Twitter announced Tuesday it will roll out a new feature for disappearing advertisements in a bid to create new revenue streams and better compete with platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram.
The social media giant will begin testing ads in Fleets, its own version of ephemeral “stories” featured on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, to give advertisers more options to reach its 187 million daily active users worldwide.
Twitter generated 86% of its revenue from advertising in 2020, with ad revenue and total ad engagement growing significantly in the past year. Nevertheless, the company posted a loss of $1.1 billion in 2020, the company’s first annual loss since 2017.
“Appearing in between Fleets from people who are sharing pictures from the dog park in Fort Funston or video of their morning coffee stroll in Williamsburg, Fleet ads are all about connecting your message with the everyday,” Twitter wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
“Fleet ads are a space for brands to be creative: go behind the scenes, have a creator take over your account, or share a hot take,” the company added.
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The new feature will function as 30-second full-screen “billboards for advertisers” in Fleets that will allow brands to have a “swipe-up” option for users to find out more about a product or service.
The tech giant is looking to expand its full-screen formats on Twitter and hopes to use the ads to experiment with user engagement.
“We also believe that ads should be non-intrusive and bring value to people, so we’re focused on learning more about how people feel about and engage with this new placement,” the blog post said.
The San Francisco-based company will partner with a handful of advertisers to begin with, and Fleet ads will be pushed to a limited group of users in the U.S. starting Tuesday.
Earlier this year, Twitter also rolled out new ‘Professional Profiles’ for businesses to have dedicated tools and features to present themselves on the platform, similar to Facebook and Instagram.
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Twitter has been experimenting with new formats for content creation recently by introducing Twitter Spaces for live audio streaming and Twitter Newsletters to send followers email blasts.
