Twitter Pre-Roll Ads “Amplify” Videos

This month Jack Dorsey, one of Twitter’s original co-founders, was brought back as the new CEO of the company in an effort to cut costs and boost revenue. As stated on Huffington Post, Twitter has been struggling to make money, and Dorsey hopes to change that.
From the new moments feature, rumors of lengthening the 140-character limit and employee cuts, Dorsey is shaking things up, hopefully to the company’s advantage. The latest news is that Twitter will now offer pre-roll video ads to all digital marketing companies across the board.
Much like the ad format used by YouTube, Twitter now allows companies to create short advertisements that will be added to the beginning of popular videos. As stated by AdWeek, advertisers can either use the previous method of contacting major companies directly to market ads, or utilize Twitter’s targeting technologies.
This means that if a marketer wants his ads to reach young mothers who follow cooking shows, Twitter can make it happen. As The Wall Street Journal stated, “Twitter will use its data and technology to dynamically insert ads into the most relevant videos being watched by that audience.”
Re/Code, a tech blog, points out the advantage digital marketing companies will have when using this new ad feature, “Twitter will take 30 percent of the revenue generated from the ads and the content producer will retain 70 percent.” The blog also notes that Google retains 45 percent of ad revenue which makes Twitter’s new plan stand out.
However, not everyone believes this new advertising approach will benefit digital marketing companies in the long-run. BBC News quoted IHS researcher Eleni Marouli who feels that users will have a hard time adjusting to the change. "With Twitter it's a little bit more challenging because they have this more immediate, 140-character scroll-through product," Marouli said.
It’s true that attention spans on Twitter are limited. And with the popularity of YouTube’s skip ad feature, it’s unclear whether or not users will accept the addition of pre-roll ads.
However, dozens of well known brands have already signed on to Twitter’s Amplify platform for businesses. Re/Code cites Univision, Fox, MTV, BuzzFeed, People and National Geographic as just a few companies who plan on incorporating new ads into the pre-roll format.
Whether or not this will be the smartest move for digital marketing companies is yet to be determined, but Huffington Post reported that after only a few weeks with Dorsey on as CEO, stocks have already risen five points.
Emily Culp writes for Fusion 360, an SEO and content marketing agency. She writes for many other clients as well. Follow on Twitter
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