Twitter is still years behind Facebook in terms of advertising, according to Axiom analyst Victor Anthony, who cites data from the company’s marketing partner Ampush. Anthony notes that new advertisers still struggle to “learn to effectively” launch campaigns on Twitter.
A good Q1 for Twitter
However, the analyst did acknowledge that Twitter has seen a “big pick up” in advertising dollars in the first quarter of 2015, though no numbers to back the claim were provided by the analyst. Anthony notes, “those who come to understand how to utilize Twitter’s ad platform are seeing really good results in terms of click-through rates, downloads, and conversions to sales.”
The analyst noted that e-commerce companies are displaying impressive performance when they align specific products to events such as athletic sneakers with the Super Bowl or shoes and tuxedos with the Oscars. This way, not just the number of downloads increases for advertisers, but also their first day purchases are unmatched even “in a way they cannot effectively do with Facebook because of the live nature of Twitter.”
Axiom has reiterated his Buy rating on Twitter and assigned a price target of $60, which is based on 40x estimated 2016 EBITDA. Anthony expects Twitter will grow revenues and adjusted EBITDA at 54% and 79% CAGRs, respectively, over three years (2014-17).
New features helping
In a note issued on March 9, Michael Graham of Canaccord Genuity maintained his Buy rating on the micro-blogging with a price target of $56. Graham believes that the company will continue to work toward enriching user and advertiser experiences. Also new features fielded by Twitter are helping shares gain positive sentiments from investors.
Various other analysts have also covered Twitter recently. Tigress Financial maintained a Hold rating on the stock in a research note on Feb. 17. The Street analysts raised their rating on Twitter from Sell to Hold in a research note on Feb. 10. Wunderlich analysts increased their price target from $45 to $50 and assigned a Hold rating to the stock in a research note on Feb. 9. Twitter currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $52.38.
On Thursday, Twitter shares closed up 1.73% at $47.07.
