Twitter Expands Its Commerce Lineup With Twitter Offers, Which Link To Your Credit Or Debit Card

Twitter just announced that it’s testing a new commerce product called Twitter Offers.

This follows the announcement of Twitter’s first commerce product back in September, a “Buy” button allowing users to make purchases directly from tweets.

This announcement’s aimed specifically at businesses advertising on Twitter — through Twitter Offers, those companies will be able to offer cashback rewards in their tweets, and those rewards will tie directly into consumers’ credit and debit cards.

The card-based approach should offer some significant advantages. If you see an offer in your timeline (to use the example in the screenshot above, it might be $2 back on a $5 purchase at a coffee shop), you should be able to add it to your card without leaving Twitter. Then when you go into the store, you don’t need to change your behavior — instead of bringing a coupon, you just pay with that card and the cashback payment should show up on your statement shortly after.

A Twitter spokesperson said the card integration was already built by CardSpring, which Twitter acquired in July.

Meanwhile, this gives businesses a way to track when their Twitter ads are actually driving consumers to make purchases in the store, something that the company was also trying to show through its partnership with Datalogix. In a blog post, Group Product Manager Tarun Jain says:

Additionally, we make it easy for merchants to get up and running because they can use their existing payment network, there’s no change to the consumer purchase process, no employee training and no new hardware or software to install. By leveraging Twitter’s robust targeting capabilities [including geotargeting], advertisers can tailor their promotions and campaigns to the right audience, while optimizing for performance.

From a security standpoint, Twitter says your card information will be encrypted and can be removed from your account at any time.

Twitter Offers are being tested initially on desktop and mobile in the United States. The post says Twitter will be working with “a handful of brands” to test these offers in holiday-related promotions, and it will announce those brands “in the near future.”

Featured Image: Twitter



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