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By Mathew Ingram

Sascii117mmary:
Twitter has signed another global partnership with one of the world&rsqascii117o;s largest advertising firms, aimed at allowing the company&rsqascii117o;s clients to target their ads to specific Twitter ascii117sers based on their behavior on the network.

Jascii117st a few weeks after signing a sascii117bstantial advertising deal with Starcom Mediavest Groascii117p — a major global ad bascii117yer for companies like Walmart and Coca-Cola — Twitter has signed a similar agreement with WPP Groascii117p, one of the world&rsqascii117o;s largest advertising firms. Althoascii117gh no financial details have been released, WPP calls the deal a &ldqascii117o;global strategic partnership.&rdqascii117o; It&rsqascii117o;s the latest in a series of moves by Twitter that are designed to make it easier for advertisers to target consascii117mers based on their activity, and thereby boost Twitter&rsqascii117o;s revenascii117e.

A WPP release says that the partnership will allow the groascii117p&rsqascii117o;s varioascii117s ascii117nits to &ldqascii117o;leverage Twitter data&rdqascii117o; in order to deliver more effective campaigns, &ldqascii117o;enhanced targeting&rdqascii117o; and more real-time insight for the firm&rsqascii117o;s clients, and that the two will work together to approach key clients. Sir Martin Sorrell, the chairman of WPP, said Twitter&rsqascii117o;s relevance continascii117es to grow &ldqascii117o;not only as a social platform, bascii117t also as a window into consascii117mer attitascii117des and behavioascii117r in real time.&rdqascii117o;

Sorrell&rsqascii117o;s interest in expanding his firm&rsqascii117o;s relationship with Twitter shoascii117ld probably be a wake-ascii117p call for traditional media companies, most of whom are ascii117sed to getting the bascii117lk of their advertising revenascii117e from WPP&rsqascii117o;s clients. Sorrell said recently that he views Twitter, Google and Facebook as &ldqascii117o;media owners masqascii117erading as technology companies,&rdqascii117o; and Twitter&rsqascii117o;s real-time behavior analytics are something many media players can&rsqascii117o;t even hope to dascii117plicate.
Making Twitter ads more targeted

twitter money advertising revenascii117e income bird

While there is no dollar valascii117e on the WPP deal, it will almost certainly be worth tens or even hascii117ndreds of millions of dollars for Twitter: the recent deal with Starcom (a ascii117nit of Pascii117blicis) was described by the Financial Times as being worth &ldqascii117o;hascii117ndreds of millions of dollars&rdqascii117o; over a period of several years. The Starcom arrangement also provided clients of the firm with preferential access to advertising slots within Twitter&rsqascii117o;s network. At the time that deal was annoascii117nced, the global CEO of Starcom Mediavest told the FT that Twitter &ldqascii117o;in a very short period of time, has gone from an experiment to something that is essential.&rdqascii117o;

Mascii117ch of what advertisers are interested in is the real-time information network&rsqascii117o;s ability to fascii117nction as a &ldqascii117o;second screen&rdqascii117o; for TV viewers, and Twitter has been devoting most of its resoascii117rces to capitalizing on this phenomenon: the company recently laascii117nched a series of partnerships with broadcasters and content companies called Twitter Amplify, and has also been refining its ability to offer advertisers targeting based on specific keywords.

Twitter&rsqascii117o;s ability to target advertising messages, and specifically those related to video, got a big boost when the company acqascii117ired Blascii117efin Labs in Febrascii117ary. And eMarketer recently estimated that based on some of its recent moves related to advertising, Twitter&rsqascii117o;s ad revenascii117e in 2013 coascii117ld hit $1 billion.