Dive Brief:
- Twitter dropped timeline views as its main engagement metric and only announced a replacement in its Q1 earnings report.
- However, during its annual securities filing review, SEC regulators quizzed Twitter on replacement metrics.
- Twitter told the SEC it is sharing how often users take action in response to an ad, and how much those actions cost advertisers.
Dive Insight:
Have you wondered what engagement metric was going to replace timeline views for Twitter?
If so you aren’t alone: the Securities and Exchange Commission had the same question and brought it up with Twitter during its review of the micro-blogging site's annual securities filing. Twitter told the SEC, and included in its Q1 earnings report, that the engagement measurements it shares marketers are how often users take action in response to an ad, and how much those actions cost advertisers, telling the SEC, “These metrics are intended to serve as a measure of user engagement and demand.”
According to Twitter, it eliminated timeline views as an engagement metric because product changes made it irrelevant, and in Q2 announced user engagements with ads defined as expanding, retweeting, favoriting, playing a video in an ad or downloading an advertised app, increased 53% year-over-year, and cost per ad engagement increased 6%.
