How can we help?

We use a variety of signals, including but not limited to the follow graph and Tweets you engage with, to understand user interests. You’re now able to target users with these different interests with Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts. 

Use Twitter’s real-time interest graph to find relevant users for your Promoted Tweets campaigns. By targeting people’s topical interests, you’ll be able to connect with a greater number of users and deliver tailored messages to people who are more likely to engage with your Tweets. Interest targeting works in two ways:

• By category. Choose from over 350 – from Technology and computing to Business to Education to Gaming.
• You can also get more granular by targeting specific @usernames that are relevant to the product, event or initiative you want to promote. We’ll then show your Tweets to people with similar interests to the followers of those @usernames. 

Targeting by Interest

Begin typing an interest you would like to target. A list of interests and usernames that are applicable will pop up.  Interests are arranged with a two-level tree: alphabetically on the left, sub-categories on the right.

We will target people interested in any of the categories you choose. We infer interest from a variety of signals, like the accounts users follow and the Tweets they engage with. If you also target people based on following @usernames (below), those users will be targeted in addition to any interests you choose.

In addition to searching for interests, you can also browse through interests to see which ones you would like to add by clicking “browse categories”:

Targeting by @username

Your audience will include users similar to followers of any of the @usernames you enter. For example, if you enter @twittersmallbiz, we will look at @twittersmallbiz’s followers, and find people with the same sets of interests, or who also follow the same sets of accounts. If you also use interest targeting (above), those users will also be targeted in addition to any @usernames you enter.

@Username Recommendations

Based on the usernames you input, we will recommend additional usernames we believe could be relevant to your audience. The tool uses your usernames to make its recommendations, so it will not be available until you begin entering usernames. Once you enter usernames, you’ll see our recommendations begin to populate underneath your selections.

Campaign suggestions:

• Focus on what’s most relevant: Choose interests at the sub-category level and include no more than two or three in your campaign.

• Create separate campaigns for groups of related interests. This enables you to create Tweet copy that is more tailored to that specific audience. It also allows you to independently adjust bids and compare performance across the different types of Twitter users you target.

• The number of @usernames you target will affect how many people you reach with your campaign. The reach estimator tool will let you know what you can expect – adjust your targeting until you reach a recommended threshold of at least 50K users. Use our @username suggestion tool to make sure the accounts you add are relevant.

• The target for your message will be the sum or union of all of the targeting criteria you include.  For example, if you chose to target golf and luxury cars, anyone who is interested in golf and/or luxury cars will be reached.

#ProTip: Twitter Ads analytics provides granular breakdowns of which interests, @usernames or keywords are driving results within each campaign. This information can help you understand how to allocate budget most efficiently.

For more information about our data collection practices, please refer to our privacy policy here