There’s no doubt that PPC ads work, but what if you want to take your advertising to the next level? Well, you can with Twitter carousel ads.
In 2020, Twitter Carousel Ads made their debut. More recently, Twitter announced multi-destination functionality for advertisers that want added flexibility and the capability to target different groups with unique URLs and headlines.
However, let’s not get too carried away, because I’m here to explain all the basics today. I’m also going to discuss the best practices, give you tips for creating Twitter carousel ads, and show examples, all to improve your chances of success with the format.
Ready? Let’s get started with the fundamentals.
A Quick Explanation of Carousel Advertising
Twitter carousel ads are a newer form of advertising that allows businesses to showcase multiple images and videos in a single ad.
Marketers can use these ads to tell a story or highlight a product or service, while users can swipe through the edge-to-edge images. Advertisers can also use carousels to direct visitors to landing pages and apps and combine images and videos for greater versatility.
You create Twitter carousel ads like regular PPC ads on the platform, and you can target them to specific users based on interests, demographics, and behaviors.
Carousel ads offer businesses an easy tool to increase engagement and connect with more customers on Twitter, helping increase brand awareness, drive website clicks and conversions, and generate leads.
Why Use Carousel Ads on Twitter?
The possibilities are endless when it comes to using carousel ads on Twitter. You can also use Twitter carousel ads for:
- Sharing short stories, customer testimonials, or even behind-the-scenes footage.
- Promoting a sale or new product or simply introducing your company to potential customers.
- Highlighting multiple features/products/services and promoting multiple offers.
- Showing off multiple products or images in one ad.
Additionally, suppose you’re looking for a new way to grab attention. In that case, this is another reason why you should use Twitter carousel ads. This model offers many advantages, including:
More precise marketing: Everyone who uses Twitter knows that the character limit is 280 characters, which doesn’t always give advertisers enough space to sell their products adequately. However, adding multiple images and videos means advertisers can convey more information in a single Tweet and provide a unique URL/headline to encourage the type of customer you’re looking for.
More installs and click-throughs: When Twitter tested its carousel ads, it found it boosted average click-through rate by 15 percent and installs per impressions an average of 24 percent compared with its regular single asset ads. With Twitter’s multi-destination website carousel ads, beta testing showed a 20 percent increase in click-through rates compared with single-asset ads and a 25 percent increase in click-through rates for ‘campaigns that optimize for site visit conversions relative to single-asset ads.’
Access to analytics: Twitter offers analytics and metrics, so you have a clear illustration of how your carousels are performing, and then you can adjust your campaigns according to the data.
Ease of use: You can create Twitter carousel ads by following step-by-step instructions and adding your media.
Engagement: The carousel’s design allows users to swipe seamlessly across images for added engagement.
Achieve your objectives: Do you want more app downloads and video views or to create awareness? Well, you can set your campaigns to achieve all of these things and more.
How To Set Up a Twitter Carousel Ad
Even if you’re new to the world of marketing and you don’t know how to advertise on Twitter, it’s simple to get going with this ad format. Just follow these steps:
To set up Twitter carousel ads, begin by navigating to ‘Ads Manager.’ From there, select ‘creatives,’ and ‘Tweet composer.’ Then:
- Add your text using the Tweet composer.
- Next, go to ‘add media.’ You can upload any creatives (images and video) with a maximum of six of your images, or choose from the Twitter stock library. For this step, ensure you follow Twitter’s media guidelines:
- If you want to tweet your carousel organically, uncheck the ‘promoted only’ box.
- Now, customize the ad destination. For the same headlines/URL on a carousel, choose the ‘Apply this headline and URL to the entire carousel.’ Alternatively, select the ‘Customize a destination’ and select a unique headline/URL for your individual media assets.
- Publish your Tweet by pressing the black button on the right side of the page. Alternatively, you can go to the drop-down menu and choose ‘Schedule’
Finally, there’s Twitter carousel ads printable templates available if you want to brainstorm and practice before hitting ‘Tweet.’ You can download this from the ‘Twitter media guidelines’ page above.
Twitter Carousel Ad Examples
Comic book app Comico specializes in content like comics and manga; one of its main forms of income is in-app purchases. The Japan-based company uses Twitter carousel ads to share teasers of its most popular content.
By posting teasers on Twitter, Comico engages social media users and encourages them to click through and read the rest of the story.
Here’s an example of one of its posts.
Twitter’s carousel ads are also perfect for showcasing items. Hyundai is just one company using this format to highlight its latest vehicles with design reveals to intrigue prospects, display videos, and news.
Here’s an example from Hyundai’s Twitter feed:
Hyundai combines its ads with engaging, enticing text and a URL to get people to click through to its website.
Skincare brand CeraVe is no stranger to Twitter advertising, using takeovers, which offer a mass reach, allowing your brand to build brand awareness and promote tweets.
However, CeraVe used Twitter carousel ads to detail the stories of four nursing staff. When CeraVe used these ads in combination with its other advertising, it achieved a 59 percent increased engagement and +19 percent higher impressions than Twitter’s usual internal benchmarks.
Best Practices for Twitter Carousel Ads
When creating a carousel ad, there are a few best practices to follow to ensure that it’s effective.
First, check that all your carousel’s images are high quality and relevant to your product or message. Also, use a strong headline and call to action for each image. For instance, to spur people into action, you can offer a discount, use the word ‘free’, or create a sense of urgency with time-limited deadlines.
You can also do the same with headlines. Don’t forget to stress the uniqueness, use power words, and include ‘you’ to personalize your tweets.
Second, make sure that your carousel is well-designed. The images should be easy to navigate, and the text should be easy to read.
Third, make sure that your targeting is accurate. Only target likely users of your product or service.
Finally, test and optimize your carousel ad campaign regularly. Try different images and copy, and see which combinations work best for you.
Here are some more best practices for Twitter carousel ads:
- Include visual storytelling. Like every good story, each carousel should incorporate a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. The difference here is that you are doing this purely with visuals.
- Target your audience according to the funnel stage. For example, if consumers click through to product pages, add product images, or appeal to prospects with general top-of-the-funnel images to build product/service awareness.
- Highlight the benefits and ensure your product is clear and visible.
- Customize your headlines and URLs to different landing pages and headlines using Twitter’s multi-destination carousels.
- Don’t just rely on images. Include solid and captivating headlines, detailed descriptions, and compelling CTAs to spur leads into action.
FAQs
Yes, Twitter started carousel ads in 2020 and introduced multi-destination Twitter carousel ads in 2021.
A carousel ad contains several images or videos that rotate (or “carousel”) as you scroll through them.
Organic carousel ads are possible on Twitter. Just deselect the ‘promoted only’ box in the Tweet composer.
Relevance and A/B testing should be at the top of your list. However, you also want attention-grabbing imagery with a clear call to action, and detailed descriptions that detail the features and benefits.
Conclusion
Twitter carousel ads are a great way to showcase various products or images in a single ad. This type of ad is especially effective for e-commerce businesses or companies with multiple products. You can use carousel ads to tell a story, highlight different features of a product, or show off different products in a collection.
They are eye-catching and allow a lot of information to be conveyed in a small amount of space. In addition, Twitter carousel ads are interactive, which makes them more engaging for users.
When used effectively, carousel ads are a powerful tool in a marketing campaign and offer greater click-throughs and engagement.
Do you use carousel ads? How are they working for you?
