Twitter opens its TV-ad targeting tool to more advertisers

Twitter is expanding the number of marketers that can use its TV ad-targeting tool to zero in on people while they’re watching a live program, the company announced via its ad blog today.

One thing Twitter has been good at recognizing is the service’s usefulness during live events, especially when it comes to watching things on television, like premiere prime-time TV episodes or sports. Twitter’s TV ad tool, which debuted back in May to a handful of partners, capitalizes on that by essentially extending the opportunity to market to their target audience. For example, while you’re watching and tweeting about a soccer match, Adidas can pay for a promoted message that pops up in your feed. (Demo video embedded below.)

And since the TV ad industry is a multibillion dollar business, Twitter naturally wants to carve off a portion of it through use of this TV ad-targeting tool.

Opening up the new tool to all advertisers is part of Twitter’s plan to hit $1 billion in sales before the end of the year, according to Bloomberg. And if the data from its beta testing is any indication, Twitter shouldn’t have a problem pulling in new clients, either. The company claims that matching a promoted tweet with onscreen TV advertising led to 58 percent higher intent to purchase among consumers.

Twitter has actually be courting the television/media industry for quite a while now. Not only has the company forged second-screen advertising deals with media companies like Viacom, but it’s also acquired companies like Bluefin Labs to better determine the data it collects while people watch TV and tweet.