Dive Brief:

• Twitter announced it will help advertisers reach new and potential customers via “partner audiences,” made up of users who have shown purchase intent outside the platform. 
• Acxiom and Datalogix have already provided the data necessary to define more than 1,000 partner audiences, which advertisers can select on Twitter’s campaign creation page. 
• Partner audiences can be combined with look-alike targeting to extend campaigns to people similar to the selected partner audiences. Advertisers can also choose to exclude audiences. 

Dive Insight:

Twitter has released an easy-to-use tool that helps advertisers target messages to groups of consumers who have shown strong signs of intent to purchase, or what it calls “partner audiences.” Using a dashboard menu listing a range of product categories and behaviors, advertisers can now pick the groups they want to see their ads.

For instance, an auto manufacturer can choose to connect only with a partner audience made up of consumers that has indicated interest in buying a new car elsewhere on the Web or in person. Twitter users can opt out of participation in partner audiences by changing their privacy settings.

Twitter reports that the new offering has helped brands build campaign ROI in testing. Nestle’s Butterfinger brand, for example, targeted promoted tweets to frequent candy buyers for its new Butterfinger Cup Minis, achieving a 52% lift in engagement compared to the company’s overall performance in 2014, Twitter says.