Los Angeles — In its quest to expand its reach far and wide, micro-blogging outfit Twitter has beefed up its efforts to draw revenue from its growing user base Asia by bringing in its first advertising partner for Southeast Asia, after Komli Media revealed it had secure an exclusive deal to sell its Promoted Products in the region, as it looks to 2013 as a key year for international expansion.
Making an announcement on Thursday, Twitter VP of international revenue Shailesh Rao, mentioned that Southeast Asia is one of the company’s fastest-growing markets.
Expounding on the alliance Rao said, “We are really thrilled to be working with Komli as we enter into Southeast Asia, which is one of Twitter’s fastest-growing markets.”
To cement its association, Twitter is expanding its ad products that includes its advertising tools–promoted tweets, promoted accounts and promoted trends–will now be available in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. The tools were previously only available in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and Latin America.
According to media reports, advertisers so far could easily target global campaigns to reach consumers in Southeast Asia, but this marks the first opportunity for local advertisers to launch local campaigns, according to the company.
“We are seeing considerable interest from marketers who want to use our Promoted Products to flourish their businesses and connect with consumers,” Rao claimed, “and working with Komli, and its management team, gives Twitter a strong partner with a footprint throughout the region.”
Rather than enter the market directly, Twitter has inked an exclusive partnership with Komli Media to enable the expansion of its promoted products across the region. Komli specializes in digital advertising in the Asia Pacific area. It will manage all Twitter Promoted Products sales in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Komli also says it plans to offer educational and training programs for marketers in the area to “help develop the regional market for Twitter and its Promoted Products.”
More importantly, Komli will head all Southeast Asia sales for Twitter advertising products and help develop the regional market for Twitter and its promoted products through education and training programs for agencies and large advertisers.
Ali Jafari, director, sales operations, Twitter, said the collaborative approach is a “much more practical and scalable” way to enter the market.
“We really consider them [Komli Media] as an extension of our own sales team, so they will be getting the same training as our sales team, they will have access to the same tools and metrics,” he said. “We think that is the healthiest way to enter the market.”
As a matter of fact, Southeast Asia boasts a combined population of 600 million people but, more importantly, some of its biggest markets are there. Semiocast estimates that Indonesia and the Philippines are home to the micro-blogging hub’s fifth and tenth biggest user bases, while three cities from the region–Indonesia’s Jakarta (1st) and Bandung (6th), and Singapore (11th)–are among its top 20 global cities.
Having said that, Komli already has similar partnerships with Zynga and Facebook, and the firm has a strong hold across Southeast Asia, especially after it bought Admax Networks, one of the region’s biggest Web advertising networks, in an undisclosed deal in February.
Moreover, Komli is one of Asia’s largest Web advertising firms and, as well as Southeast Asia, it covers India — where it is headquartered — and other markets. It has raised a total of $60 million in funding from Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners and others.