Dive Brief:

• Marketers advertising mobile apps on Twitter now have a new tool that allows them to showcase the app with video before asking for an installation.
• Twitter is also changing its pricing model by giving app advertisers options as to how they are charged for the ads.
• This news comes at a time when social media platforms, particularly Facebook, are making pushes around online video.

Dive Insight:

The combination of video and social media has been a major source of recent news, especially in light of Facebook’s strong push into video by altering its newsfeed to emphasize video, testing its ad pricing model, and announcing it would begin sharing ad revenue with video partners.

Now, Twitter is joining the party by announcing a new tool for marketers of mobile apps that allows them to place a video showcasing the app for users to view before asking for an installation of the app. "The union of video and a call to action—driving app installs—that's new. It's an immersive experience to have video directly in the tweet. It creates great performance and lets marketers convey a lot more about what the app does," Richard Alfonsi, VP of global business development and platforms at Twitter, told Ad Week. 

Twitter is also changing how it charges marketers for mobile app ads, allowing them to choose the pricing model. Previously, marketers were charged whenever an ad was tapped, but the new option allows marketers to choose to be charged only if the app is installed after bidding for the ad.

The moves around mobile app ads are likely in response to a concern about the effectiveness of advertising on Twitter among marketers. Addressing this in a Wall Street Journal article, Alfonsi said: “We’ve been investing in a lot of targeting, creative, and measurement features.”