Twitter Hikes Its Promoted Trend Prices Again, to $200,000 a Day

Twitter’s ad business is still a work in progress, but here’s one positive sign: Prices for the company’s “promoted trends” have been steadily rising, and are now at the $200,000 a day mark in the U.S..

Twitter’s newest price hike went into effect earlier this year, and represents a 33 percent increase over the $150,000 rate the company was asking for in 2012. And it’s up 150 percent from the $80,000 a day it was getting for the ads back when it launched them in 2010.

The promoted trend lets an advertiser insert its own message atop the “trends” list on Twitter.com home pages and on Twitter apps; Twitter sells a single message a day, per territory. Except when it doesn’t: Today, for instance, there’s no promoted trend on the site.

Twitter started selling promoted trends after it launched its “Promoted Tweet” ads, which CEO Dick Costolo describes as the company’s “atomic unit” of its ad strategy.

But while advertisers are still trying to get their heads around paid Twitter messages — they’re not really banner ads, and they’re not really Google-like search ads — promoted trends have been a hit from the get-go. That’s because it’s the closest thing the company has to a conventional display ad: If you buy one, you’ve got a very good chance that everyone who uses Twitter that day will see it.

So at the very least, the price hike should encourage Twitter and its investors, which are gearing up the company for an eventual IPO.