In the weeks after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, many advertisers paused spending on the platform, wary of the changes the multi-billionaire might bring to the beleaguered social media platform.
Aisha Counts and Kurt Wagner for Bloomberg:
Months later, many still haven’t returned, despite efforts by Twitter’s sales team to woo them back with steep discounts and new safety tools…
Twitter’s top ad customers historically have included marquee names like HBO, Amazon, IBM and Coca-Cola… Major brands such as Mondelez International Inc., Coca-Cola Co., Merck & Co. Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and AT&T Inc. still hadn’t resumed ad spending on the platform as of February, according to Pathmatics.
There are other issues. Advertisers are reducing their digital spending more generally, due to economic pressures and a reduction in ad effectiveness after Apple Inc. implemented new privacy rules on iPhones — a change that’s affecting Twitter’s competitors, too.
During an interview on Bloomberg Television in late February, WPP Plc’s Mark Read, who runs the largest media agency in the world, said he thought Twitter “seems to be a lot more stable” than it had been a few months earlier. “I think clients want to start to look about how they can come back onto Twitter,” he added. During his Morgan Stanley interview, Musk thanked Read for his support, and called out Apple and Walt Disney Co. as advertisers that “stuck with us.”
Since Musk took over, FinanceBuzz has actually seen ad performance improve. The company primarily measures performance in terms of conversions, or how many users visit its website after viewing an ad. Delbecque thinks changes to Twitter’s algorithm, which controls where, when and why ads are shown, have led to better conversion rates. Twitter is “definitely on par with other platforms,” he said.
MacDailyNews Take: Earlier this month at a Morgan Stanley media conference, Musk also expressed gratitude to Apple and Disney for being long-term partners. “Thank you,” he said. “The most important thing is that the advertising is effective, that it is relevant and that it moves the needle for a company.”
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