Twitter could be disrupting your threads by placing adverts in the reply section

Popular microblogging platform, Twitter, has announced that it is testing out a new feature that will allow it to place adverts right in the middle of tweet conversations.

The company previously had its ads placed in between posts on the timeline. But now, the social platform is planning to test a functionality that will also include the adverts right after the first, third, or eighth reply to a tweet. 

The company made this announcement through its Revenue Product Lead, Bruce Falck. Mr Falck revealed this in a Tweet where he also shared a GIF of what the planned in-conversation ads would look like. 

The new ad format, which the company plans to test globally on iOS and Android over the coming months, will provide creators and advertisers with additional opportunities to present their offerings in conversations where they actually matter. 

The adverts will still retain their tiny ‘promoted’ text for users to see that they are ads, but Twitter says it will be testing out different layouts, frequencies, and contextual relevance to examine if it’s something it plans to make permanent.

This new ad test format comes just days after Twitter announced plans to develop a new set of tools that will allow businesses to target advertisements to customers who are more likely to make in-app purchases.

The San Francisco-based company also says it is working on its algorithms which will push relevant ads to the right set of users and eventually increase the likelihood that they will click the advertisement.

“Performance advertising represents a really huge potential that is largely unexplored for us. In the end, this will lead to consumers downloading applications, accessing websites, and discovering items that fit their requirements.” -Kamara Benjamin, group product manager at Twitter, remarked.

Users’ Reaction

Twitter’s announcement to test out adverts right in the middle of conversations has seen different reactions by users. Most of them do not think it is a good idea.

One user noted that it would make the reply section look ‘incredibly’ disjointed:

Another user said it would ruin people’s interest in threads since adverts will come up every now and again to disrupt the flow:

Advertisements are a major source of revenue for social media platforms. Recall that Twitter’s advert revenue dropped by $25 million in Q1 2021 despite huge growth in its user base.

Though it appears to have recovered in recent quarters, forestalling such a drop in the future might be why they are increasingly trying out new ways to increase avenues for advertisement. It will be interesting to see how this works out for Twitter.