Good morning Marketer, what can earnings season tell us?

Looking at statements from Facebook, Google, Snap, Microsoft and Twitter during their earnings calls over the past week, there are signs that the worst could be over for digital advertising. Put another way: Things are still bad, but we could be past the bottom. 

Performance advertising helped blunt the severity of the slowdown in March for some. Facebook, Google and Snap each noted the positive impact of direct response revenue on their bottom lines. 

“Direct response continued to have substantial year-on-year growth throughout the entire quarter,” Ruth Porat, Google and Alphabet CFO said about YouTube. “Brand advertising growth accelerated in the first two months of the quarter, but began to experience a headwind in mid-March.”

Brand advertising remains a weak spot as companies continue to pull back on spending that’s harder to measure. This is always the instinct in a downturn, despite studies indicating that brands that stay visible are better positioned to come out stronger when things turn around. 

In its annual “bad ads” report, Google said it took down or blocked 2.7 billion bad ads and suspended nearly 1 million ad accounts in 2019. The company also said it has removed “tens of millions” of bad COVID-19 related ads. The company formed a dedicated task force to focus on the sudden rise in bad actors aiming to capitalize on the crisis. The team has developed new detection technology and beefed up existing enforcement systems. The effort points to the ongoing battle to try to adapt and stay ahead of bad actors and that the systems are never perfect. 

Keep reading for a look at how media buyer budget plans for Q2 are shifting and more. 

Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor