👋 Hello!

I’ve managed millions in ad spend over my career and one the most powerful moves I ever made was creating quickstart campaign guides for each ad network.

They helped me start campaigns without having to do much thinking and forced me to keep the base of my campaigns consistent, which made it easier to test campaign changes and new features.

I recently revisited my Twitter quickstart guide for someone new to Twitter ads and streamlined it to make it more beginner friendly.

The guide isn’t meant to get you set up with the best campaign possible. It’s meant to get you set up as quickly as possible (with a really solid campaign!). 

It’s very opinionated and meant to reduce the amount of choices you have to make outside of your budget,  ad copy, and targeting. 

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Twitter Ad Campaign Quickstart

Intro

This guide will help you set up and launch a Twitter campaign for your SaaS product as quickly as possible. 

The process in this guide will go faster and be more effective if you have any of the following ready:

• A list of influential twitter users your audience follows

• Existing messaging even if it’s just your product’s three strongest points

• A list of keywords your audience is likely to mention or search for (these need to be more general and on the larger side to work for a Twitter ad campaign)

• Audience demographics

Teaching you the Twitter ad interface is not one of my goals for this guide, so I’ve included links that will send you directly to a page or form instead of having you navigate around the interface to get there.

When you have some time after your campaign is launched, you should click around and get to know the interface and where tooling is. 

>> Note: When I go through https://twitter.com/home to get to the ad interface, I often get distracted by my home feed. If you do too, I recommend adding a direct link to https://ads.twitter.com as a bookmark in your usual browser and doing the same for any other social networks you advertise on. 

Twitter Ad Basics

Twitter ads consist of text and images or video if you want to use more than text. We’ll keep things simple in this guide to move faster and set up a text only ad campaign.

• Types - Twitter allows you to run text, image, carousel (multi-image), and video ads.

• Placements - You're required to show your ad on home timelines and have the option to show it on profiles, in search results, and around replies.

• Ad engagement - When your ad is liked, retweeted, replied to, or clicked on, Twitter considers it an engagement. Clicks anywhere on the post count, including reposts, replies, follows, likes, links, cards, hashtags, embedded media, username, profile photo, or post expansion.

Account eligibility and verification

For your account to be eligible to run ads, you need profile and header photos that are not GIFs and “a functional, live URL in your bio that is not gated, and accurately represents your brand and product”.

You also need to be on a Twitter Premium plan and verified to run ads. First you purchase a plan, then you go through Twitter’s verification process, which can take a few days.

>> Warning: Your account will go back through the verification process any time you change your name or profile photo, so nail them down before starting the process.

Set up a payment method

We need a credit card set up to pay for ads. To set up your payment method, log into your Twitter and go directly to the “Add a new credit card” form with this URL: 

https://ads.twitter.com/billing/[your-ad-account-id]/payment_methods/?open_cc_form=true
(just replace [your-ad-account-id] with your ad account id)

This is a separate billing management interface from what you use for Premium and you can use a different card here if you want. 

The Twitter pixel

Like Facebook and Google, Twitter uses a pixel that you install on your website to track user actions once someone has left Twitter to visit your site. 

This is how Twitter tracks ad conversions which it requires to optimize for signups.

It also tracks logged-in Twitter users who visit your site to create an audience that you can advertise to once enough users are added. 

You have 3 ways to install your pixel: 

1. With the pixel’s code

2. With a tag manager like Google Tag Manager

3. With Twitter’s conversion API 

In this guide, we’re going to install using the pixel’s code. 

First, go to the Events Manager with this URL:

https://ads.twitter.com/conversion_events/[your-ad-account-id]/events_manager
(just replace [your-ad-account-id] with your ad account id)

If you’re on the right page, you’ll see the section above on the left, towards the top. Click on “Copy” to add the code to your clipboard.

The code will look like this:

<!-- Twitter conversion tracking base code -->
<script>
!function(e,t,n,s,u,a){e.twq||(s=e.twq=function(){s.exe?s.exe.apply(s,arguments):s.queue.push(arguments);
},s.version='1.1',s.queue=[],u=t.createElement(n),u.async=!0,u.src='https://static.ads-twitter.com/uwt.js',
a=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0],a.parentNode.insertBefore(u,a))}(window,document,'script');
twq('config','[your-ad-account-id]');
</script>
<!-- End Twitter conversion tracking base code -->

Paste it before the </head> HTML tag of any page you install it on. 

I recommend all public pages on your website so you can capture a larger audience to use with future ad campaigns, but you may have different tracking preferences. 

At the least, install it on your campaign landing page and the URL that immediately follows someone signing up for your SaaS product, which we’ll use to create a signup event in the next section.  

Once your change is live, check that your pixel is installed correctly with Twitter’s Pixel Helper extension. 

Create a Signup Event

Sign up events are what Twitter uses to track which of the users who clicked your ad went on to sign up. 

