Twitter UK ads on course for October launch

The paid-for opportunities offer promoted tweets, promoted trends and promoted accounts, which have already been available on a global basis through its US sales team for more than a year.

Brands pay for a tweet to appear in a user's timeline, to promote their account and to pay for subjects to appear as trends.

The ads users see will be based on their followers and who they follow, offering brands greater targeting opportunities.

Twitter has been negotiating with media agencies for a number of months as it looks to attract marketing spend from brands already active in its space.

It is understood to be offering bundled deals, with one agency source claiming Twitter is asking for up to a six-figure investment.

According to another agency source, Twitter is considering rolling out ads on a more regional basis, beyond country-specific ads.

Shiva Rajaraman, project manger at Twitter, came to the UK in September last year, to demonstrate the company was actively engaged with UK marketers.

In the same month Marketing revealed the social network was in talks with brands including O2, Vodafone, Sky and Sony to become the first brands to use its UK ad platform.

Twitter originally signalled it would roll out the ads at the start of this year, but this proved difficult as it did not have a sales house in the region at the time.

In recent months it has accelerated its efforts, relocating Tony Wang from San Francisco to set up the office as general manager for Twitter UK.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk