You have been vigorously tweeting away your brands best content when you notice this friendly reminder in the top of your Twitter feed:

Taking things to the next level with the ability to capture leads, generate new followers, re-market to your existing customers, increase tweet engagement, promote your videos, generate mobile app installs, and drive traffic to the content on your website sure sounds tempting, but there are a few things you need to cross off your list before the launch of your first Twitter ads campaign. So before you put those precious marketing dollars on the line, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is my budget?

This is probably the mother of all Twitter campaign questions to ask yourself. Your budget can be small or astronomical, and no matter the case you can get results. However, it is vital to understand how much you are willing to invest in Twitter advertising before getting started. Know that a bigger budget will always get bigger results. Also know that a budget of $50 per month will most likely not increase your Twitter follower count from 50 to 1,000 followers in one month. Be sure to set realistic goals based on the budget you have to work with.

2. What are goals for this campaign?

It sounds simple, but this step is so often overlooked. It’s easy to get caught up in the urgency to use the tools to your advantage and forget the basic business goals behind the use of Twitter ads. Also, there are so many different types of campaigns to choose from, that you will want to make sure you’re investing marketing dollars into the right type of Twitter ad to meet your goals.

• Want to drive traffic to your website or a fresh piece of content hosted on your blog? A Website Clicks Twitter Campaign may be your best solution.
• Have a new app that needs to be downloaded by the masses? An app install campaign is your best bet!
• Ready for your account to get noticed by the 228 million active users on Twitter?  Start a Tweet Engagement campaign to get your best tweets in front of fresh eyes that meet your target demographic.

3. Who is my Twitter demographic?

Social media ad targeting can go into serious depth. Not only can you target women from ages 25-30, who are interested in wine and are US residents, you can take things a step further by targeting with specific keywords people of your audience may use in their Tweets.

For example, if you are selling wine you may want to target people that use the phrase “wine tasting” or “wine night” in their tweets.

Along with keyword targeting, you can use username targeting to attract users that follow specific Twitter handles. If you want to target people who follow a competitor, or industry influencer it is easily accessible.

If you’re ready to get fancy with Twitter targeting, upload a list of your e-mail subscribers or target people who have visited your website in the last few months with tailored audiences.

Mapping out demographics to fit Twitter’s targeting options will save you a ton of time and money in the long run. Here’s a little checklist to make sure you cover all basis:

• What keywords would people use when they tweet about my brand?
• What Twitter accounts does my desired target audience frequent?
• Who are the influencers in my industry and what are their Twitter handles?
• What TV shows does my Twitter audience watch?
• Who are my competitors on Twitter? Which brand’s audience would I like to capture the attention of on Twitter?
• Do I have a list of customer contact information in an excel spreadsheet that I can upload to Twitter? If not, how can I collect that information?
• Do I have the capability to place Twitter’s code snippet on my website?
• What are my Twitter followers interested in? Do they follow accounts mainly associated with business, sports, fashion, etc.

When your plan of action is mapped out and all of your Twitter questions are answered, then it will be time to put the credit card on file and start building your campaigns. And don’t worry, we won’t leave you hanging:  Part I, II, and III will teach you how to set-up each type of campaign and optimize for best performance.