Twitter’s $500,000 price tag for Promoted Stickers could help solve its ad woes

Twitter hasn’t disclosed how much it charges for these branded stickers, despite launching the feature with a high-profile partnership with Pepsi. Now, however, a new report claims to have dug up the financial details behind Twitter’s new cash cow, and it turns out those smileys don’t come cheap.

Twitter has set a $500,000 asking price for brands wishing to run Promoted Stickers ad campaigns on its platform, according to multiple sources cited by BuzzFeed.

Considering the steep price tag, Twitter is also throwing in some additional perks in order to lure advertisers. Those brands willing to drop a cool half-a-million dollars on a set of glorified emojis will also have access to other ad options, such as promoted tweets.

Launched in June, Stickers allow Twitter users to decorate their snaps with an expanding set of resizable emojis. It may sound similar to Snapchat (although Twitter isn’t the only one copying that popular app), but the feature does boast a unique element in the form of its ability to categorize your images. Basically, each Twitter Sticker acts as its own hashtag. Tap on a selected Sticker and Twitter will show you all of your images that have been tagged with it.

Earlier this month, Twitter introduced Promoted Stickers, and it’s clear to see why it opened up the feature to marketers. If you use a brand’s sticker, your tweet will be discoverable to that company, allowing it to then target you with additional ads on Twitter. “Promoted #Stickers represents a huge opportunity for brands to drive brand affinity and raise awareness of their message at scale,” said Twitter upon the launch of the feature.

Similarly, Twitter also allows brands to target ads based on the emojis people use in their tweets. Twitter will likely be hoping Promoted Stickers will be as popular as branded emojis, which can cost in the region of a million dollars, especially around the time of a major event (such as the Super Bowl).

A lack of ad targeting options on Twitter has been one of the foremost complaints by brands, which are increasingly ditching the traditional ad options offered by the platform in favor of promotional videos. Advertiser demand has witnessed a worrying slump during Twitter’s previous two financial quarters. Twitter will be hoping that stickers and emojis will have it smiling all the way to the bank in the third quarter.