Dive Brief:
- The moment for Twitter Moments to become a robust advertising space appears to have passed, according to Digiday.
- According to anonymous advertisers who spoke with Digiday, the cost for ads was too high and Snapchat is now commanding ad dollars that might have otherwise gone to Twitter.
- Twitter Moments rolled out nearly a year ago as a place where users could find curated tweets around trending topics.
Dive Insight:
Twitter has been struggling on the business front for the last year, with a stagnant user base and weak ad revenues two of the micro-blogging platform’s biggest issues. Now, it looks like Twitter Moments won't be the company's saving grace.
According to Digiday, advertisers' issues with Moments included a lack of reporting on metrics like impressions and engagement. Moments was ex-CEO Dick Costello’s last major feature before his resignation.
Twitter has been active in making changes to bring in new users and advertising dollars ever since Jack Dorsey came back as CEO. The platform has added features for marketers and users alike, including a dashboard tool for small businesses, a stickers feature, and a live video button. Twitter is also bringing live streaming broadcasts to the platform, with 10 NFL Thursday Night Football games coming this fall.
But a study from last month by Strata found that Twitter has been surpassed as an advertising channel by Instagram. 83 ad agencies surveyed said their clients were most likely to use Facebook, with 96% of agencies saying their cleints use the platform, followed by Instagram (63%) and Twitter (56%).
And Snapchat may not be far behind: In June, Snapchat passed Twitter in average daily users and it has been making a concerted effort to attract advertising dollars to its platform.
“A lot of the media spend Twitter used to be getting is going to Snapchat,” one digital advertising executive told Digiday.