Author: rssmasher

It’s been 10 months since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, and while the island has slowly started to get back on its feet, it continues to face a dearth of much-needed tourism. Enter Elena Knox and Alyssa Georg of Droga5, who realized they could use their influence to help spur a revitalization campaign, and thus…

Amid one of the most contentious periods in the history of the ad industry’s two leading trade associations — the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising
Agencies — a unique joint venture of theirs has quietly become a bright spot of Madison Avenue. Ad-ID, which celebrates its 15th anniversary today, has blossomed into an integral subcomponent for
many of the world’s leading brands and their trading partners, largely thanks to a small team of technical and service pros that have taken it from concept to code to an indispensable part of the
digital advertising and media ecosystem.

So, you’re considering taking on a marketing leadership role, perhaps as a chief marketing officer. You see two potential paths: rising the ladder at an agency or taking on a startup job. Each route has its peaks and pitfalls, and as someone who has held both kinds of roles, here is what both are really…

That moment when you realize Wall Street will never give you a break, even if you beat on revenue and report profits. #MAUproblems. Twitter’s stock tanked more than 16% in pre-market trading Friday morning based on lackluster user growth in Q2, despite reporting a 24% overall revenue uptick and a third sequential quarter of profitability.… Continue reading »

The post Twitter Loses 3M MAUs Due To Platform Cleanup, GDPR appeared first on AdExchanger.

Facebook shares closed at $217.50 apiece Wednesday, prior to the company’s release of its second-quarter 2018 earnings. And those earnings were seemingly brimming with good news: Revenue was up 42 percent year-over-year, net income rose 31 percent and both daily and monthly users climbed 11 percent over the same time period. So why did Facebook’s…

Twitter’s stock price crumbled by just under 20% early Friday as it beat analysts’ Q2 revenue estimates.

The Walt Disney Company’s $71.3 billion bid for 21st Century Fox was approved by shareholders from both companies this morning, clearing one of the biggest obstacles remaining to complete the mega-merger. Comcast dropped out of the bidding last week, and one month ago, the Justice Department approved the Disney-Fox merger. However, the deal still needs…

Did you know LinkedIn allows you to add additional users to existing conversations? Our guide will show you how this is done. Note: These screenshots were captured in the LinkedIn application on iOS. Step 1: Tap the Messages icon at the bottom of the screen to go to your message inbox. Step 2: Tap the…

Dear marketers, Consider this your open invitation to engage with agencies that don’t work to the brief. We’ve changed. Now it’s your turn. The briefing process is as old as the advertising industry itself– and the typical brief is a holdover from a bygone era where you, CMO, were the expert in what you needed….

Twitter lost 1 million monthly active users over the past three months, but the platform would rather the attention be focused on its growth in daily active users, which rose 11 percent over the year prior. In its second-quarter earnings for 2018, Twitter reported its third straight quarter of profitability with double-digit growth in revenue. Here’s what you need to know from Twitter’s first-quarter earnings report:

The key numbers: 

• 335 million monthly active users (down 1 million from the previous quarter)
• 68 million monthly active users in U.S. (down 1 million from the previous quarter)
• Profit was $100 million
• 11 percent growth in daily active users from the year prior (up 1 percent from the previous quarter)
• $771 million in quarterly revenue (up $137 million from the previous quarter)
• $601 million in advertising revenue
• Cost per engagement was down 32 percent from the previous year
• $344 million in international users (up 44 percent from the previous year)
• 16 percent of its revenue came from Japan (down 2 percent from the previous quarter)

What Wall Street wanted: 
Twitter beat revenue estimates, pulling in $711 million versus $696.2 million predicted by Thomson Reuters. Unfortunately for Twitter, analysts had predicted monthly active users to grow by about 3 million while that number actually dropped.

Twitter’s stock dropped by 3 percent in after-hours trading and continued to fall. Around 10 a.m. ET, the stock was down by nearly 16 percent. The drop in stock price also may have been affected by Twitter’s weak guidance, adjusting their projections down from last quarter.

From MAUs to DAUs  
According to Twitter, the downfall in users wasn’t just a simple abandonment of the platform. Twitter reported several effects including its focus on making conversations on the platform healthier, its decision not to pay SMS carrier relationships in certain markets and the impact of General Data Protection Regulation. Twitter estimated these factors may have reduced monthly active users by more than 3 million, which would mean Twitter did add users.

But Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has been stressing the company’s work on daily active users. He noted efforts to make the timeline more interest-based and promote more thoughtful conversation.

“When we do focus on removing some of the burden of blocking and muting accounts we do see positive results in our [user] numbers, but we have a lot more work to do. We do believe ultimately over time it will help our growth story and encourage people to stay on Twitter and inform their friends and family about it,” Dorsey said.

CHART: $TWTR #engagement
7th straight quarter of double-digit daily active user (DAU) growth at Twitter with Q2 ‘18 re-accelerating pic.twitter.com/3arGlJCF2Z

— Rich Greenfield (@RichBTIG) July 27, 2018

International growing faster than U.S. 
Twitter’s strongest user and revenue growth is coming from markets outside the U.S., and that will continue, said chief financial officer Ned Segal. Japan, in particular, remains Twitter’s second largest market. Revenue from Japan increased by 65 percent from the year prior.

When asked if Twitter’s strength in Japan is helping it grow elsewhere, Segal mentioned Twitter’s bookmarking tool and increasing from 140 to 280 characters as product improvements inspired by user activity in Japan. Twitter also said it’s focused on adapting to that country’s ad market, where agency power is concentrated.

Positive feedback from advertisers 
Dorsey highlighted Unilever CMO Keith Weed’s public praise of Twitter for making more efforts to clean up its platform. For example, Twitter recently required new users to verify an email address or a phone number to help prevent spam accounts. It also removed locked accounts from users’ follower lists.

Pleased to see @twitter taking a big stand against the fake followers polluting the digital ecosystem. Great step forward which strengthens the industry – I hope to see more following. https://t.co/EdQIoaI7n7

— Keith Weed (@keithweed) July 11, 2018

Of course, Weed’s praise came after he and other marketing executives spoke out against influencer fraud at Cannes this year.

To further please advertisers, Twitter continues to focus on video. Dorsey said his team’s been working to improve the live video product, including making it easier for users to find and participate in the conversation around it. He also touted the video website card as a “great example” of an ad product that’s received positive feedback from advertisers.

The post Twitter’s revenue is increasingly coming from international markets appeared first on Digiday.