Twitter has revealed that its acquisition of MoPub, six months ago for US$350 million, has delivered its first solid advertising play, announcing that it will make it easier for advertisers to promote their mobile apps on the Twitter timeline.
The MoPub acquisition was seen as a move by Twitter to boost its share of mobile advertising and now it appears the company is going after an area that Facebook has succeeded in – ads that run inside mobile apps.
In a blog post, Twitter said it has launched a private beta platform that provides a new ad unit that combines “the best of Twitter Cards and Promoted Tweets”, enabling users to easily install and engage with apps.
“We have developed a full suite of targeting, creative and measurement tools to enable Twitter advertisers to effectively promote their mobile apps,” Twitter said.
Marketers have become frustrated at the sheer amount of mobile apps available to consumers and the problem of discovery and promotion has plagued uptake of branded content apps. Twitter is also under pressure to drive user engagement and prove to investors that it is developing products and tools that enable advertisers to reach their audience.
The company said advertisers can now target what it claims is an active user base of 241 million people, and more than one billion mobile devices off-Twitter, via one interface, at ads.twitter.com.
Twitter said more products were in the pipeline.
“This is the first of many opportunities to join Twitter and MoPub to create a large-scale, rich and well-targeted advertising platform — one that provides high ROI for marketers, and a great experience for users,” the company said.
The announcement may stem concern over user engagement and activity on Twittter. Last week Twopcharts said 44 percent of signed users had never sent a single tweet and only 23 percent of users have ever sent a tweet.
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