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Comparing Ad Performance of Social Networks
Comparing Ad Performance of Social Networks
Comparing Ad Performance of Social Networks
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As for me, I’m not planning to buy any Twitter stock. I’ve always said that
Facebook makes a weak showing when it comes to ad performance for direct
response marketing (lead generation), especially compared to comparable
o erings from Google. But what about Facebook vs. Twitter? The fact is,
Facebook ads have improved a great deal since the IPO last year, but Twitter
still needs a lot of work as an advertising platform.
I dug into some data to nd out if Twitter ads actually work and how they
measure up to Facebook. I compared the two social networks in four
categories:
What I found is that Facebook is doing OK, but not great by any means – see
one Forrester analyst’s recent open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, pointing out
that Facebook comes dead last on a satisfaction index of digital
marketing channels. Still, in terms of key numbers like Revenue per Visitor,
Facebook is beating Twitter.
Twitter has decent reach, but not nearly as large, with 232 million active users
posting 500 million tweets a day.
According to the Wall Street Journal, that’s just not enough of an audience for
some advertisers. This much smaller reach is probably why Twitter claims just
13% of social media advertising budgets compared to 57% for Facebook.
One exact comparison is revenue per visitor (RPV): $0.93 for Facebook
compared to $0.44 for Twitter. Facebook’s RPV is double that of Twitter’s, but
note that Twitter’s RPV is up 300% year over year, while Facebook’s RPV has
only improved by 39% YoY. (Facebook’s rst click revenue per visitor is also
double that of Twitter: $1.63 and $0.82, respectively.) Further, share of social
referred visits is down for Facebook (at 62%, down 20% YoY), while Twitter’s
share of social visits is just 6.8%, but growing fast, up 258% year over year).
By my estimation, Twitter still has a lot to prove, maybe even more than
Facebook.
Note, also, that Facebook only has one native ad format in the Facebook app,
the App Promotion Ad. All Twitter ads show up both on desktop and mobile.
Here’s how the two networks are doing in terms of mobile performance
metrics:
While Facebook currently leads in mobile market share, expect big growth
from Twitter in this area. By 2015, Twitter is expected to net $1.33 billion in
worldwide ad revenue, and more than 60% of that will be from mobile ads.
App ads
Domain ads
Mobile app ads
O er ads
Page-like ads
Page post link ads
Page post photo ads
Page post text ads
Page post video ads
Sponsored stories
According to Robert Hof at Forbes, “rather than having to plan their campaign
around which of 27 ad formats to use, advertisers instead will make choices
on what they want to accomplish–such as amassing fans, getting people to
install their app, or driving people to physical stores–and Facebook’s ad
system will suggest the right kinds of ads to run.” My take is a little more
cynical – in my view Facebook basically admitted that more than half of
its ad formats didn’t work. This is generally not a great sign.
Promoted tweets
Promoted accounts
Promoted trends
My guess is they will introduce more ad options in the next year or so.
Historically Twitter is slower to release new features than, say, a Google. (Not
that the recent shift to include images in timelines is probably meant to
increase ad clicks.)
Everyone seems to agree that both Twitter and Facebook are lacking when it
comes to tracking, measurement, and analytics.
Larry Kim
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