Twitter Testing Digital Coupons Within Tweets Via ‘Twitter Offers’

Twitter has announced Twitter Offers, a new e-commerce feature providing advertisers with the ability to offer digital coupons within Tweets. Twitter users who see these Tweets will be able to quickly claim the offers by linking their credit or debit card accounts to Twitter. The discounts can subsequently be redeemed by using the synced card either online or in a retail store.

Retailers commonly experience difficulty with linking digital marketing to retail sales, and the new offering from Twitter may prove to be a helpful tool toward achieving this goal.

Twitter product manager, Tarun Jain, explained the company’s e-commerce initiatives in a blog post. “Over the past year, we’ve thought a lot about what commerce should look like on Twitter,” wrote Jain. “A few months ago, we took our first step toward this vision by giving merchants the ability to sell products directly from a Tweet. Starting today (in the U.S. only), we’re beginning to test a new way for advertisers to connect with consumers on Twitter and convert them to loyal customers in their stores, on their websites and in their apps. This feature, Twitter Offers, enables advertisers to create card-linked promotions and share them directly with Twitter users.”

The announcement of Twitter Offers illustrates a continuation of the company’s e-commerce expansions in recent times. Twitter is rolling out the new feature slowly, as it has been doing since September with its in-tweet Buy button testing. At this point, Twitter Offers will only be available in the U.S. and will initially be tested with a small number of brands.

Offering a discount-via-a-tweet isn’t new for Twitter. For example, American Express already provides a similar feature that allows users to obtain discounts by tweeting a specific hashtag. However, with Twitter Offers, the commerce relationship with users will be directly on Twitter, providing the social media giant with increased leverage in this important realm.

Jain’s blog post continued by explained Twitter Offers’ ease of use and value for both advertisers and Twitter users. “When users see a Twitter Offer in their timeline, they can add the offer to their credit or debit card in just a few taps, and redeem in real time by using the card at the store,” Jain wrote. “Because the offer is tied to their card, redemption is seamless and easy: there are no coupons to redeem at the point of purchase. After the purchase, the cash back savings appear on their card statement within a few days.”

For advertisers, Twitter Offers will provide them with the ability to attribute redemptions directly to their campaigns on Twitter, thereby allowing them to accurately measure the ROI from their promotions, even when redemption happens online. This is a very valuable tool, which will help advertisers to tailor their promotions and campaigns to the right audience while optimizing for performance, thereby assisting them in making their Twitter initiatives as effective as possible.

Jain’s blog post explains that all credit and debit card information will be encrypted and safely stored, and that users can rest assured that they can remove the information from their account at any time. While Twitter Offers is initially going to be tested over the holidays in the U.S. with a select number of brands, the expectation is to offer the feature widely at some point in the near future once the product has been tested and refined.