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Smoke and Mirrors: How Snap and Pinterest Hide User Attrition
- gregmac 8y agoHm, interesting, I thought this would be more about how these companies define "active user". For example: is a user with the app installed, logged in and running in the background considered "active" that day, even if they don't actually launch or really use the app? If you send them a notification, even if they don't click on it, are they 'active'? Normally I'd be cynical and say it's in the company's interest to be as loose as possible how they count 'active' so the MAU/DAU (monthly/daily active users) numbers are high, but if you are looking at ARPU (average revenue per user) then a lower MAU/DAU means higher ARPU. What's more valuable?
- ghostly_s 8y agoI'm particularly interested in whether Pinterest is counting users as 'active' if they have the pin extension installed and displaying their annoying overlay buttons on websites but are not actually pinning anything or visiting the site.
- cycrutchfield 8y ago>For example: is a user with the app installed, logged in and running in the background considered "active" that day, even if they don't actually launch or really use the app? If you send them a notification, even if they don't click on it, are they 'active'? I’m not aware of any company that defines active user in this way. Typically for an app it would have to be an explicit user interaction such as opening the app to count as an active user for that day.
- DataSciGuy_401 7y agoThe ARPU numbers that are reported are for the quarter, so they just take total revenue / # of users present on the service in the quarter. They don't look at MAU or DAU for that calculation (if they did, they'd be reporting ARPDAU or ARPMAU, which are industry-standard terms).
- scrooched_moose 7y agoAnecdotally that's been fun to observe in the media. I remember at one point it was "Hours/day of engagement per user". At some point it became Active Users (at least once per day). Recently it's been Active Users (at least once per month). I've never gone back to look at official filings or press releases from any company, but it feels like they're constantly redefining how widespread they are.
- liuliu 7y agohttps://drz.today/2019/mdau-dau-and-the-growth-hacks-for-high-growth-companies/ https://drz.today/2019/mdau-dau-and-the-growth-hacks-for-hig...
- thanatropism 8y agoPinteres has poor marketing. I've always heard of it as something aimed at women and architects, full of decoration and hairstyle concepts. But they have, to my knowledge, an impressive catalog of (i) really niche erotica (maybe bordering on pornography, but not in the bad taste that databases of pornography have) and (ii) abstract art, both in more common settings (color field, etc.) and in more niche types such as asemic writing. There's just so much asemic writing on Pinterest! On facebook I used to follow many artists; when I quit facebook I was thirsty for art for a long while. The effect is that Pinterest seems to have unending quantities of that very specific material, much like YouTube has seemingly unending quantities of music that's not officially licensed for streaming anywhere (hours upon hours of Japanese and Polish jazz...)
- ghostly_s 8y agoHow would one go about finding these collections? (asking for a friend...)
- jpindar 7y agoSame way you find anything: by searching for it, liking things that are similar to what you're looking for, and following any boards and/or people who have things close to what you're looking for. Warning: Pinterest's recommendation engine is generally quite good, but once you've shown an interest in something, it's hard to get it to stop recommending similar things. So you might want to use different accounts for certain subjects.
- thanatropism 7y agoOr just not use Pinterest at the office.
- ghostly_s 7y agoI mean, you want me to search "niche erotica"? It sounded like you were describing specific collections that would have associated URLs.... but certainly understand if you don't want to post those links here.
- drgoodvibe 8y agoSuppose all this points out is that Pinterest needs to hire Facebooks international growth team. Surely there are countries outside of say India where users are more prone to monetization, despite stagnating growth in the USA.
- return1 8y agoNot many, aside from the anglosphere and western europe. https://www.bloggingjoy.com/adsense-high-cpc-countries/ https://www.bloggingjoy.com/adsense-high-cpc-countries/
- Spivak 8y agoSeriously? Pinterest makes less than $9/yr off of me? I would drop $10/yr to not have to see ads again and probably use the service more.
- seymourbuttes 8y agoI agree. I get sponsored pins just barely tangentially related to my other interests and would love to not have them.
- gdulli 8y agoBut $10 may be your ceiling, if you were paying them directly. Whereas if they continue to build information on you and ramp up impressions they believe they'll be able to raise that $9 to $15, then $24...
