Twitter offers great advertising potential at a great price. At $0.58, the average CPC for Twitter ads is one of the lowest in the paid social media scene. This allows digital marketers to create ads that pull people in and get their brands noticed without breaking the bank.
In January 2021, Twitter retired its Ads Transparency Center and ad library that was a source of inspiration to many social marketers. This is why we’ve gathered some great Twitter ad examples you can learn from.
Keep reading to find out what makes advertising on Twitter so special, and get inspired to create your own amazing ads.
Traditional Twitter ad examples
Traditional Twitter ads allow you to show off your product, service or brand with one photo. They may sound straightforward, but Twitter image ads can be pretty effective in Twitter marketing.
Take a look at these traditional Twitter ad examples and how they managed to successfully reach their audiences.
Philips attracts gamers with a giveaway
Twitter is known for rapidly passing along the word on giveaways. The top three most retweeted tweets of all time were all giveaways. If you are running a contest, make sure to put some advertising dollars behind it on Twitter.
Source: Twitter
The ad features a few key elements designed to grab the attention of the brand’s target audience—gamers.
- The word ‘giveaway’ to make the purpose clear
- A monitor with a game displayed on it to get gamers excited
- The Xbox Series S and related gifts
- The Philips logo for credibility
Key takeaway
What’s exciting about your giveaway? Come up with a small list. Include factors like the value and uniqueness of your prize or the creative task you’re asking participants to do. Make sure to incorporate these in your ad creative and tailor your message to your audience.
Nissan Motor focuses on engagement
Simple image-based ads are great. But if you are going to add just one interactive element to it, make it a poll. A poll will spring your audience into action, generate buzz around your brand and provide helpful info for both advertisers and users.
Nissan Motor decided to go this route. They used a fun fact to poll their audience about the Nissan LEAF E+, a second-generation electric car from the manufacturer.
Source: Twitter
This ad achieves a few different objectives at the same time:
- It builds awareness of the product
- It generates engagement through the poll
- It lists the benefits of the car
- It educates the audience on sustainability
Key takeaway
Engagement can take various forms. You can either run a poll, optimize your ad for clicks, or encourage retweets. Experiment with different options to see which one brings you the best results.
Climate Group advertises gated content
It’s not easy to elicit a good response with your ads these days. Simple brand awareness-type content doesn’t cut it anymore. This is why advertising a valuable (and free) downloadable resource can be a great bargain for both you and your audience.
- You may get more clicks.
- You can generate more gated content downloads.
- The user receives something of tangible value.
In this Twitter ad example, an international climate non-profit, the Climate Group, aims to educate business owners on climate-friendly innovations.
Source: Twitter
Here’s why this ad works:
- The first paragraph presents a quick summary of what the ad is about (a downloadable report).
- The second paragraph provides a reason why the reader needs the report (to innovate).
- In the end, they add a straightforward CTA (“Download now”).
- The ad speaks directly to the audience (“Leaders need to…”).
- The ad design is crisp and modern.
The only missed opportunity here might be that Climate Group did not include an image of (or from) the report in the visual. The download icon is the only clue in the image that this Twitter ad is about a downloadable asset.
Key takeaway
Don’t leave your ebooks or whitepapers at the mercy of organic leads. Give them a boost with a well-targeted Twitter ad. Don’t forget to add teasers of what readers can find inside the ebook to your ad creatives.
Curio runs a special offer
Discounts and special offers are the most powerful purchase drivers on social media. They can quickly grab new users and get them to try your product. Special offer Twitter ads can also directly translate into sales, so your ad’s ROI will be more clear-cut.
Source: Twitter
This Twitter ad immediately captures the audience’s attention with the “55% off” text. Yet, it makes an effort not to be perceived as a cheap bargain. The dark background and the award badge create a sleek, elegant look for this brand. And the well-known logos serve as social proof, letting the audience know that Major brands trust curio.
Key takeaway
Not every deal-based Twitter ad has to have red, yellow, or other bright colors to stand out. Run an A/B test to see which colors your audience best responds to.
Twitter video ad examples
Video content is a big deal on social media platforms, and Twitter is no exception. Video views on Twitter increased by 62% between 2019 and 2020!
