‘Apple’s changes to ad-tracking had ‘lower than expected’ impact on revenues’

“To support App Tracking Transparency (ATT), we issued prompts to 100% of iOS 14.5 or higher accounts that used the Twitter iOS application in Q2, and extended support for SKAdNetwork’s view-through attribution capabilities to our Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs), allowing them to compare performance from opted-in versus opted-out audiences,” the company said in its letter.

Further, Twitter reported a 74% year-over-year increase in revenue, citing a “broad increase in advertiser demand”. The company beat Wall Street’s expectations, posting $1,190 million in revenues, up from $683 million in the second quarter of last year. Total advertising revenue amounted to $1.05 billion, an increase of 87% year-on-year.

Apple’s App Tracking Transparency update, which started rolling out to users in April, stops advertisers from tracking users via cookies. The feature, which has been vehemently opposed by social media giant Facebook, was expected to affect such businesses significantly. Facebook had said earlier that over 80% of its users will choose to stop Facebook and Instagram from tracking their activity across the internet. Tracking users’ activity across the internet allows platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter and Instagram to deliver accurate targeted advertising to users.

Further, Twitter also said that the total number of users logging into the platform grew by 11% year-on-year in the second quarter. Average monetizable daily active users, that is users who can see Twitter’s ads, grew to 206 million in this quarter, as compared to 186 million in the same quarter last year.

“In Q2, with the onset of the second wave of COVID-19 in India, Twitter emerged as a real-time lifeline as people turned to the service seeking and offering help to secure life-saving facilities, medicines, food, and credible information,” the company said in the letter.