Twitter Giving Out $1 Million In Ads To Lure New Small Biz Advertisers

Twitter’s push to expand its advertiser base continues today with news that the company will give away up to a million dollars in ad credits to small business owners that haven’t advertised on Twitter before.

In its announcement, Twitter says that it’ll give $100 credits to the first 10,000 qualified small businesses. The signup form details those qualifications: the business must be U.S.-based, have a complete Twitter profile (including profile image), tweet regularly, have at least 20 followers and be a new advertiser.

Twitter says the giveaway is its way of supporting the Shop Small and Small Business Saturday initiatives this weekend.

It’s also the company’s latest attempt to increase adoption of its ad products. Over the years, Twitter has been cautious in rolling out advertising on its platform, but it’s been much more aggressive in courting advertisers in recent months. It’s still an invite-only platform, but regular users (like me) have received a similar $100 credit offer via email, and other users are getting invites via on-site messaging.

EMarketer recently upped its Twitter ad revenue estimate by 50 percent, to more than $807 million in 2014.