How much truth is there in Elon Musk’s claim that Apple has “almost stopped” buying ads on Twitter? New numbers can help put the real story into context.
According to internal documents seen by the Washington PostApple was Twitter’s largest ad buyer in Q1 2022. A $48 million ad buy in Q1 meant Apple accounted for 4% of Twitter’s total revenue for the quarter:
In the first quarter, Apple was the top advertiser on Twitter, spending $48 million on ads on the social network, according to a document reviewed by The Washington Post that was compiled from internal Twitter data. Apple’s spending accounted for more than 4% of Twitter’s revenue this quarter.
Elon Musk, of course, turned out to be the biggest spender on Twitter after buying the company for $44 billion in October. Now Musk says Apple is basically stopping ad spending on Twitter. New data from Pathmatics cited by Reuters compares a week of ad buying from Apple before and after the Elon deal was struck.
The world’s most valuable company spent about $131,600 on Twitter ads between November 10 and 16, compared to $220,800 between October 16 and 22, the week before Musk struck the Twitter deal. according to ad measurement company Pathmatics.
Both estimated numbers represent a massive drop from the $48 million Apple spent on Twitter ads from January to March. Unfortunately, we don’t have data that tells us how routine Twitter ad buying is for Apple at an estimated $4 million a week.
Apple has not commented to anyone on Musk’s claim. Musk also showed no data to back up his claim. The Twitter CEO, however, accused Apple of not approving Twitter’s App Store updates.
Apple’s App Store has approved five updates to the Twitter app since Elon Musk became owner and CEO of the company. This includes the November 5 release which included these colorful patch notes:
Starting today, we’re adding exciting new features to Twitter Blue, with more coming soon.
Get Twitter Blue for $7.99/month if you sign up now
Blue tick: People Power: Your account will be blue ticked, as will the celebrities, businesses, and politicians you already follow.
Coming soon…
• Half the Ads and Much Better: Since you’re supporting Twitter in the battle against bots, we’ll reward you with half the ads and make them twice as relevant.
• Post longer videos: You will finally be able to post longer videos on Twitter.
• Priority ranking for quality content: Your content will get a priority ranking in replies, mentions and search. This helps reduce the visibility of scams, spam, and bots.
Availability: Twitter Blue with verification is currently available on iOS in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Musk has since halted the Twitter Blue rollout and postponed the relaunch date a few times after utter calamity erupted when verification lost its meaning.
Elon now thinks a more thoughtful version of Twitter Blue will launch this Friday, but there are simply too many days until then to know what might happen.
When it comes to Apple ads on Twitter, sponsored tweets are the only reason @apple exists on the platform. Users continue to see tweets sponsored by Apple, although we don’t know if it’s a few hundred thousand dollars or a few million.
Disclosure: I spent $50 on this Tweeter asking twitter users to follow my instagram account today. Is that more than Apple spent on sponsored tweets? I guess not, but it includes $75 free advertising credit.
FTC: We use revenue-generating automatic affiliate links. After.
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