Twitter Inc said it was testing a feature to show advertisements to people who read tweets without logging in, as it tries to make good on its long-time ambition to monetize non-active users.
The company said the feature will help it cash in on an additional half a billion people each month, pushing its shares up as much as 7.8 percent to $26.21 on Thursday - their biggest percentage gain in two months.
The promoted tweets and videos will be available on Twitter's desktop website, particularly on people's profile pages and "tweet detail" pages that highlight specific tweets.
The move will be welcomed by advertisers who have shied away from Twitter saying it doesn't have enough users, unlike rival Facebook Inc, which boasts more than 1.55 billion monthly active users .
Twitter has 320 million MAUs.