New York -Twitter keeps on coming up with new ways to let advertisers connect with consumers—and now it’s moving into the brick-and-mortar space. In its first On Tuesday, the social media giant launched a pilot for a new feature called Twitter Offers, which enables brands and companies to create card-linked promotions and share them directly with Twitter users. The user can redeem the discount simply by paying with the synced card in the retailer’s physical store or online shop.
Twitter said it plans to work with a “handful of brands” to test the feature during the holidays. The company initially will make money by charging advertisers to promote the tweets with the offers, but it could later decide to charge retailers a fee for every offer that is claimed or redeemed, according to re/code.
“With Twitter Offers, advertisers will be able to attribute redemptions directly to their campaigns on Twitter, so that they can effectively measure the ROI from their promotions, even when redemption happens offline,” the company explained in a post on its site. “Additionally, we make it easy for merchants to get up and running because they can use their existing payment network, there’s no change to the consumer purchase process, no employee training and no new hardware or software to install. By leveraging Twitter’s robust targeting capabilities, advertisers can tailor their promotions and campaigns to the right audience, while optimizing for performance.”
Here’s how the feature works: 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. 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.