Cost of Twitter’s Promoted Trends revealed: $120K per day

While microblogging social network Twitter may lack an advertising platform for vendors, the company has been very successful in growing in-house advertising efforts.

The company’s “Promoted Trends” cost is currently $120,000 per day for advertisers, which is up significantly from the $25,000 to $30,000 it charged in April 2010, said Twitter’s director of revenue Adam Bain in a recent interview with ClickZ.

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Twitter’s “Promoted Accounts” and “Promoted Tweets” offerings are auction-based, but require advertisers to spend a minimum of $15,000 over three months, according to Bain, who also stated that these efforts are handled by the company’s sales and marketing staff of over 60 people.

Some have criticized the high-dollar barrier to entry Twitter has created for its unconventional advertising, but it hasn’t stopped clients like HBO, Samsung, Toyota and many others from doing business with the social network. To date, Twitter has worked with 600 advertisers on 6,000 campaigns since it began in April 2010.

Also, such criticism fails to take into account the type of advertising clients Twitter want to attract. Unlike search engine marketing, those who advertise their message with Twitter have a better chance of creating a long-term relationship with consumers. Twitter promotions are also more widely viewed across its entire network, making it highly effective for clients that want to reach as many people as possible.

For the right kind of client, Twitter’s “Promoted” ad products can be a highly successful return on investment. However, the amount of revenue generated by in-house sales and marketing is a drop in the bucket compared to a self-serve advertising platform.