Twitter officially announced on its developer blog that, beginning February 1, 2017, it will no longer create lead generation campaigns. However, marketers will still be able to view, edit, and delete these campaigns.
The announcement on the developer blog also included an announcement that Twitter will remove the ability to create or edit lead generation, although the cards will be able to be viewed through March 1. Additionally, campaign analytics will still be available, per the announcement.
“We are always experimenting with the best ways to help advertisers effectively connect with consumers,” Twitter said in a statement. “At this time, we intend to focus our efforts on building and improving other performance offerings that will help us drive the best performance for advertisers.”
The lead generation ads developed by Twitter were designed to help marketers create direct response campaigns. The lead generation cards were embedded in the ads as a way to enable users to share contact information with marketers whose products and/or services they are interested in learning more about.
The social network hopes the new format for lead generation ads will increase the number of advertisers from the current average of 130,000, according to DMR.
While the expectation in creating these lead generation ads from Twitter was that they would be a good match for mobile, the ascension of chatbots and voice-enabled interfaces this year makes indirect ads seem more old-fashioned.
In response, Twitter introduced Welcome Messages and Quick Replies, two new chatbots in direct messages last month, aimed at creating a better conversational experience for both businesses and consumers.