- giornogiovanna 8y agoBut then why won't Pinterest let me match whatever the advertisers are paying for my eyeballs for this year, and continue to gather data on me, just without showing me any ads? Oh, and maybe they could throw in some little inconsequential bonuses, just like Discord Nitro, so it doesn't just feel like paying for ads to be blocked. It sounds like everyone would win.
- dspillett 8y agoProbably because of the development and maintenance effort. It wouldn't actually take much such effort, but it might still be more costly than any benefit they'd get from the number of users who they think are likely to take part in such a scheme.
- edmundsauto 7y agoAlso, employee CPU cycle opportunity costs. These companies are interested in scale, so any employee's CPU cycles that are working on non-scalable stuff are basically wasted.
- lordnacho 8y agoDoes anyone know why Americans seem to be much keener on spending money?
- return1 8y agoi believe it's american companies. larger revenues, larger advertising budgets.
- tehlike 8y agoAmerican companies do that because americans spend more. Gdp per capita here is larger. This is one main reason. As a percent ot their income, i dont know how people compare on their spending across different countries.
- grenoire 8y agoGDP per capita is not average free cash, and average free cash is spending and saving. It's behaviourally driven, not economically.
- sevensor 8y agoI'm most familiar with Pinterest through kids' birthday parties. Most people of my acquaintance don't spend a lot of money on stuff they saw on Pinterest, however I've encountered some "whales" who drop lots of money on the Pinterest-perfect birthday party. So I wouldn't say Americans in general are that willing to spend, but we've got relatively higher rate of big spenders.
- swebs 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w... Now multiply that by 327 million people
- Theodores 8y agoThis puts things in perspective. Yet we keep hearing about how poor so many Americans are. We also hear about how many trillions the US government is in debt. Despite these downsides to how it works in America, from a sales point of view the USA is the tastiest market to sell in to and there is no chance of that changing any time soon. The physical size of the country also makes a difference, it is not as if you are forced to pay a fortune for a house, just move out to the suburbs. Only a few places where there is special geography such as NYC and San Francisco do you have to pay mega-bucks to rent seekers.
- everythingswan 8y agoI appreciate the analysis. I love thinking about these economics so I deeply appreciate the thought process! My question would be, and I hope to be able to dig in later, is the international ad platform rolled out completely? Ad products tend to roll out continuously and I would want to know if the problem is adoption of the platform from advertisers or a low-usage issue. Advertisers will always find out where customers are so I would assume that it's either the platform isn't getting adopted or the actual tool of delivery is lagging behind, maybe until adoption increases.
- wavesounds 8y agoThis is a hit piece. Why didn't she update her article with the results of Snaps Q1 earnings that came out later the day this was published? 190 DAU goes against her narrative of declining users
- CitizenTekk 8y agoSnap had 191 DAU last year so declining DAU
- okmokmz 8y agoShe said "You’ll see below that the user base has struggled to break out over 191 million daily active users and has declined to flat for three straight quarters" which still holds true with Q1 earnings at 190
- wuliwong 7y agoPlease define what you mean by "hit piece." Are you simply saying this is unfairly negative or are you implying something more nefarious?
- supernovae 8y agoPinterest is a visual search engine, not a social network. Comparing it to SNAP or Facebook valuation is missing the entire point. I think Pinterest has other problems - mostly a market based on manipulating it - but hell so does google but google is further along in tech/services to increase quality. What i really can't stand about pinterest is that even though it is a visual search - it requires an obscene amount of work from creators to be competitive - having to update your "pins" monthly and cycle them through and do A/B testing all the meanwhile others are stealing or borrowing your pins to enter those search terms/markets it creates a downward spiral - soon topics look spammy and only those who can afford to commit so much time/effort see the reward - then they turn around and start a business selling their idea. No one looks at your boards anymore, they all search so people stuff their boards to find every variation of keyword and its starting to surface up to the search meaning searches get spammed by those who got there first rather than those most relevent.
- abacadaba 8y ago"Pinterest is a visual search engine" Aaah, ok kinda make sense now. Been hearing about this site for years, and I still don't 'get' what it actually is. I think the part of my brain that understands social media is broken.
- peonicles 8y agoMaybe it's social media that is broken.
