• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 19, 2012

Twitter on Thursday introduced an enhancement that allows advertisers to target Promoted Tweets to specific users according to location, devices and platforms. While that type of segmenting has already been available, the difference now is that a brand doesn’t have to first send a tweet to all followers.
 
“Now global brands that have different launch dates for several countries can send tailored messages at different times, customized for the users in each country,” stated a Twitter blog post today. “Mobile app providers who only want to reach customers on one device can do so without also sending the message to desktop users.”
 
Twitter has been testing the new capability for several weeks with a group of existing advertisers, including British Airways, Coca-Cola, The Washington Post Co. and Wendy’s. The blog post highlighted a British Airways tweet, which was sent only to U.K. users.
 
A test run by SocialCode, The Washington Post Co.'s social media ad firm, showed tweets targeted to mobile devices had three times the engagement rate of non-targeted tweets sent out broadly. The firm targeted a sample of tweets, all linked to articles on Washington Post Social Reader, to followers by device, and to similar users, or non-followers, with comparable profiles.
 
The engagement rate was calculated based on clicks, re-tweets and replies divided by total number of impressions. Engagement across mobile platforms, including Android, iOS and BlackBerry, averaged about 3% compared to 1% for non-targeted tweets sent across all screens — desktop PCs, laptops, and mobile devices.
 
In addition to tripling engagement, mobile-targeted tweets also led to a near tripling of daily new followers from 17 to 47. “The results captured by our initial testing of Twitter’s new offering indicate that tweets targeted to users’ devices are a more effective way to reach your audience,” said SocialCode CEO Laura O’Shaughnessy. The firm also said there was no premium charged the targeting.
 
Twitter said the new targeting feature is now open to all advertisers globally that use Promoted Tweets.