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Twitter cares a lot about big events like the Super Bowl or the Oscars that can attract massive online conversations. And that’s why it is launching a new product to give events their own special timelines — timelines that also cater to advertisers.
Twitter announced Thursday that marketers can target people based on the real-life events they’re interested in. For example, an advertiser could show an ad to anyone who cares about the Masters, or even broader moments, like “back to school.”
Twitter reported lower-then-expected revenue last quarter, and it’s still working to keep advertisers happy as it searches for a permanent CEO. Twitter isn’t known for the kind of advanced targeting that Facebook or Google can offer, but real-time conversations around live events has long been its calling card. A targeting option that takes advantage of that is a logical fit, but given Twitter’s interest in live events, it’s surprising this kind of targeting wasn’t already available.
Twitter built a dashboard that includes a calendar of these kinds of events, plus a look at the demographic data about the people who showed interest in that event on Twitter the previous year in hopes advertisers will plan more of these campaigns.
Twitter uses a handful of signals to determine whether or not you might care about a particular event, explained Ameet Ranadive, senior director of revenue products at Twitter. It looks at who you follow, what you tweet and what tweets you engage with. It’s a similar system to Twitter’s TV targeting, which aims to identify people who actually watch television.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