Video brings products to life, creating endless opportunities for creative marketing. Let’s see a few awesome examples!
Salesforce promotes their event
Twitter ads can be a great way to get the word out about your next event. This is what Salesforce did.
How do you talk about an event hosted by a cloud computing company without being dry or too technical? Salesforce created a fun and eye-catching ad by combining cute, cartoonish visuals with footage of a brand representative addressing the audience directly.
Source: Twitter
Key takeaway
If your brand operates in a technical industry, engage your audience with a human connection. Feature one of your employees (or even your CEO) in your video ads to add a personal touch to your brand. You can use this tactic for any ad, not only for events.
Semrush promotes a new feature
Have you recently received an award or been named an industry reader? Don’t just put a badge on your website. Announce it to the world with a bang, like the SEO tool, Semrush did.
In their Twitter ad, Semrush combines a little bit of gloating with information about a new feature and a free trial offer.
Source: Twitter
Key takeaway
Tie in a special offer to your award or new feature announcement. It can be a brand strengthening device. Industry awards and recognition can help you attract new users who would otherwise be on the fence about trying out your product.
Siemens talks to industrial users
Social media may be easier to use for B2C brands. But what about B2B companies that promote industrial products? The good news is that their target audience — employees, buyers, and other affiliates — also use Twitter.
This is the audience that Siemens is targeting with this Twitter video ad.
Source: Twitter
Knowing that their target audience is likely familiar with current tech trends and developments, Siemens doesn’t shy away from technical detail regarding the product the ad is promoting.
Key takeaway
If you are marketing towards highly specialized industries, remember that such firms are also run by humans who use social media. This means that the usual creative must-haves still apply to your ads, such as adding engaging visuals and video, using call-to-actions, emojis, links, and even hashtags. At the same time, you can get away with using industry jargon to gain credibility.
Epik illustrates their war on prices with a video
Is your brand voice more on the casual side? Try a cool, effects-based video in your next Twitter ad, like domain platform Epik.com.
Source: Twitter
The video’s look and feel is a cross between a video game and a movie. They also tie their copy in with the video by mentioning the challenges of current times. According to the video, Epic is “holding the line” at the same rates no matter what happens.
Key takeaway
Depending on your audience and brand, you could experiment with metaphorical visuals like this in your Twitter video ads. Pro-tip: just like Epik, pin your ad to the top of your profile to showcase all of the likes and retweets your campaign has generated.
Nissan impresses with high-quality footage
Buying a car is one of the most significant purchases in a person’s life. Therefore, classic video ads about cars will not be losing their momentum any time soon. We’re talking about the type of ad showcasing a super sleek car on different roads, from different angles.
Source: Twitter
Nissan’s Twitter video ad conveys the look and feel of a sleek, modern car with high-quality footage and dynamic editing. It also uses a hashtag (#drivechange) and dedicated tagline to highlight the community spirit among electric vehicle users.
Key takeaway
You don’t have to be a car manufacturer to do what Nissan did. Invest some money in high-quality video of your product and combine that with a quick and modern editing technique. Finally, add your community hashtag to your ad to cultivate the feeling of belonging among your followers.
Carousel Twitter ad examples
Carousel ads can be an entertaining and interactive way to advertise on the platform. These ads allow users to swipe horizontally between up to six images or videos that show off promotions and products. Advertisers can even use them to drive a specific narrative.
As you’ll see in the carousel Twitter ad examples below, this kind of advertising can be very captivating.
Yemeksepeti caters to the hungry masses
Yemeksepeti is a Turkish online food delivery service operating in over 60 cities. They took to Twitter to increase their reach.
The advertising campaign was a big success even though Yemeksepeti only used two videos. One video featured traditional Turkish food, and the other was focused on burgers. This approach worked because it catered to two different audiences.
As the campaign went on, the company saw a 67% increase in its click-through rate and a decrease in cost-per-click.
Source: Twitter
Key takeaway
Run A/B tests whenever you can to find out what your audience finds appealing, and apply your findings to your next marketing campaigns.
goPuff attracts new customers with diversity
goPuff is another delivery service that used Twitter to drive app downloads and attract new customers. The company did this by running multiple app install campaigns that featured videos and images in carousel ads.
Their goal was to show off the diversity of the service and get new people interested in using the app. The campaign enjoyed high click-through rates and caused an increase in purchase rates, so the approach worked well.
Source: Twitter
Key takeaway
Carousel ads are perfect for showcasing more than one item or service at once and can be leveraged to gain new customers and remind existing ones why they support a brand.
Comico entices the audience with teasers
Comico is a multi-national comic book app. They have more than 200 original comics, novels, and mangas in different categories that are updated daily.
The company depends heavily on in-app purchases. By sharing teasers of their most popular stories, the team was able to spark their audience’s interest and make them want more.
Source: Twitter
Key takeaway
Carousel ads work really well for this kind of advertising. Depending on your niche, you can generate app downloads and signups, and attract new contributors or vendors.
99 promote their safety efforts
Brazil-based 99 offers payment and transport services. The company highlighted its approach to health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic in its Twitter ads. They repurposed content they already used across other communication channels and adjusted it to fit the size and design requirements of the carousel format.
Source: Twitter
Key takeaway
You don’t always need to reinvent the wheel. Repurpose previous ad campaigns by putting a new spin on them, such as adding a new description or slightly reworking the visuals.
Twitter Ads best practices
Now that you know all the Twitter ad formats, let’s take a brief look at the best practices you need to keep in mind before creating your own ads.
Create a sense of urgency
One of the best tools in a marketer’s arsenal is the ability to create a sense of urgency in the target audience. If people feel that they must take action or else they will miss out on a deal or special offer, they’re more likely to do what you want them to.
This doesn’t mean you should resort to cheap tactics, of course. Give people a good reason to want to take immediate action. Whether it’s following your Twitter account, downloading your app, or visiting your website, use the right words and visuals to generate buzz and excitement.
As long as you provide value, it shouldn’t be too difficult to pull this off and increase your ad campaign’s chances of success.
Source: Twitter
Keep it short and sweet
Twitter limits the number of words you can use in your ad copy. Keep it under 280 characters, or your ad copy will get cut-off mid-sentence.
For best results, consider running ads with copy between 50 and 100 characters. This practice will make your Tweets direct and straightforward, focusing on just one very clear message. Short ad copy might just attract more attention than a tweet filled to the brim with hashtags.
If there truly is more you have to say, use your image or video to do the rest of the talking.
Get creative
While it’s great to have one strong video or image ad, you should consider not putting all your eggs in one basket. Instead, create variations of your ads, using different formats and approaches.
For example, you can have a video ad with a website button, a plain text-based tweet, and an image ad for the same campaign, increasing the chances of reaching more Twitter users.
You can also use this approach to test your ad aesthetic and tone to determine what resonates best with your target audience. If you want, you can even take a risk or two and stray a bit from your usual tone to see how it goes down with your audience.
Create quality visuals
It should go without saying that the quality of your images on Twitter can make or break your campaign. Users don’t want to see blurry, unattractive photos. And they definitely don’t want to see professional brands using stock images.
Use professional photo editing software and consider hiring expert photographers and video equipment to ensure the quality of your visuals.
Add a compelling call to action
You should never assume that users will instinctively know what you expect from them just from looking at the ad. Your CTA (call to action) is what gets your audience to take the next steps.
Make your CTA as clear and straightforward as possible. Direct and specific examples include “Follow us,” “Download the ebook,” “Take the quiz,” etc.
For best results, consider what your call to action will be before you start planning your ad creatives. That way, you won’t leave anything up to chance or the interpretation of your audience.
Track your performance
No ad campaign is complete without proper KPI tracking. How else would you know if all your planning and hard work are actually paying off?
Determine your goals and how you want to measure them before launching your ad campaigns and then closely monitor their performance.
Over to you
According to Twitter, brands can increase purchase intent by 7% and campaign awareness by up to 20% if they use three or more of the platform’s ad formats.
Use this list of examples as inspiration for your Twitter advertising strategy. Test all ad formats and determine what works for your audience. Once you find that sweet spot, Twitter ads can be highly effective and push your brand to the next level!