Twitter launched a new offering yesterday, targeted tweets.

The service allows you to send tailored tweets to specific audience subsets, if you so desire (and you should). And guess what? According to this study by SocialCode, it’s pretty darned effective!

The twitter blog runs down why they decided to offer this new “targeting” service:

What if you want to make an offer just to New York Twitter users? Until today, it’s been impractical to send these kinds of highly tailored Tweets, since there was no way to reach people in New York without also reaching followers in Norway, Nebraska and Nigeria who can’t take advantage of your offer. . . .Today we’re introducing targeted Tweets, an enhancement that enables brands to reach specific audiences on Twitter without first sending a Tweet to all followers.

Yup. And here are the specifics:

SocialCode targeted a sampling of tweets, all linked to articles on Washington Post Social Reader, to assess performance by device and the correlation between tweet content and device targeted. Tweets were targeted to followers who fit into designated device groupings and also to Twitter’s own selection of “similar users” – or non-followers with comparable profiles. Engagement rates were then measured per tweet by calculating total engagement including clicks, re-tweets and replies divided by total number of impressions.

The testing resulted in high engagement rates for promoted tweets directed to users on mobile devices – Engagement rates were over two times higher than those of non-targeted tweets sent to users on all devices.

“The results captured by our initial testing of Twitter’s new offering indicate that tweets targeted to users’ devices are a more effective way to reach your audience,” said Laura O’Shaughnessy, CEO of SocialCode. “By targeting users who are most relevant to tweeted content, based on their device of choice, we are able to focus on those who are most likely to respond and react. In addition, Twitter’s commitment to distribute our tweets to a pool of ‘similar users,’ expands our tweet range to a relevant and engaged audience outside of our follower base.”

So there you have it folks. Will you be testing out Twitter’s targeted tweets? If so, go to the tweet box in ads.twitter.com.

And remember: “As with all Promoted Tweets, advertisers only pay when users engage with it, and Tweets that generate the most engagement are likely to appear more often. Simply put, advertisers are rewarded for messages that resonate with audiences.”

(Target image from Shutterstock)