Twitter is exploring ways it can monetise the “hundreds of millions” of visitors to its platform that are not logged-in.
Following the company’s strong financial results, Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo mentioned the plans to a group of users on the company’s conference call.
When asked about the size of the ”logged-out” audience, Costolo responded: ‘I will say this: We see that as a big opportunity, obviously.”
When users are not logged in, Twitter cannot easily match or target ads to all its users. How Twitter can actually convert lurkers to become more active participants in the social network is going to be a focus for investors going forward.
Costolo acknowledged on the call, there is a reason for the social network to explore in the size of the platform’s logged out audience – be they people who read about a tweet in a paper or on TV and are compelled to visit the site itself to search for specific content or profiles without ever actually logging in.
“Twitter is everywhere. It’s all over TV,” Costolo said on the earnings call. “Those users come to Twitter looking for the content they’re told is happening and unfolding on Twitter right now, and obviously, from the numbers we’re seeing, lots of them decide not to log in.”
Last week, Twitter reported that its total number of users grew to 271 million, outpacing expectations for 267 million users.
Second-quarter revenue soared to $312.2 million, up from $139.3 million in the year-ago quarter, and its operating profit of 2 cents a share was better than Wall Street’s estimates for a loss of one penny per share.