A select group of brands is beginning to use a new feature from Twitter called Twitter Offers. This feature will allow brands and marketers to Tweet digital coupons to their customers, which can then be used either online or in stores.
Twitter users who are following the brands will be able to immediately make the purchase with the credit or debit card that is linked to their Twitter account. They can then have the item shipped to them or go complete the purchase in a retail store in their area.
This is an interesting new way to get coupons out to potential customers in a potentially very effective way. One of the biggest problems with traditional coupons or even digital ads is that people may cut them out or view them, but they often don’t follow through and complete the purchase. With Twitter Offers, people will be able to complete the purchase immediately after they see the Tweet. From there, all they have to do is go pick up the product, or have it delivered.
If it works as expected, this will help brands to capitalize on impulse buys as well as make it easier for customers to take advantage of deals. They won’t misplace coupons or forget about specific deals. This seems to be a good option for brands, customers and, of course, Twitter.
Tarun Jain, Twitter’s Product Manager, says the following about this new feature:
With Twitter Offers, advertisers will be able to attribute redemption directly to their campaigns on Twitter, so that they can effectively measure the ROI from their promotions, even when redemption happens to be offline. Additionally, we make it easy for merchants to get up and running because they can use their existing payment network, there’s no change to the consumer purchase process, no employee training and no new hardware or software to install. By leveraging Twitter’s robust targeting capabilities, advertisers can tailor their promotions and campaigns to the right audience, while optimizing for performance.
Twitter has not announced when the feature will be rolling out to all advertisers and marketers. They will likely want to work out any issues with this final group of users and then come up with some statistics about how effective it is before launching it globally.
