Twitter’s Promoted Tweets program was launched in beta a couple of months back and first results are beginning to come in. On Wednesday online brokerage company Zecco released data on the engagement levels and effectiveness of their first 50 Promoted Tweets.

In comparison to Zecco’s normal Twitter account tweets, the Promoted Tweets apparently achieved an average of 50% greater engagement, with up to 300% greater engagement in some instances. If these firgures pan out for other advertisers in the beta trial, it seems as though Twitter may finally have found a sustainable business model, even as many performance marketers see diminishing returns from their own use of the platform.

Zecco use of the new service is focused on brand engagement: they’re showing paid tweets that are contextually relevant to the user’s Twitter search terms, and while they describe this initiative as a branding opportunity, it’s clear they want to drive new conversions as well as increased activity among existing customers.

Now, these are Zecco’s claimed figures, and they come lacking any additional details of the methodology employed or supporting analysis, so they should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt. There isn’t even any additional comment on the Zecco’s CEO blog.

But, coming hard on the heels of Twitter’s recent move to force all Twitter tools providers to register and be approved in order to use the Twitter API, this shows Twitter’s desire to be a grown-up company and to be around for a while. For performance marketers, once the beta phase ends and the Promoted Tweets program is opened up to everybody, there are bound to be arbitrage opportunities to be found. Watch this space.