Can expat businesses in Spain advertise on Twitter?
Can businesses in Spain advertise on Twitter? A good question. We tried entering the details of two clients with about 1000 followers a piece and both over a year old. The first one was an established law firm based in Marbella (their target market is the Marbella area), and the other is a leading real estate agent also based in Marbella (their target market is outside of Spain). And this is what happened…
But first some blurb from the Twits themselves…
Twitter accounts must meet certain criteria in order to be eligible to participate in Twitter Ads and use their “suite” of advertising products. This list describes common reasons why accounts may be ineligible to advertise, along with steps to become eligible in the future.
Ads eligibility takes into consideration account location and language
Twitter says they are “working on providing the best possible advertising experience to everyone on the planet,” basically means it’s business speak for “we’ve not rolled out to everyone yet.”
Smaller businesses with accounts in Canada, Ireland, the UK, and the U.S., who are tweeting in English only can get started right away with Twitter’s self-service option.
This option will be available in other countries and languages over time, according to Twitter. If this option is not yet available in your country or language, you can submit a request to express your interest in advertising here
But Why Advertise on Twitter in the first place?
This is what Lisa Raehsler of SearchEngineLand.com says:
Twitter ads are best for a few common marketing objectives, including:
- Promotions: Recommended for time sensitive events with a sense of urgency. Twitter users are following brands to get information on discounts and free stuff.
- Brand awareness: Allow advertisers exposure to potentially new audience
- Followers: Pay-per-follow to grow the follower base and leverage this audience for future promotions and dialogue.
OK, so back to our test…
For the firm of lawyers we had to enter the company details and then we’re presented with a polite no can do message, promising to email us when the option becomes available to the law firm.
According to our friends at twitter “Ads eligibility takes into consideration account activity” and “account status”
and in this case we entered the details and we got this:
Basically a big fat NO.
So i thought I’d try with a new account we’ve set up which is less than a month old but has plenty of activity and followers.
On this occasion Twitter didn’t ever offer any foreplay, we just got this polite p#ss off message saying we’re ineligible to participate in the Twitter Ads program.
So there you have it, Twitter will let us know when our money here in Spain is good enough for them. But as at 11:11am on 19th February 2014, we can’t.
…But wait a minute, what if we lie?
So for the purposes of research we picked another account of a Marbella real estate company which has over 1000 followers and has been going for a year or two and said they were based in the UK and we got passed the first hurdle.
We entered the fake campaign details to see what happened and it all seemed to go work fine.
Things get tricky when you get to the billing details.
As you can see above, it’s got to be a UK address and presumably a UK bank account to make the payment (although I didn’t get that far).
So there it is, if you’re in Spain and want to advertise to people in Spain, then you’re out of luck. If you target market is in the UK or Ireland (or US/Canada) and you have billing details and an account there you can advertise if you lie*.
The truth may well set you free, but you won’t be able to advertise on Twitter if you’re in Spain unless you tell a fib. Not yet anyway.
Thankfully, #Google #and #Facebook #are #not #so #precious…
Got any questions? Or perhaps you’re in Spain and have figured out how to advertise on Twitter? Email me directly here: alfredo[at]vooodoointernetmarketing.com
* at Voodoo Internet Marketing we strongly advise against fibbing to anyone, especially the Twits at Twitter.
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