trends on all Twitter pages. When people click your ad they will land on the search result page for this trend, with your full ad appearing on top. Slots are very limited so even if you think you could afford it there are very few chances you will get accepted as an advertiser.
In conclusion Twitter advertising has become a pretty powerful tool to target very specific audiences with your products or services. Just like Facebook, the combinations you can use are endless, so make sure to A/B test properly until you find the winning formula.
Other ways to advertise on Twitter
Another way to advertise your brand on Twitter is to simply try and get an account with a high number of followers to mention your business. Once again try to find the right account profile to make sure their followers will be interested in your products or services. Contact this account and negotiate a fee for mentioning your brand.
