Twitter is an ad based company and it relies on ad revenue to cater for administrative costs like staff salaries, running servers and for R&D purposes.
Last quarter, Twitter pulled in $548 million in revenue, of which advertising contributed 86% of the total. So in practice, advertising is the company’s core business and if they want to currently boost their revenues, they have to boost their ad revenues.
The ad business by social networks involves the companies using various ad tracking methods employed in their apps and website so that they can present a wholesome way for advertisers to effectively target the audience they want. Facebook has done this very well with a number of ad tracking strategies that has enabled the company to almost effectively reach its ad generating potential.
However, when you compare Facebook’s strategy to what Twitter has been doing over the years, the latter has been rather weak. Well now it seems Twitter has woken up and have been sending notifications of their expanded tracking ability, which feels very Facebook-like with its tracking prowess.
Initially, Twitter used to personalize your “experience” based on the apps on your phone. Now, they have decided to go deeper and wider with their tracking. This is the notice they have been displaying after the change:
“We’re updating our privacy policy. You’ll soon start to see more relevant Tweets and ads based on your visits to sites with Twitter content. We’re also working with ad partners to improve the tailored ads you already see and we’ve given you even more control over your data.”
In addition to personalizing your ads based on your apps, Twitter will now check all of your devices, check the places you have been, track you all over the web and share your data to “partners”. This in theory will make sure Twitter will serve you better ads from now on and if advertisers are happy with the return, it could mean higher revenues for the company.
Fortunately, you can opt out from being heavily tracked by Twitter using the toggles and checkmarks provided. In addition, Twitter has also added the ability to request for your Twitter data, which has been available on desktop for a while now.
