Twitter Introduces Mobile App Install Ads And Integrated Ad-Buying With MoPub

It looks like Twitter is hoping to earn more ad dollars from mobile app publishers and developers.

The company is announcing several new features today that Vice President of Revenue Kevin Weil described as adding up to “an easy and scalable way to drive app installs and app engagement, both on Twitter and off Twitter.” Those include the ability to pay for Promoted Tweets that drive app installs, and to buy ad campaigns that run on both Twitter and the MoPub network.

App install ads appear to have taken off for Facebook, and it was previously previously reported by Business Insider and others that Twitter was working on something similar.

Weil said that like Twitter’s other ad units, the app install ads began as an “organic” experience on the service. The company introduced cards (those are the special tweet formats that can feature different types of multimedia content) that promote mobile app installs about a year ago. Since then, the company has been building out the targeting and measurement needed to support ads of this kind.

Apparently Twitter has already been running test campaigns with advertisers including SeatGeek, GREE, and GetTaxi. Twitter’s announcement blog post includes quotes praising the ads, with SeatGeek co-founder Russ d’Souza saying they deliver “high-quality, transactive app users, which is more than can be said about the vast majority of mobile ad platforms out there right now” and GetTaxi Vice President of Global Marketing Rich Pleeth saying Twitter has “jumped to be our number one acquisition channel.”

Weil also said the MoPub integration represents the first time that Twitter and MoPub have been connected directly. That means advertisers will be able to run campaigns from the Twitter ad-buying interface that span the “Twitter Publisher Network.” The company’s blog post said Twitter campaigns will be “automatically translated into programmatic bids on the MoPub exchange, on a level playing field with MoPub’s existing DSP partners.” It also highlights MoPub’s reach, delivering ads to more than 1 billion unique devices and handling more than 130 billion ad requests every 30 days.

When Twitter acquired MoPub last fall, it was seen as a way for the company to extend its advertising reach beyond the Twitter website and apps. Yesterday, Weil told me Twitter can now offer “one seamless experience across targeting, creative, and measurement, and then one of the really powerful things is combining that with the scale of the MoPub advertising exchange.”

These features are currently in beta testing, he said.