AmEx Brings Self-Serve Twitter Ads to Small Biz Brands

American Express Cardmembers and merchants are getting exclusive access to Twitter’s new advertising solution for small businesses. The first 10,000 eligible businesses that register at http://ads.twitter.com/amex will get $100 in free Twitter ads as the self-serve automated system begins in March.

Similar to Google, advertisers will choose amount they’ll spend, the cities or regions for ads to appear, and write their own 140-character copy. According to AmEx’s press release, Twitter will charge only for ads that get a user response.

Twitter is already testing Promoted Tweets priced on a "cost-per-engagement" basis, where businesses only pay if a user interacts (retweets, replies to, clicks or favorites), but the AmEx partnership could exponentially increase the number of advertisers Twitter can work with.

Building on last year’s launch of AmEx’s Facebook ads Membership Rewards points program, this is the next step in leveraging Twitter’s 300+ million users for Cardmembers and merchants. “This partnership with Twitter gives our small business owners access to a powerful tool for reaching and engaging existing and new customers," stated Ed Gilligan, Vice Chairman of American Express.

eMarketer estimates Twitter’s 2011 revenue at $140 million which could double (or more) with the new ad system in 2012. According to CNBC, Twitter “CEO Dick Costolo says small businesses have been “banging down the door,” begging for access to ads. He says that tests have found that Twitter ads work well for small businesses because these companies are already using Twitter—for free—to connect with fans and customers.”

“If done right, this partnership represents a significant threat to recommendations site Yelp, which is on its road to IPO. ... Yelp charges some merchants a $600 CPM for advertising that is often lacking in any relevance to the business…I recommend that every small business create a Twitter account to connect with their existing customers…Twitter and American Express have the potential to deliver better targeted prospects for far less money,” commented Rocky Agrawal in VentureBeat.

With one in every five minutes spent online in October 2011 for social networking, and those sites reaching 82% of the global Internet population older than 15, the equivalent of 1.2 billion users according to comScore, it clearly pays to be an American Express Cardmember.