Update: Twitter’s spokesperson confirmed that Twitter’s Lead Generation Cards can be “used like any other Twitter Card,” and isn’t just for Promoted Tweets. And the Lead Generation Cards can be used to collect user information for contests.
To solidify its advertising push even more, today Twitter announced a brand new Twitter Card called the Lead Generation Card, intended to drive more clicks and purchases.
The Lead Generation Card is the latest addition to its existing suite of business oriented Cards. You might recall last month’s launch of an App Card, Mobile deep-linking, and a Product Card, all aimed to generate additional leads for brands, small business, and mobile startups.
Here’s how the Lead Generation Card works: If a user is attracted to a brand’s call-to-action type tweet (asking users to click the URL to snag a deal for example), they can click on the tweet to expand the offer to see further details. Inside of the Card, the user’s information will be pre-filled based on the his or her existing personal information that they filled out when signing up for Twitter – like name and email address. Below that, clicking on the call-to-action button sends the user’s email address to the brand.
The Card is win-win for both the user and the brand. The user doesn’t have to concern themselves with leaving Twitter to fill out their personal info if they feel like getting in on an offer, and pre-filled personal info is undoubtedly far more convenient than manually filling out a form. And on the business side, there’s a far greater success rate of a user snagging an offer when they don’t have to do as much work.
Twitter Product Manager Mitali Pattnaik says that Twitter has been testing the Lead Generation Card with brands including New Relic, Full Sail, and Priceline prior to today’s official announcement. And he adds that the Card was agreeably successful during its beta testing phase; “many beta participants found the streamlined nature of the Lead Generation Card was instrumental in driving a low cost-per-lead compared to other technologies in their marketing suite.”
This means there will probably more deal-related tweets surfacing in your stream, although we’re not entirely sure if Lead Generation Cards are strictly used within Promoted Tweets. But this isn’t such bad news considering the efforts Twitter has announced to better target tweets.
Twitter’s Lead Generation Cards will be available to its managed clients to start, but it will soon roll out to small and medium sized businesses globally.
