Commentary
Lots of Sightings, Not A Lot of Ad Relevance
- by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, August 28, 2015
This year, 53.1 million US Internet users will access their Twitter accounts via any device at least monthly, according to eMarketer estimates confirmed and republished earlier this month. This equates to nearly three in 10 social networkers and just over a fifth of Internet users.
The recent study, though, suggests many users are seeing a lot of these ads, and they don’t find them all that effective. According to June 2015 research from Cowen and Company, 56.6% of US adult Twitter users saw ads at least every 20 tweets. 18.2% of respondents were most likely to see such placements every 10 tweets. Fewer than a quarter never saw any ads on the social network.
Frequency Of US Twitter Users (18+) Seeing Ads On Twitter (% of Respondents) | |
Frequency Seen | % of Respondents |
Every 5 Tweets | 5.8 |
Every 10 | 18.2 |
Every 15 | 17.1 |
Every 20 | 15.5 |
Every 30 | 8.1 |
Every 50 | 11.7 |
Never | 23.6 |
Source: Cowen&Co/SurveyMonkey, July 2015 | |
However, users generally viewed these ads as irrelevant. When Cowen asked Twitter users about the relevance of Twitter ads to their interests, just 3.1% said they were relevant and insightful. Just over a quarter said they were OK, while nearly six in 10 viewed such placements as not really relevant or a poor fit.
The results suggests that advertisers need to step up targeting capabilities if they want to reach the right audience on Twitter, something Cowen noted that Twitter’s recent acquisition of TellApart and partnership with Google’s DoubleClick should help improve.
Relevance Of Twitter Ads (According to Users) | |
Relevancy | % of Respondents |
Relevant and insightful | 3.1% |
OK | 26.0 |
Not really relevant | 45.1 |
Usually a poor fit | 13.6 |
Other | 12.2 |
Source: Cowen&Co/SurveyMonkey, July 2015 |
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Further, the forecast in March 2015 indicated that US Twitter ad revenues would rise 62.1% this year to $1.34 billion and that Twitter paid ad spending per Twitter user would increase 48% to reach $25.25.
Retail (55.5%), app install (42.1%) and travel (36.3%) are the most common types of Twitter ads seen by respondents, while 28.1% saw financial services placements and 27.4% video.
For more information about this report, please visit here.
Jack Loechner is the Editor of The Center for Media Research's daily Research Brief. You can reach him at jack@mediapost.com.
Actually, the way I read the table, above, a lot of Twitter ads are not seen. However, studies of this type cant really define the extent of ad exposure as too many respondents will deny that they see ads often---when they actually do. Moreover, the generally low "relevance" ratings given to the ads are also suspect. Posed in a generalized way the question begs for a negative answer, which is exactly what it got---from most respondents. Who's going to admit that they find ads, generally, worthwhile? The only way to get at this is to research specific ad campaigns.