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Google is now running Twitter’s Promoted Tweets ads in its Realtime Search page, a coup for the microblog trying to extend its money-making opportunities outside of Twitter.
Promoted Tweets marks Twitter’s first foray into online advertising, letting advertisers such as Starbucks pay $100,000 to push their products on Twitter.
Promoted Tweets are available in Twitter.com search results and its timelines and through Twitter partners, which is how they landed on Google’s Realtime search page, Twitter confirmed to eWEEK.
Search Engine Land spotted a Promoted Tweet on Google’s Realtime Search page after doing a search for Verizon, which readers may view here. Note that the ad looks like any other Promoted Tweet users see on Twitter.
SEL said Google and Twitter are sharing the money earned from clicks on those tweets in a 50-50 split.
The ads will only show up in real-time searches, which users access directly from the Google Realtime page or by clicking the updates tab on search results pages.
A Twitter spokesperson told eWEEK the move is part of Twitter’s push to display relevant Promoted Tweets on Websites from Twitter partners such as HootSuite, TweetDeck and Google, with whom Twitter inked a search deal last year.
“We’re excited to be working with the Google team to provide relevant Promoted Tweets through Realtime Search. Now, as people search for information on what’s happening now through Google, they can discover interesting information, accounts and people they might otherwise have missed,” the spokesperson said.
The Promoted Tweets, which will always appear at the top of search results pages for high visibility, are fairly unobtrusive.
Still, Twitter said that it will be paying close attention to how Twitter users react to and engage with Promoted Tweets through Google’s Realtime Search.
The move comes days after Twitter began testing Promoted Tweets in its timelines. That should present a fairly stiff test for Twitter.
While not all Twitter users may search Twitter.com, they certainly can’t avoid the timelines atop their Twitter pages.
Users could protest the ads, and are likely to do so by tweeting in Twitter, which offers the ultimate medium for such rants.