Dozens of Twitter employees in the sales and engineering departments were laid off last week, including one of Musk’s direct reports who managed engineering for Twitter’s ad business, according to company sources and social media posts from Musk. affected employees seen by the edge. This means that Musk has done at least three rounds of layoffs since his promise to stop making them in November. Meanwhile, he’s given a directive internally to revamp the way ads are targeted in the main Twitter feed within a week, part of his plan to fix what he’s got. called publicly “the worst ad relevance on Earth”. (Information first reported that the fresh cuts reached the sales team last week).
Musk’s plan is to change the targeting of Twitter ads to work like Google search ads, which are targeted primarily by keywords being searched for, rather than a user’s activity and profile data. It’s an approach that works well for a search engine, where people express their specific intent to find something, and it has helped Google build one of the most profitable businesses of all time. But it hasn’t worked for a social media business to date.
In a tweet on Saturday, Marcin Kadluczka, the fired monetization engineering manager who reported directly to Musk, hinted at the unfeasibility of the one-week deadline. in a tweet: “I think Twitter can really improve ads in 2-3 months (though not necessarily a week).” I have confirmed that Musk gave the aggressive deadline just before Kadluczka and others in the advertising, consumer and sales organizations were fired last Friday.
This is where I will note that Musk gave a similar deadline to renew Twitter Blue when he first bought the company that was missed. You might also change your mind about how ads on Twitter should work. He did not respond to an email requesting comment.
Improving Twitter ads has been a key focus for Musk since he bought the company. He has correctly pointed out that Twitter ads are less personalized and effective than their competitors. (As my colleague Nilay Patel likes to say, criticizing the Musk era of Twitter is in no way an endorsement of the previous regime.) But it’s not clear whether changing the targeting to be based on keywords like Google Ads will actually improve the quality of Twitter advertising. , as others with a better understanding of tradeoffs than I have pointed out:
