It Was a Busy Holiday Weekend for Elon Musk, Twitter

Twitter owner Elon Musk issued several updates via tweet over the long holiday weekend involving new user signups and active minutes on the platform, progress on hate speech and impersonation, new performance advertising solutions, the next steps of its verification process and new features for users. Musk said in a tweet Saturday that the social platform reached an all-time high of more than 2 million user signups per day over the seven days prior to the tweet, up 66% compared with the same week last year, and nearly 8 billion daily active user minutes, up 30% over the same time period. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1596718851097755648 According to Musk, Twitter had 253,865,365 monetizable daily active users as of Nov. 20. He added that hate speech impressions returned to the levels seen prior to his acquisition of the company after two huge spikes in recent weeks, indicating that the same was true for accounts reported for impersonation, which also spiked three times with the bungled addition of verification to subscription service Twitter Blue. Group product manager Justin Hoang, director of product Dan Kang and staff product manager Tong Wang introduced three new performance advertising solutions in a blog post just prior to Thanksgiving: Website Conversions Optimization, Dynamic Product Ads and Collection Ads. All three new offerings are now available globally. Hoang, Kang and Wang described Website Conversions Optimization as a major rebuild of the platform’s conversion goal that will enable advertisers to reach users most likely to convert on lower-funnel website actions such as add to cart or purchase. Advertisers identify a specific goal beyond the landing page visit (add to cart, leads, purchase or subscribers) and Twitter’s algorithms will target the users most likely to help them meet those goals, with the company saying initial testing resulted in 25% lower costs per conversion, on average. The Twitter Pixel or Conversion API (application-programming interface) are required in order for advertisers to use Website Conversions Optimization. Dynamic Product Ads, which Twitter initially discussed pre-Musk in July, help advertisers show the most relevant product to the right person at the right time in order to drive sales and conversions. DPA Retargeting lets advertisers serve ads to targeted customers featuring products they engaged with on the advertiser’s website, such as adding it to their shopping cart, but where the purchase was never completed. And DPA Prospecting helps advertisers acquire new customers who have not yet visited their websites through ads featuring specific products that are most relevant to them. Hoang, Kang and Wang said advertisers using feed management platforms for their product catalogs can extend their product strategies onto the Twitter platform via integrated Twitter Marketing Partners. They added that initial testing saw costs per acquisition improve by 30% to 88% and, like Website Conversions Optimization, the Twitter Pixel or Conversion API is necessary. And Collection Ads, which the social network began testing in March, let advertisers showcase several product images via a primary hero image and smaller thumbnails below it, creating an immersive experience in which users can scroll through the thumbnails, with each driving them to a different landing page if they click through. Twitter said initial testing saw a 42% increase in average click-through rate and a 54% increase in average conversions per impression. Back to the subject of verification, Musk tweeted Friday, “Sorry for the delay, we’re tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week (Dec. 2). Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates. Painful, but necessary.” https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1596053664338440192 Finally, Musk mentioned upcoming features in his Saturday tweet, including encrypted direct messages, longform tweets and payments.

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It Was a Busy Holiday Weekend for Elon Musk, Twitter

New performance advertising solutions were introduced, along with updates on users, hate speech, verification

David Cohen

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