Twitter is quite far behind Google and Facebook when it comes to advertising. The microblogging company has dabbled with sponsored links and hashtags, but compared to Facebook and Google it is lacking in one major thing: information.

Information drives the economy of today's Internet adverts. Google and Facebook know gender, age, interests, current job/past jobs, websites and apps you have viewed in the past and a lot more.

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Having all of this information allows Facebook and Google to market ads directly to the right customers. Video game enthusiasts tend to see the next upcoming triple-A release, fashion fans will most likely see cosmetics and beauty products.

Twitter - on the other hand - knows minimal amounts about the user. It does refine the trending page to personal tastes, but it does not show any advertisements necessarily tailored to the customer.

In order to build up the portfolio of information Facebook and Google possess, Twitter will now start tracking what apps an iOS or Android user downloads.

Most social companies utilize this feature, like a tracking cookie for the smartphone. It allows Facebook to offer tailored ads, depending on apps installed. It allows Google to do much of the same, although not to the same degree as Facebook.

Twitter has confirmed it will only be able to see the app downloaded, it cannot and will not go further and start watching what the user does inside the app.

The new information will allow Twitter to take note of most popular categories on the user's smartphone and potentially offer other apps to download, or even offer deals on apps already downloaded on the smartphone.

Twitter is making a big effort with mobile advertising, after a poor amount of growth on the web. The microblogging company has acquired quite a few mobile advertising startups in the past year, to bolster its ad strength.

Facebook is still leagues ahead of both Google and Twitter when it comes to mobile ads. The social networks offers its own API for developers, allowing them to plug-in Facebook ads to other applications.

TagsMobile Ads, tracking