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GENERAL
Snap, Twitter, Alphabet and Amazon Earnings for Q3
Don’t these companies know that we need to spread out our content over several days? Tsk tsk, so rude of them – putting their earnings on the same day. Oh well, we will just have to manage. Instead of going into detail for each, we’ll give you an overview and leave you with The Crew’s take on everything at the end. Let’s get to it…
Loss per share: $0.12
Revenue: $289 million
Operating income: -$335 million
Daily Active Users: 186 million, down from 188 million
Shrinking user base, slightly improving the results but losing a few millions less out of a few hundred isn’t exactly promising. One quote we found funny from Evan:
“While we have incredible reach among our core demographic of 13- to 34-year-olds in the US and Europe, there are billions of people worldwide who do not yet use Snapchat.”
We have a feeling he’s pushing the range a bit too high. Out of that core 13-34-year-old demographic, we assume many are under 25. The 25-34 range is mixed in to sound better for advertisers and purchasing power of users.
Our 2 cents at least…
Oh, and the 2 million user loss was mostly Android. Because the company seems incapable of creating a working Android app. People have only been complaining for 2-3 years. Still plenty of time left to fix it, eh?
Earnings per share: $0.21
Revenue: $758 million
GAAP Net income: $106 million
Monthly Active Users: 326 million, down from 330 million
Our favourite quote from Jack:
“We’re doing a better job detecting and removing spammy and suspicious accounts at sign-up.”
Yet verified accounts can change their names and run promoted tweets for crypto scams… You have way more work to do, Jack!
Video ads are over half of Twitter’s ad revenue though. So in case you didn’t know, video ads are the norm now, everywhere.
Earnings per share: $13.06
Revenue: $33.7 billion
Operating income: $8.3 billion
Advertising income: $24 billion
Most interesting stat: CPC went down 28% on Google properties.
Maybe it’s time to get back to Google if The Zucc has been causing you too big of a headache.
Earnings per share: $5.75
Revenue: $56.6 billion
Net income: $2.88 billion
We found it interesting that Amazon doesn’t show advertising income separate on the statements just yet.
AWS is not the highest revenue but great margin.
Overall, Amazon is growing a bit slower than some expected but they’re growing and always have big plans.
The Crew’s take on all the four
Snap is struggling. There’s not much we can say there. We would avoid putting all our advertising eggs into the Snap basket but doesn’t mean you should disregard it completely. Especially if you want to reach that under 25-year-old demographic in US.
Twitter seems to be slowly going on the right path. Not growing (for now at least) but trying to clean up their platform and they are not losing money, so there’s less pressure for them than Snap. They need to solve their ad approval process. Seems too easy to game the system right now.
*hearing hordes of affiliates going to Twitter ads to take advantage of this while still possible*
Google is being Google. Growing, but the 28% drop in CPC is not something Google likes. Means people are paying them less, obviously. It could be a good spot for advertisers to have another look at the platform though if they gave up on it before.
Amazon surprised us by not hyping their ad business more. Not much else to say there. But it’s not even close to their core business, it’s understandable.
Out of the four, Google is clearly the most interesting for advertisers. If you haven’t run campaigns there recently, think about doing it again. Twitter is not bad to test out, but keep in mind there’s always an active conversation there, much more so than Facebook.
Snap – if you have the time, patience and target youngsters in the US, check it out. Otherwise, better things to do.
Amazon – no news on its ad business. If you already are using it, cool. If not, probably not a must to jump in now. Give it another quarter.
European Parliament calls for a full audit of Facebook
Well, when you have your users’ data stolen more often than your CEO changes T-shirts, you certainly could run into trouble.
That’s the case with Facebook. The EP has had enough and is asking for a full audit of Facebook because it likely broke EU law when it comes to handling user data.
Aside from that, UK watchdog hands Facebook their maximum fine too – £500,000. Drop in the ocean for Facebook but that’s the maximum allowed under UK law.
More tough times are coming for Mark…
Are your campaigns tanking? Here’s why!
Remember that Facebook update about first-party cookies?
Well, the transition has been typical of Facebook. Not smooth, causing tons of issues for advertisers.
Here are the 2 most common issues that you should look out for immediately:
1. Social proof on landing pages
If you have an old version for the Like button plugin, your social proof (like and share counts) might be wrong. Facebook is treating all URLs as unique, forgetting to strip out the “fbclid” parameter from the links.
Unique URL means never liked or shared, thus your proof goes poof.
2. General campaign performance issues
Pixel is still buggy when using first-party cookies it seems. Many people reporting huge performance drops (way lower CTRs, extremely high CPCs).
Some people fixed it by turning off first-party cookie tracking and using the old method.
You probably have to ride out this transition for a few days, then your Pixel setup will be better off than the old version. Especially for getting data on people who use Safari and other browsers that block third-party tracking.
SPONSORED
Can branding REALLY mix with performance marketing?
It’s not easy – especially in an industry that often looks for quick returns at the cost of long-term growth.
Luckily, we got tips for this from none other than Petar Joseph, Advidi’s VP of Marketing & Communications.
First off, forget that you don’t do branding. Your brand is what other people say about you, whether you influence it or not!
With that out of the way, let’s look at some more practical tips from Petar’s interview.
Measuring ROI of branding – Think of it this way – your branding is your reputation. You don’t measure ROI when it comes to your reputation; in Petar’s words, “you guard it with your life.”
You do, however, tailor marketing campaigns that follow your branding strategy. And you measure the ROI on those.
Understand the “Zero moment of truth” – Even before someone becomes your customer, they will look for reviews about you and your product. That applies whether you are a small local pizzeria or if you are Advidi, a global performance marketing network.
People will talk, ask friends and only then decide whether they want to interact with your product or services. Branding starts THAT early!
The 3 ingredients for a powerful brand:
- Delivering on expectations – if you promise the customer something, you have to deliver it. At any point!
- Authenticity – people can see if you’re trying to BS them. Won’t work for the long-term.
- Consistency – your brand won’t be born overnight. You will have to follow your principles day and night. A great brand doesn’t have “off days”.
Those are just 3 tidbits from Petar – we recommend you check out the whole interview right here.
Petar goes into depth on why it’s the perfect time to blend branding and performance marketing (if you adopt the right strategies early enough), why Advidi built Hiro, their AI-generated logo (instead of playing it safe), the surprising similarities between branding and religion… plus more actionable tips!
ANNOUNCEMENT
We have a giveaway winner!
This person will join Kelly, Paul, Depesh, Van and Andrew on December 3rd for an exclusive mastermind dinner.
They will also get:
- An AWA 2018 ticket
- 3 months of AdPlexity for free
- 3 months of ThriveTracker with 66% off
- 2 invitations to Affiliate Business Club’s event in Bangkok
Drum roll, please!
Grats to Alberto P.! You’ll get contacted over email by someone from the WTAFF Crew so you can claim your prize. You better be opening your emails!
Time Change!
One final reminder that this weekend, Europe switches to winter time. Our newsletter will be coming to your inbox at 1:00 pm CET.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
This is why we’ll probably never understand art…
Three guys from France were bored.
They got their hands on an open-source neural network trained on public images and created a “painting”.
That painting sold for nearly half a million in London.
So in other words, they automated art creation.
But not really. Because they kind of ripped off the creator of the said neural network, Robbie Barrat.
He went on to Twitter to explain his point of view on the whole story.
Robbie is the one who trained that network, thus the painting is the result of his work.
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