Twitter’s ad revenue grows despite Apple’s App Tracking Transparency

Facebook has been recently complaining about the effect Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature has had on the advertisement-related revenue of the company. The change has been affecting the ad industry. However, it seems one social media platform has not suffered a great impact from it just yet, and it’s Twitter. The Wall Street Journal reports the company has achieved a strong ad revenue result despite Apple’s privacy changes.

Twitter’s ad revenue grows despite the App Tracking Transparency on iPhones

Back in April, with iOS 14.5 Apple introduced App Tracking Transparency (ATT), a feature that was relentlessly criticized by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. ATT allows users to opt-out of ad-related tracking on their iPhone, preventing third-party apps to track their activity online in order to deliver targeted ads.

Not long after the new feature was introduced, iOS users were jumping on it and asking apps not to track their activity. So far, around 21% of iOS users have decided they wanted to be tracked.

This, quite understandably, has caused some changes in the advertisement industry and has impacted social media apps or apps that relied heavily on advertisements for revenue, such as Facebook, for example. But it seems Twitter was able to escape unscathed so far.

The company has reported a 37% jump in revenue for the third quarter of this year, and the revenue itself amounts to $1.28 billion, while ad sales have risen 41% in comparison to the same period of time last year. Additionally, Twitter’s shares rose more than 1% after this report.

Twitter’s revenue is not as tied to targeted ads as some of its other social-media competitors. Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal stated that the brand advertising, which generates 85% of Twitter’s ad sales, is not experiencing as much impact from Apple’s ATT.

Facebook and Snap, on the other hand, also noted that supply-chain issues that have been affecting the global economy recently have also impacted their ad sales. This is due to the fact that advertisers with less stuff to promote cut back on advertisements and spending.

However, more than 50% of the ads on Twitter are related to services and digital goods, and they have been less affected by global supply shortages. Segal stated that Twitter has not seen any meaningful impact on the performance of the company just yet.

Previously, Twitter had gone to a net loss of $537 million a year ago, when it was making a net profit of $29 million. This change was largely due to the one-time charge that the company had to pay to settle a lawsuit filed in 2016, accusing the company of misleading shareholders.

However, it seems the social media giant is not experiencing any setbacks in its growth. For example, Twitter usage, which is measured by daily active usage (monetizable), was reported to be up 13% from last year, scoring a whopping 211 million daily active users for the third quarter of 2021. In the previous quarter, the company reported an 11% growth in this metric.

Twitter is currently in the process of selling MoPub, which is a mobile ad firm, for $1.05 billion. According to the report, the company expects total revenue between $1.5 billion and $1.6 billion for the current quarter.

Twitter has also been working hard on adding new features

While the company is experiencing growth in its revenue and users, it has also been busy with adding new features to its social media platform, both on the web, and on mobile devices. Recently, Twitter rolled out the possibility to edit your follower list, Safety Mode (an automatic process to prevent harmful conversations), and other useful features.