Twitter just made a major improvement to its targeted ads program.
Advertisers can now create custom lists of people they want to target based on email addresses. Kelton Lynn, a Twitter product manager, explained in a blog post: “Let’s say a fashion retailer wants to advertise a spring clearance sale on Twitter, and they’d prefer to show their ad to current membership cardholders. To get the special offer to cardholders who are on Twitter, the retailer may share with us unreadable scrambles (called hashes) of the email addresses of its card members. We can then match that information to Twitter accounts in order to show the matched users a Promoted Tweet with the sale information,” he wrote.
In addition to using email lists, advertisers can also create a customizable targeting database by compiling a list of Twitter usernames or IDs that seem appropriate to target. Advertisers can narrow down their list by looking at all the public information available on Twitter, so if they’re selling, say, body glitter, they can zone in on anyone who lists Ke$ha as an interest.
Will they be enough to ameliorate concerns that the company’s stock is over-valued? Probably not entirely, but these improvements will make Twitter a more appealing option for advertisers, which is always good for business.
