Twitter announces expansion of Amplify ad program

Twitter is expanding its Amplify ad program Twitter to make it accessible to more publishers and advertisers.

The Amplify programme, which is two-years-old, serves video ads. It started with a direct and somewhat complicated relationship with publishers embedding a short video clip in a tweet, and the advertiser subsequently including a short pre-roll ad in the tweet and paying up to promote the tweet in Twitter.

With the new, open version of Amplify, advertisers no longer need to work with a specific publisher, rather they choose a content category, then Twitter would automatically include their pre-roll ads in videos tweeted by relevant publishers.

Advertisers could also use Twitter's other ad targeting capabilities at the same time.

This was not just about making the process easier for advertisers, it also gave publishers a monetary incentive to share their video clips on Twitter. The revenue split is reportedly 70 per cent for publishers and 30 per cent for Twitter, with publishers having the ability to blacklist advertisers or categories if they felt like they were not a good fit.

''With this expanded version of Amplify, we're excited to help people enjoy more great video, publishers drive more revenue, and brands align with the best mobile video moments, all at scale,'' wrote David Reagan, a senior product manager at Twitter, in a company blog post.

Meanwhile, newly appointed chief and co-founder, Jack Dorsey yesterday addressed marketers for the first time at an event in New York to show off Twitter's array of video advertising products - and only vaguely referred to what Twitter could mean for them.

''Today, Twitter can show everything that is happening in the world 10 to 15 minutes faster than any other service,'' Dorsey said. ''And that's not just global events. That's not just local events. That's with people. That's with a brand. That's with your customers.''

According to commentators, Dorsey's emphasis on Twitter's real-time nature highlighted the service's biggest advantage for advertisers: It was still the public square where people gathered to discuss live events like presidential debates and the MTV Video Music Awards.

Twitter said in September that with the help of payments startup Stripe it is expanding its buy buttons so that anyone can sell their products via tweets. (See: Twitter's buy buttons to now enable anyone to sell).