- slantyyz 8y agoI just use it for bookmarking images I might want to come back to or share in the future (e.g., my favorite XKCDs, screenshots of GUIs for inspiration, etc.). The funny thing is that even though I have lots of clippings, I rarely ever go back to Pinterest to actually look at them.
- edmundsauto 7y agoI've found that for myself, the joy is in the collecting, not in the having.
- pjc50 8y ago> In the last quarter, the global audience contributed $17 million to revenue compared to $273 million from the United States audience. Annually, this puts the global audience at $41 million in revenue and the United States at $715 million in revenue. Ouch. $41 million revenue from non-US is .. not nothing, but it's a respectable medium sized national chain of shops kind of number, not a $10bn company number. (Pinterest is also very vulnerable to Google one day deciding that they shouldn't let them clog up the top of the image search rankings...)
- JohnJamesRambo 8y agoIs there any way for me to just ban pinterest from my google searches? I detest their links and I do hope google does that someday.
- duxup 8y agoGoogle images needs a way to filter all sites where if you click to go to the site that it is on.... doesn't show you the image.
- Scoundreller 8y agoCan we crowdsource this banlist, just like an adblocker automatically updates?
- zizee 7y agoGoogle used to have this feature (the ability to specify sites not to show in their search results), but removed it for some reason. I cannot remember if they gave a reason why. They did provide a replacement as a browser plugin (mentioned close-by in this thread), and I am sure that there are other similar plugins available.
- dilatedmind 8y ago-site:pinterest.*
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- kippinitreal 8y agoIt doesn’t seem fair to assume the international ARPU is maxed out just because the US ARPU is. I imagine the lose markets are just less mature and are more focused on growth at this point than monetization (as they should be!). What’s the ratio of US/international ARPU for comparable companies?
- yalogin 8y agoI still don’t understand why Pinterest makes any sense for the investor but I guess I dont understand pinterest and their target audience. I have never once thought about browsing or even encountered Pinterest links through google searches.
- xeromal 8y agoSeems like it's bigger in the female space from what I can tell. My gf and a lot of her friends used it in the past or use it now. They use it to save outfits, foods, etc.
- specialist 8y agoI gather the opportunity for Pinterest, instagram, Tumblr, etc is adding "buy now" buttons. Huh. In other words, what we used to call "affiliate links". Phrased like that, I'm now more skeptical.
- grogenaut 8y agoDo you ever look for curated product list like wire cutters? Do you ever look at car or home improvement forums or reviews to see which is the best product. Do you like when sites so grids of feature comparisons? Pinterest is this but for things that are mostly asthetic. Eg show me curated groups of products that for my style. I hate Pinterest ui but as I get into leather working I can see why having curated lists of things in a style vector is useful. Also why I'd want to just pin things I saw into a page about a backpack. Or garage cabinets for me redoing my workshop.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cycrutchfield 8y agoWhat part of this article talks about these companies “hiding” user attrition? It’s not like they are failing to disclose these numbers at all.
- ipsum2 8y ago> On April 4th, Snap announced a programmatic offering called Audience Network, which copies Facebook’s strategy of selling user data for third-party ads across multiple applications This is incorrect, and makes me wonder if the rest of the article is accurate. Both Snap and Facebook's Audience Network is similar to Google's AdSense (running ads on a website) or AdMob (running ads on mobile). Google, Snap, and Facebook don't sell user data (from the aforementioned products, at least).
- colejohnson66 8y agoI see this a lot and I have to wonder: Why would they sell the user data? It would ruin their business model of collecting the data
- jfk13 8y agoI suspect "selling user data" is often a shorthand that really means something more like "selling ad-targeting based on user data". Which is not the same thing, although the results can still be abhorrent.
- munchbunny 7y agoI think this is correct, but we also semi-intentionally conflate the two to say the less worse version while connoting the worse version. That said, the difference is blurry. LinkedIn and Facebook are both capable of hyper-specific targeting that may as well be specific users. I haven't interacted with Snap's ad product, but I suspect it can accomplish similar granularity.
- rhizome 7y agoSelling data, renting it, or monetizing derivatives of it...does it matter? Being a gatekeeper to data pays regardless of what kind of transaction is occurring.
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- data_spy 7y agoI love how the guy's in the right foreground of the image uses his monitor to hold his sticky notes.