"For the thousands of brands already advertising on Twitter,
these new partnerships open a significant opportunity to extend the
reach of their message to a larger audience," Ameet Ranadive,
senior director of product at Twitter, wrote in a post introducing
the news. "What makes Twitter unique is that Tweets can flow from
Twitter to other mediums seamlessly, like TV, websites and mobile
applications."
Twitter declined to comment further on the announcement. Over
time, syndicated ad buying will include automated ad targeting
features similar to current Twitter ad products, according to one
executive familiar with the company. Twitter and its new partners
are splitting the revenue, the executive added.
"Through this new partnership, Nissan could run a Promoted
Tweet campaign on Twitter, with specific creative and targeting,
and simultaneously run the campaign off Twitter, with the same
targeting and creative in the Flipboard app," Mr. Ranadive
wrote.
Twitter laid the groundwork for this type of syndication
integration in October, with the introduction of Fabric, its
mobile app platform. When the company first discussed tentative
plans for selling ads to logged-out users, advertisers were
skeptical of the efficacy of buying ads that would reach
unregistered, untargeted visitors.
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In January, Flipboard had
ad news of its own, launching an ad unit dubbed Promoted Items,
allowing brands to distribute articles and videos. Flipboard keeps
its user numbers close to the vest; its latest figures, from 2013,
report 100 million users but do not indicate active attention.
Yahoo Japan, in which the U.S. company has a 35% stake, has an
established track record. For the first two fiscal quarters of
2014, its Display Ad Network -- which includes search and display
-- reported 146 billion Japanese yen ($1.3 billion) in revenue. In
April, Twitter
partnered with Yahoo Japan to resell ads for small and medium
businesses.
Twitter reports its fourth quarter earnings on Thursday. During
the third quarter, Twitter
posted solid gains in ad revenue, of $320 million, but
lackluster monthly user growth and engagement.