Despite ample hype surrounding the efficacy of Twitter’s suite of mobile advertising products, it looks like the microblogging giant still lags behind its two biggest competitors in mobile, social, and advertising.
Cowen & Co. analyst John Blackledge reports that Twitter’s ads aren’t performing as well as Facebook’s or LinkedIn’s.
In fact, Twitter may not be the mobile advertising powerhouse that some of its investors seem to believe.
“Twitter is a popular social platform, but shares are too rich in our view,” Blackledge says.
Twitter’s fall 2013 IPO priced shares at $26. By the close of December, however, the stock had touched $74 per share. But it has not sustained the valuation.
According to Blackledge, fifty buyers were questioned about the effectiveness of Twitter’s ads. Only 5% said Twitter had the best return on their investment. Sixty percent said that Facebook ads perform best, followed by 25% giving the highest mark to LinkedIn.
“The data suggests the low ROI rating is tied to pricing, as respondents commented ‘high minimum ad spend’ and ‘cost of campaigns’ were negative points for Twitter’s advertising value proposition,” Blackledge admits.
