Twitter keeps fingers crossed on ad growth in US election month

In Q2, many brands slowed or paused spending in reaction to US civil unrest, only to increase spend relatively quickly thereafter in an effort to catch up.

New Delhi: Admitting that it’s hard to predict how advertiser behaviour could play out in the election month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said it is good to see people find relevant topics around US presidential polls and Covid-19 that are interesting to them.

In Q2, many brands slowed or paused spending in reaction to US civil unrest, only to increase spend relatively quickly thereafter in an effort to catch up.

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“We have an opportunity to show people a much broader aspect of Twitter than just what they see with news and politics,” Dorsey told the analysts during the company’s earnings call on Thursday.

“One of the things that we’re excited about and that we saw during the Covid quarantines and also during the election is now that we do have topics to follow, people are coming for one reason and staying, because they find relevant topics that are interesting to them”.

According to Ned Segal, Twitter’s CFO, as the company looks ahead, the periods surrounding the US election is somewhat uncertain.

“But we have no reason to believe that September’s revenue trends can’t continue or even improve outside of the election-related window,” Segal said.

“We remain confident that our larger audience, coupled with ongoing revenue product improvements, new events and product launches and the tendency of advertisers to respond positively to the choices we’ve made as we’ve grown the service, can drive great outcomes over time,” he stressed.

November is a little harder to predict because of the US presidential election.

“But I think what we learned in November around the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States is that when advertisers do choose to pause or slow down because there’s a more important discussion happening on our service,” Segal further explained.

But when they come back, “they often spend through that budget that they had set aside for Twitter because their objectives and their reach goals haven’t changed”.

According to Dorsey, Twitter saw 70 million accounts followed Topics which is up 40 per cent quarter-over-quarter.

“All this gives us a much stronger signal because it’s much more direct intent. So not only does it help the experience for the individual, but also it should give a stronger signal into our business as well, but it provides a greater surface area for us to really improve so much about our offering,” Dorsey said.