Twitter Unleashes New ‘Brand Bait’ Ads

Twitter unlocked a new feature on Thursday (Aug. 4) that will allow advertisers to “bait” a user into clicking on their ads in order to unlock exclusive branded content, like exclusive interviews or access to movie trailers.

According to Mashable, the new feature is built on Twitter’s “conversational ads” feature that promotes tweets with “attached lists of prefabricated responses and hashtags that users can post with a simple click.”

When Twitter announced the new conversational ads feature as a trial run in January, the social media network billed it as a “step further” than promoted tweets because these new tweets would feature “call-to-action buttons with customizable hashtags that encourage consumer engagement.”

“When a call-to-action button is tapped, the tweet composer opens with a prepopulated brand message accompanied by the creative and hashtag buttons. The consumer can then personalize the tweet and share it with his or her followers,” Twitter said of the new feature back in January.

During the test-run phase, Twitter claimed that the new feature — which basically allows advertisers to encourage users to reply to or retweet ads in order to unlock exclusive content offers — resulted in an average of 34 views for every 100 ads run.

Twitter, which announced the new feature with this tweet on Thursday morning — “Now Available! Engage w/ customers using Conversational Ads & the new Instant Unlock Card” — says that it can allow advertisers to share exclusive recipes, interviews and other popular branded content (like the latest “Suicide Squad” trailer) directly with engaged users.