Twitter testing full-screen ads on Fleets, its version of Instagram's Stories

Twitter wants to double its income by the end of 2023.
Twitter wants to double its income by the end of 2023 Photo credit: Getty Images

Twitter's Fleets, its competitor to the Story functionality of rival platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, is going to be testing full-screen advertising starting today.

The social media giant rolled out the ephemeral Fleets functionality to all users in November last year but this is the first time it's being monetised.

The trial, initially only for users in the US, will bring full-screen, vertical ads on both iOS and Android platforms.

Fleet ads support both images and video of up to 30 seconds in length. Advertisers can also include a 'call to action'. 

"We want to understand how this content performs for customers not just for Fleet ads, but for future iterations of full-screen formats on Twitter," Justin Hoang, a senior product manager and Austin Evers, global product marketing manager wrote in a blogpost.

"We also believe that ads should be non-intrusive and bring value to people, so we're focused on learning more about how people feel about and engage with this new placement."

Twitter has set a goal of doubling its annual revenue from 2020 levels by 2023, which would take it to US$7.5 billion. Ad revenue grew 32 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of the year to US$899 million.

The social media company also wants to double its daily active user base, taking it from 152 million at the end of 2019 to 315 million by the end of 2023.