Martyn Bentley, sales director at programmatic advertising platform, Chango, talks about the opportunities open to brands through Twitter’s new ‘tailored audiences’ service.

Last week, the digital advertising world took another great step into the programmatic era with Twitter's announcement of its 'tailored audiences' service.

Twitter, has partnered with digital marketing specialists, like Chango, to offer an enhanced capability for brands looking to engage with the social network’s 554 million users.

Through its ‘tailored audiences’ service, marketers can gain access to data collected by ad partners on the online journey (outside of the Twitter platform) of hundreds of millions of Twitter account holders.

Previously, brands were limited to using information the platform already knew about its users – first party data related to gender, location and interests, etc., when developing promoted tweet campaigns.

During early beta-tests of the product, some advertisers saw a lift in engagement as high as 170% by segmenting and optimising audiences using the newly available data. So how might brand marketers use this powerful new tool to engage with customers?

Cross-device capability

’Tailored audiences’ represents one of the first examples of retargeting crossing the divide from desktop to mobile devices. Twitter users often manage their accounts through both their computer and their smartphone, meaning the vast majority of Promoted Tweets will be read on mobile devices. With this, one of the hardest nuts in digital advertising has been cracked, greatly increasing the reach of marketers.

Engage with new customers

Marketers will also be able to direct Promoted Tweets towards potential customers who haven’t previously engaged with their brand on Twitter before, but may have searched for relevant terms on a search engine. So imagine a travel agent sending a special offer via Twitter to a customer who typed in “Caribbean holidays” only five minutes beforehand. By accessing data from billions of searches, the new platform makes this possible.

Re-engage existing customers

New possibilities for connecting with existing customers on Twitter will now be open to brands. An example might be a marketer sending a Promoted Tweet a week after someone has purchased a product encouraging them to tweet a review, or recommend the product to another Twitter user.

Boost cross channel communication

Brands will also have the option of linking up audiences across different social media platforms, creating an effective cross-channel marketing tactic. For instance, you might focus on your most active Facebook followers and encourage them to also start following your brand on Twitter.

Entice back dormant customers

By merging first and third party data, brands can target each consumer at the individual level in order to tempt back inactive users. Historical purchasing patterns might, for example, help inform a marketer on what type of outreach represents the maximum value, or when the right moment is to re-engage.

Encourage new customers to connect socially

Brands can now also use the service to retarget a customer who might have already visited their company website, but who didn’t make a purchase, on the social network. An example could be a user visiting the digital camera section of Pete’s Cameras’ website. The ad partner would be able to inform Twitter that the user should be included in @PetesCameras In Market for Digital Cameras audience. This would then lead to the user receiving a highly relevant, targeted ad from @PetesCameras in their timeline.

Market to a subset of your existing customers

Rather than treating customers as a whole, the new data will allow brands to break an audience down into sub groups and tailor campaigns in thoughtful and targeted ways. For example, an advertiser could run a promoted account campaign to its most active customers from the previous month.