Here’s what Twitter lost in advertising revenue in final months of 2022
EXCLUSIVE TO NEWYORK TIMES SQUARE/THE LOND According to estimates provided for Reuters by research firm Pathmatics, major advertisers on Twitter reduced spending after Elon Musk’s acquisition, which was the latest jolt to the company’s leading revenue source.
Pathmatics predicts that when Musk gained control of Twitter on October 27, fourteen of the top thirty advertisers pulled all of their ads. From the week before Musk’s takeover to the end of the year, four advertisers slashed their budgets by 92% to 987.
Despite an increase in spending by six of the top 30 corporations, advertising expenditures for the months of November and December plummeted by 42% to an estimated $53.8 million, according to Pathmatics.
According to Pathmatics, the previously undisclosed advertising numbers on Twitter are just estimates. The company arrives at its projections using tools that keep tabs on advertisements served in desktop browsers and the Twitter app, as well as tools that simulate the user experience.
However, Twitter promotions, trends, and accounts are not factored into these predictions, according to the business. As Pathmatics put it in an email, “it is feasible the spending statistics might be higher for some brands” if Twitter is offering incentives.
Many messages were sent to Twitter, but no one there seemed willing to comment.
Musk said he “gets it” if sponsors “want to give it a minute” in a Twitter Spaces event in November. Using Twitter yourself, he said, is “the best way to see how things are evolving” there.
Newspaper devoted to technological topics The Information reports that Twitter’s fourth quarter income dropped roughly 35% year over year due to a dip in advertising, citing information presented by a top Twitter ad executive at a staff meeting on Wednesday.
In the three months ending on June 30th, Twitter lost $270 million on revenues of around $1.18 billion. keep reading
According to Pathmatics’ projections, Twitter’s primary source of income will continue to fluctuate into 2023, primarily due to a decrease in revenue from major consumer brands.
Standard Media Index, a research firm, did not disclose any specifics regarding the decline in forward bookings (or agreements to lock in future advertisements) for the months of January and February.
Twitter is taking action to stop the loss of advertising revenue. In an effort to woo back commercial backers, it has announced a series of new policies, including the distribution of some free adverts, the removal of a restriction on political advertising, and the provision of more precise control over the placement of commercials by businesses.
“They’re fantastic incentives, to put it bluntly. I can’t recall ever seeing an advertiser offer a discount like that before “HITE Digital Miami’s owner Molly Lopez put it this way.
Mark DiMassimo, CEO of the New York-based advertising firm DiMassimo Goldstein, has speculated that “bargain basement” direct marketers and political action committees (PACs) — who are major advertisers on Meta’s Facebook — may step in to fill the void.
After spending an estimated $1.1 million on Twitter advertisements in the first half of November, Coca-Cola Co cut their budget in half by the middle of the month, and HBO saw their expenditure drop to about $38,000 in December from about $1.1 million in November, according to data compiled by Pathmatics.
Coca-Cola said it had no comment. HBO’s spokesman Chris Willard said, “we will be analysing the platform under its new leadership and determining appropriate next measures,” but he declined to comment on advertising spending in general.
Pathmatics predicts that advertising for consumer products such as Heinz ketchup and Stouffers meals was halted by Kraft Heinz and Nestle SA, respectively. Both Heinz and Nestlé declined to respond to requests for comment.
Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year, yet major retailers like Target Corp and Kohls Corp didn’t bother advertising on the social media platform, according to estimates. When reached for comment, Kohl’s did not respond.
Nonetheless, both Apple and PepsiCo boosted investment in 2018, as reported by Pathmatics.
Apple did not provide a comment when contacted. PepsiCo said they had nothing to add.
SmartAsset and Amazon.com, two companies in the financial technology industry, have both criticised Pathmatics, claiming that the company’s estimations of an uptick in advertising spending are wrong. SmartAsset claimed the numbers were “inflated,” without providing evidence, and Amazon would not comment more. To restate, our numbers are only approximations,” Pathmatics added.
Security of Brand
After Reuters reported in September that advertisements on Twitter had shown next to tweets soliciting child pornography, the number of ads on the platform began to decline, and Musk’s entrance only accelerated the trend.
The figures reveal that most businesses cut their spending in November, the same month that Musk reinstated suspended accounts and offered a paid account verification that let scammers to pose as legitimate businesses.
Concerns about the security of their respective brands led AT&T and Mars, a manufacturer of pet food, respectively, to reduce their investment in September.
Pathmatics found that while businesses reduced their spending on Twitter, they kept or even increased their marketing on the other platforms, particularly the Meta Platform’s Facebook and Instagram as well as the short video app TikTok.
The video sharing platforms Meta and TikTok did not immediately respond to demands for comment.
AT&T announced in September that it will not be running ads due to “concerns regarding content showing adjacent” to those ads. Someone who is acquainted with AT&T’s thinking has said that the corporation has been communicating with Twitter about its worries.
Mars confirmed that the suspension is still in effect.
Twitter has informed Reuters that it plans to spend money on improving its platform’s security for minors. keep reading The network relies on automation to monitor content and block abuse-prone hashtags and search results in areas such as child exploitation. keep reading
Business tweeting was also reduced. According to a Reuters analysis of the companies’ primary feeds, as of January 19 Target and Special K cereal producer Kellogg had not tweeted since October, while Coca-Cola and electronics store Best Buy Co had stopped tweeting in November.
All three of our requests for comment were ignored by Target, Best Buy, and Kellogg.