Twitter Tests Promoted Trend Spotlight Ads In Its Explore Tab

Twitter is starting to let advertisers appear in its Explore tab with a new Promoted Trend Spotlight ad unit. Disney is the first company to use it.

After burying its Moments feature within its Explore tab, Twitter is ready to make more money from its trending topics. To do so, the company is now starting to give brands space at the top of the Explore tab to run a new Promoted Trend Spotlight ad unit with a GIF or image background. During a campaign, ads will appear at the top of a user’s Explore tab for the first two visits of a day, before moving down the Trends list. When tapped, they open a list of relevant Tweets from the advertiser.

.@Disney is the first company to use Twitter’s new Promoted Trend Spotlight ad unit at the top of the Explore tab.

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Disney is the first company to use Promoted Trend Spotlight ads for the promotion of the new “Christopher Robin” movie. Anthy Price, Disney’s company’s executive VP of media told TechCrunch that her company used the new ad unit by combining it with a campaign with Tweets from favourite “Winnie the Pooh” characters.

“The Promoted Trend Spotlight on Twitter allowed us to prominently highlight Winnie the Pooh and celebrate the launch of ticket sales for Christopher Robin while four of the characters took over major Disney handles on the platform to engage with fans,” she said.

Confirming the new ad unit, a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch “we are continuing to explore new ways to enhance our takeover offerings and give brands more high-impact opportunities to drive conversation and brand awareness on our platform.”

Twitter’s new Promoted Trend Spotlight ads are an add-on to Promoted Trends ad campaigns and take up space at the top of the Explore tab.

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Advertisers will be able to buy Promoted Trend Spotlight ads as add-ons to their Promoted Trends ad campaigns which up until now place ad units in Twitter’s list of popular topics.