Mix it up: Diversify Twitter Ad formats to amplify your message

Michelle Lee, Taylor Ward
By Michelle Lee, Taylor Ward
Trends and insights

This article is the first of a series on Twitter x MAGNA ‘Mixing It Up: Diversifying Ad Formats to Achieve More’ research.

With fixed or small budgets, it can be difficult to know how (and what) to split advertising costs up against. For example, would it be better to run one big campaign or multiple, smaller campaigns? 

To help answer this question, Twitter worked with MAGNA Global (@MAGNAGLOBAL) and IPG Media Lab (@IPGLAB) to investigate how video ad formats can be used as a tool to achieve more — particularly if video ad format synergy is real and what impact that can have on brand KPIs. 

This research helps demonstrate that the use of multiple ad formats helps brands better tell their stories and boost awareness, brand favorability, research intent, and purchase intent. The research tested the impact of different video ad formats, ad mixes, and video ad format order on brand metrics and tracked on-screen eye movements. The study focused primarily on Twitter video products, specifically Timeline Takeover, Amplify Pre-roll, and Video Ads across six industry verticals and 136 different ad scenarios.

Here, we’re focusing on the first goal of the study: to quantify the impact of video ad format synergies. What benefit does combining various video ad formats have? How many should you combine? 

Research showed that awareness builds as people are exposed to the same ad in additional video ad formats. When looking at a consistent frequency of exposures*, a combination of three video ad format exposures generates significantly more awareness than exposure to one or two video ad formats.

As marketers, we all know that attention in today's crowded digital space is a commodity, and finding ways to stand out is critical to communicating your message. We see that how you use video ad formats also plays a role here: with the same number of exposures*, the ad stood out to people who saw multiple formats by 10% more than people who only saw one format.

The impact of multiple formats also aids with lower-funnel metrics, specifically in the consideration and purchase phases. Holding the frequency of exposure constant*, using multiple video ad formats leads to 6X the impact on research intent and 2X the impact on purchase intent.

In later articles, we’ll dive deeper into identifying the ideal order of video ad format exposure, the unique strengths of individual video ad formats, and the power of launch and connect campaigns on Twitter.

Source: MAGNA & Twitter “Mixing It Up: Diversifying Ad Formats to Achieve More”, US, 2020.
*Frequency of exposure: n=3

Additional reading:

Planning a big campaign?

Ready to advertise on Twitter?