Top Twitter Statistics – Updated August 2021

Twitter Statistics

Twitter released the fourth-quarter results for 2020 on February 9, 2021.  We will let you know as soon as new data points are updated moving forward.  We are finding that a large number of digital marketers are increasingly leveraging the power of Twitter to extend the message of their brand.  To frankly and openly discuss the potential power of all social media channels email Dan Noyes at dnoyes@zephoria.com to discuss how these changes could impact your brand.

  1. Core Metric Reporting – Twitter has increased their year-over-year Monetizeable Daily Active Users (mDAU) by 27 percent year over year to $192 million monetizable daily active users (mDAU) worldwide.  This also seems to reflect what we heard from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for Q3,  this growth was driven by (the) global conversation around current events and product improvements,” Revenue for Q4 was $1.29 billion, a year-end increase of 28 percent year-over-year.
    • Highlighted Key Metrics:
      • Q2 2021:  Monetizable Daily Active Users (mDAU) Worldwide is 206 million compared to 186 million for Q2 2020.
      • Average mDAU for the United States in Q2 2021 was 37 million compared to Q2 2020 which was 36 million.
      • The average International mDAU in Q2 2021 was 169 million compared to Q2 2020 which was 150 million users.
      • Total advertising revenue was $1.05 billion, an increase of 87%, or 85% on a constant currency basis. Data licensing and other revenue totaled $137 million, an increase of 13%, primarily driven by MoPub
      • Total ad engagements increased 32% due to our growing audience and increased demand for ads on a year-over-year basis.
      • Cost per engagement (CPE) increased 42%, primarily driven by like-for-like price increases across most ad formats due to the impact of COVID last year. As a reminder, CPE is an output of Twitters ads auction process and will vary from one period to another based on geographic performance, auction dynamics, the strength of demand for various ad formats, and campaign objectives.
  2. Background:  Twitter has said that mDAU consists of two parts:  1.)  It shows when a Twitter user logs into their account or accesses Twitter on any given day through Twitter.com or a Twitter application and 2.) that they are able to see ads.  This would avoid counting spam accounts and the traffic they represent.  Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, said “…we continued to leverage machine learning to deliver more relevant content, driving increased usage of Twitter on a daily basis, with mDAU up 14% year-over-year.”  To learn more you might want to read the Q2 2019 Letter to Shareholders (https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx).  We are excited to see how this growth in daily active users continues to change over time.  (source:  Twitter)
    • Legacy Reporting Metrics.  The last time Twitter reported their Monthly Active Users (MAU) Worldwide: 330 million monthly active users Q1 2019 versus 321 for Q4 2018 and 326 million for Q3 2018.  However, please note this was not reported for Q3 or Q4 2019 as noted below. The new key metric we’ll need to monitor moving forward, according to Twitter, will be mDAU or Monetizeable Daily Active Users as shared above.
    • Legacy Historical Trends (Provided due to data metrics provided): First-quarter 2019 metrics represent a 2 million MAU increase in the United States from 66 million MAU for Q4 2018.  By comparison Quarter 1 2018 was 69 million MAU. In contrast, the fourth quarter of 2017 and first quarter 2018 numbers showed an increase of 6 million in total Global MAU from 330 million MAU (Q4’17) to 336 million (Q1’18) MAU. Previous increases may have been due, in part, to new technology improvements. According to Twitter, “In Q1, we further refined the timeline to display a broader set of Tweets from a person’s network and applied deep learning models to show the most relevant Tweets first.”  (source: Twitter)
      • Twitter Monthly Active Users (MAU) United States 68 million Q1 2019.  This represents a two percent increase from the previous quarter which showed 66 million for Q4 2018 and then 67 million for Q3 2018. (source: Twitter)
      • Twitter Monthly Active Users (MAU) International is 262 million for Q1 2019 which is a three percent increase in MAUs over the previous quarter with was 255 million active international users. (source:  Twitter)
      • Daily Active User (DAU) year-over-year growth has increased by 11 percent for 2019.  This is an increase from Q4 year over year growth which represented a 9 percent growth.

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About the Author

Dan Noyes

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Dan Noyes is the principal consultant of Zephoria Inc., a digital marketing consulting company based in Sarasota, Florida. Dan has more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing with a focus on search engine optimization, social media, and marketing-focused web development for both large brands in the US as well as several emerging growth global companies. Dan is also passionate about training the next generation of digital marketers and routinely works with and mentors these talented professionals about adopting digital marketing best practices. To learn more contact Dan at dnoyes@zephoria.com.

Additional Resources

To learn more about Twitter statistics you’ll love the information from Twitter themselves (https://s22.q4cdn.com/826641620/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/FINAL-Q4’20-TWTR-Selected-Metrics-and-Financials.pdf)