Once your pixel is installed and working, go to the event creation form with this URL:

https://ads.twitter.com/conversion_events/[your-ad-account-id]/events_manager/ohdwe/create_event#step1
(just replace [your-ad-account-id] with your ad account id)

Event details

First, Twitter has you fill out your event details. Name your event “Signup” and choose the “Lead (formerly sign up)” Event type.

Sometimes a user will see an ad one day and sign up on a later day. Attribution window is the “time window for crediting Twitter with conversions that happen after a person views or engages with your ads”.

We’re going with the attribution window defaults (30 days for post-engagement attribution and 1 day for post-view attribution) for this campaign.

Website activity audience does not work with the URL rule method, so we’re going to leave this off. 

Setup Method

You can define your event with code or URL rules. Setting up an event is simpler with URL rules, so we’ll use that method for this campaign.

Setting up URL rules

URL rules are the conditions you set around what url triggers a conversion. 

You want to use a url that only someone who just signed up will hit.

For condition, pick  “URL contains” instead of “Exact URL” to make sure you capture variations like those that end with backslash or a URL parameter.

Creating text ads

We’re making text only ads, so the copy will be doing all the work. We’ll create 3 ads and let Twitter’s algorithm decide which works best. If you have existing messaging, this is where you’ll use it.

The most ideal starting point for writing your first Twitter text ads is having ads on other platforms to pull copy from that you can then edit into an ad.

Other places to pull ad copy from:

• Messaging strategy

• Positioning statement or unique value proposition

• Top product selling points

• Website copy, especially from your homepage and product page

• Customer research, especially anything around pain points and goals

• Competitor home and product pages for ideas to counter

I find it’s much easier to establish a strong base of ad copy in Google Docs or Notion and then edit in the Twitter Tweet creator or during the campaign creation process versus writing the whole ad in either spot.

You have 257 characters to work with, including spaces and line breaks; twitter’s 280 character limit minus the 23 characters a landing page URL takes up. 

A formula for ad copy

1. Grab attention

   1. With limited space, you have to grab someone’s attention in the first line

   2. Limit it to 1 sentence

   3. Include a hook, like important figures or an something related to the customer’s pain

   4. Try to put important nouns early in the sentence

2. The details

   1. Detail your offering

   2. 1-2 sentences

   3. Keep it relevant to your audience

   4. Describe benefits in terms of your customers’ goals

3. Send them to your landing page

   1. Close the deal

   2. 1 sentence

   3. A call to action like “sign up and get…” 

   4. A link to your landing page

Twitter copywriting tips:

• Hashtags and mentions create exit points that distract from your landing page link, so don’t include them

• Using an emoji near the beginning of your first line can help grab attention

• Include line breaks to break up text for mobile users 

• Use "you" and “your” to make it about the reader instead of "we" and “our”

• Use impressive numbers if you have them

• Include a quote from a customer or influencer to build trust

Using the Twitter Ad composer

You can’t create a text-only Twitter ad in the campaign creation workflow, so we’re going to use the Composer. I also prefer to create my ads before campaign creation to keep creative tasks separate from operations tasks.

For each of your three ads:

• Ad Name - Come up with an ad name (use a word or two that can describe the ad and add a 1 at the end for versioning)

• Product category - Ignore this option.

• Destination - Stick with None.

• What’s happening - Add your copy to the What’s happening? box and edit it if any changes are necessary. 

• Reply options - Stick with Everyone can reply.

• Media options - Ignore these.

• Promoted only - Keep the Promoted only box checked. 

• Post - Click the Post button in the upper right corner and select Save Draft

Campaign Setup 

Now we’ll set up our campaign. This URL will take you to a screen where you choose what type of campaign to set up:

https://ads.twitter.com/reporting_dashboard/[your ad account id/campaigns?modal=ads_flow_selector
(just replace [your-ad-account-id] with your ad account id)

Choose a Campaign modal

Twitter offers two versions of its campaign creator; one for simple campaigns and one for advanced campaigns. 

We’re going to set up an advanced campaign because the simple campaign builder doesn’t allow you to create conversion-based campaigns. 

Choose your objective

Twitter offers a number of options. For this campaign, we’re going to choose the web traffic objective and pair it with a conversion event. 

Campaign Details

Campaign name is optional, but I always add one to help keep things organized. Name your campaign Signup-1 or come up with your own. 

Other campaign details options:

• Funding source - The credit card you added earlier.

• A/B Test - Off - We’re going to keep this campaign simple.

• Campaign budget optimization - Off - This for a campaign that has multiple ad groups and we’re only building one in this guide.

• Advanced -> Campaign spend cap - I check in on ads often, so I don’t usually set one up, but go for it if you’re worried you might forget and run past your budget. 

Ad Group Setup

Ad group details

For ad group details, we’re going to add Signup-1 as the Ad group name and keep dynamic product ads off.

