The program, which Twitter announced in April 2010, is available to anyone with a credit card who wants to take advantage of Promoted Products. However, the option isn't yet open to the public.
"This is an important step in continuing to grow Twitter’s business," said Twitter rep Matt Graves via email. "Our Promoted Products can help small and medium-sized businesses build their audience on Twitter and better engage with the people they want to reach. As with all of our advertising efforts, we’re starting small, testing carefully and making improvements on as we learn what works. We will slowly roll this capability out to more advertisers in the coming weeks and months."
Twitter has indeed been taking its time with the initiative. A year ago, the company rolled out a turn-key advertising solution that lets marketers express their interest in advertising. However, such potential advertisers were not able to actually buy ads until last month. The timing of the self-serve ad platform was not a surprise. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has stated that the company planned to introduce such a program before year's end.
Twitter, a private company, doesn't disclose details of its financial performance. However, eMarketer estimates that Twitter made $45 million from advertising in 2010 and will earn $139.5 million this year, a 210% jump.