Twitter Officially Launches Its Mobile Ads Manager

Twitter today officially announced the launch of its new mobile Ads Manager, which allows users of Twitter’s smartphone applications to track their ad campaigns’ performance – including their impressions, engagements, spend, cost per engagement, and engagement rate – while on the go. The button was recently spotted in the wild, ahead of a formal announcement from the company, and not everyone was pleased with the addition.

The new button appears prominently on mobile users’ Twitter profile page, next to the Setting icon, on iPhone 6 or later. Meanwhile, iPhone 5 or earlier users first have to click the gear icon then Twitter Ads. Android users can also access Twitter Ads from the Settings drop-down, the company says.

The feature, while designed for mobile use, stops short of letting users actually build their ad campaigns from their smartphone. Instead, those campaigns must first be started on the web using a desktop or laptop computer. That’s a different path than Facebook recently took with its dedicated Facebook Ads Manager App which lets advertisers to track their current ad campaigns’ performance, as well as create new ones on the fly.

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Once set up, though, the Twitter Ads button lets you quickly see a summary of the metrics it’s tracking across your campaigns, or you can drill down to see just a specific campaign’s numbers. Plus, you can also edit your campaign bids, budgets and schedules using the tool, says Twitter. And you can pause, resume or extend your campaigns as well.

Not everyone was pleased with the new feature, which takes up space on profile pages while offering something that a larger majority of Twitter users don’t have need of. People found themselves accidentally tapping the button, or thinking at first it was some sort of analytics feature. Others complained simply that the button was there, and they didn’t want it to be. But for Twitter’s advertisers, the feature is a handy addition.

The move comes at a time when the company is looking for ways to better monetize a user base which is still not rapidly growing. However, it’s not surprising to see Twitter targeting mobile with its new ads tool – the company recently reported that mobile advertising was 89 percent of its total ad revenue, which was $388 million in Q1.