Budget & Schedule

Have a daily budget in mind? If not, consider that it can take up to a week for Twitter’s algorithm to settle, so you’ll want to run the campaign for at least that long to make sure you’re not stopping a campaign too early. 

The algorithm also needs a minimum level of conversions each day to get enough data and run properly. Facebook isn’t public with the real numbers, but 7 conversions a day should work for most folks as a floor for this campaign. 

How much is a conversion worth to you? Multiple that by 7 conversions and add a 20% buffer (if possible) and you’ll have a daily budget to work with. 

Other budget and schedule options:

• Total ad group budget - I don’t set one as I’m usually looking at the campaign every couple of days if not daily, but you may want to for peace of mind.

• Start - I try not to start campaigns on Fridays or the weekends because the first day is often a throwaway as the algorithm adjusts and the weekends tend to have worse performance than weekdays.

• End - I run campaigns indefinitely because I don’t want to end it early if it’s working

Delivery

This section looks intense, but it’s actually not that complicated. Here’s what what to do for each option:

• Goal - Pick site visits (recommended). 

• Site visit event - Pick the Signup event you created.

• Bid strategy - I usually start with autobid and then try out different maximum bids later on.

• Pay by - Pick impression (recommended)

• Pacing - Pacing is the speed your budget is spent. We’re going to go with standard pacing because we’ll get more efficient results with Twitter spending our daily budget evenly over the day.

• Measurement options - Skip these settings.

Placements

Placements are the areas where your ads show up on Twitter. Your twitter ads can show up on home timelines, on profiles, in search results, and around replies. 

To maximize conversions, we’ll select all optional placements.

I haven’t made any adjustments to the account brand safety controls for my campaigns in the past, but you may have more restrictions in mind and prefer the conservative setting.

Audience estimate

The audience estimate panel estimates the number of Twitter users in your audience and adjusts up or down based on what options you choose in the demographics, devices, audiences, and targeting features panels.

I’d suggest you aim for a minimum of a 500k audience estimate, but 100k would be the absolute floor I’d recommend you launch with. 

Demographic

Demographics will depend on your audience demographics. 

• Gender - I’ve never marketed a gender specific product, so I’ve always gone with Any.

• Age - It depends on your product, but for early-stage SaaS products, I typically start at 25 (assumption being they typically need a few years under their belt and have some say in tooling

• Language - I’ve only marketed to english speaking audiences, so I don’t use this option.

• Specific locations - This one is important. The US is typically the best market for SaaS. Go with Country – United States of America if you’re marketing to the US. If the US alone doesn’t give you the audience estimate you need, I’ve found that people in Canada, The United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Singapore often act similarly to those in the US. If you aren’t marketing to the US, pick your best country. Location can make a big difference with audience size, so you may need to pick every country you market to stay above a 100k audience estimate. Any location more specific than country is unlikely to grow your audience estimate much.

Devices

We’re going to skip the options in this section. I’ve never used these options in a campaign, but you may have unique needs where you need to target by operating system in the future. 

Audiences

We’ll skip the options in this campaign as well and focus on the targeting features.

Targeting features

There are several types of targeting to choose from. For our simple campaign, we’re going to focus on followers and keywords because the others offer very generic targeting and are better for consumer campaigns.

Followers

Follower targeting works by putting your ad in front of the followers (or people whose profiles match the followers aka lookalikes) of specific Twitter users you select.

So if you’re advertising a data analysis SaaS product you’d likely target popular data analysis Twitter accounts. 

You want to find the influential users on Twitter that your audience follows the most. The larger the follower count, the better.

Keywords

Keywords targeting works by putting your ad around conversations or searches that involve one of your keywords.

While the mechanics are similar, Twitter keyword targeting requires much more popular keywords than Google Search ads do, which means that more specific keywords won’t have enough traffic.

For example, marketing research or customer research can work for a marketing research product, but targeting keywords for a specific survey method is unlikely to work. 

Targeting strategy

Optimize targeting takes the profile of your audience and looks for similar profiles outside your targeting options. We’ll keep optimize targeting off, but you may want to try it in the future if have trouble building a large enough audience or just want to try an experiment.

Adding ads to your campaign

Now we’ll add the ads we created in the composer to our campaign. Click the Use existing ad link:

Choose Promoted-only Tweets, then pick one of your ads and click select ad. Do this for all three ads. 

Review and launch your campaign

You’re very close to launching! Take a moment to review each option of your campaign and if everything looks right, hit the Launch campaign in the bottom right corner. 

Once you do, your ads will be sent to Twitter staff for review. The review process usually is done in 24 hours or less, but can take up to a couple days.  

Thank you for reading!

Congrats on getting your first SaaS ad campaign up on Twitter. Let me know if you have any questions!

Best,

Jon
Obsaased

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