Twitter introduced a new feature that should make the service better as an advertising platform, letting businesses get a better handle on how well their ads are performing when it comes to expectations for specific metrics.

Have you had success with Twitter advertising in the past? What is Twitter lacking that would improve your advertising experience? Discuss.

Twitter just announced conversion lift reports, which are customized data-driven reports to help businesses better understand the impact their Twitter ad campaigns are having on the bottom line.

“As all performance marketers know, understanding the incremental contribution of the clicks and views on your ad campaign is critical — particularly when you’re running mobile or cross-device campaigns,” says Twitter’s Abhishek Shrivastava. “Last-click attribution is an inaccurate reflection of what’s driving results, because the average customer switches between multiple devices, platforms, and sites before making a purchase.”

With the new offering, advertisers first request a study through their account manager, then Twitter begins to collect campaign data, analyzes and validates it after the campaign ends and the attribution window closes, and then delivers the conversion lift report two to three weeks after data collection.

When Twitter measures a campaign, it automatically (and randomly) segments the eligible target audience into a test group and a control group. The test group sees the ads and the control does not. After the campaign ends, Twitter figures out the incremental conversion lift of the campaign by comparing conversions across both groups, and shares the data in the new report.

“The report offers valuable insights such as actionable targeting recommendations based on study results, conversion efficiency, transaction value lift gained through Twitter Ads, and more,” says Shrivastava.

Conversion lift reports can help measure lift for three types of campaigns: website clicks/conversions, mobile app installs and re-engagement conversions, and carrier switching conversions for Telco ads.

Website clicks and conversions are measured through conversion tracking for websites while mobile app installs and re-engagement conversions are measured through conversion tracking for mobile apps.

Twitter says it has seen positive early results from advertisers who have tested conversion lift reports while they’ve been in beta. According to the company, based on this early testing, people who are exposed to an advertiser’s promoted tweets are 1.4 times as likely to convert on the advertiser’s site compared to the control group.

Twitter says this indicates that a user only seeing an ad, even if they don’t click, can still have a substantial impact.

For those who actually did engage with promoted tweets during the testing, the likelihood of a conversion on the advertiser’s website was 3.2x greater than the control group.

For the record, all of the advertisers participating in the testing phase were mid to large performance advertisers. Industries included retail, financial services, media, education, and telecom.

To utilize the new reports, you’ll need to request one from your account manager. They’re available to all managed clients. You’ll also have to have one or more campaigns set to start at a future date and have conversion tracking installed.

The new offering mirrors what Facebook introduced earlier this year (also called Conversion Lift). Facebook advertisers can create campaigns and have them compared between a randomized test group and control group and have results appear in Ads Manager.

Do you see Conversion Lift from either Twitter or Facebook as particularly helpful? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Images via Twitter, Wikimedia Commons