Sources Indicate Twitter is Ready to Launch Advertising API

Twitter is getting ready to launch its advertising API sometime in the first quarter. Many have speculated that 2013 would be the year that the social network would reach the $1 billion mark in advertising revenue. The introduction of mass-market advertising could help achieve this milestone. The API will target large advertisers and their agencies by providing the opportunity to launch scaled-up campaigns across Twitter.

“According to several sources, the company has started briefing social media marketing agencies, which help brands and big advertisers plan and buy ads on social networks like Twitter, with conversations taking place just before the holidays,” reports TechCrunch.

Twitter introduced advertising in April 2010. Its current self-service tool enables companies and agencies to upload ads with formats such as Promoted Tweets. However, this approach is not practical for larger campaigns since they are uploaded one at a time.

“The value add that the ad API will bring is the ability to productively and efficiently grow and scale campaigns,” said an unnamed source. “One-at-a-time can be very time-consuming if you are managing multiple or very large campaigns for large advertisers. Also, it’s a challenge if you’re an ad agency operating in this manner.”

It remains uncertain whether Twitter will offer a separate API, similar to Facebook’s model, or if it will be part of a wider update to its present API. Twitter declined to comment for the story.

Either way, the move toward enhancing its commercial efforts seems inevitable in the wake of January’s changes including the expanded Certified Products Program and the introduction of a new way for advertisers to launch global campaigns across geographies.

“We are very excited to include Twitter ad API capability once it becomes readily available for release because large advertisers are ready to scale campaigns there,” said Luis Caballero, COO of social media agency Blinq.

“The timing of an advertising API is also worth watching in the context of Twitter scaling up revenues and speculation of an IPO,” notes TechCrunch. “Like Twitter, Facebook derives the vast majority of its revenues from advertising. Facebook launched its first advertising API as a limited private beta in late 2009, before opening it up for wider usage in August 2011, about 10 months before its IPO.”

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