November 30, 2022
After slashing the company’s payroll by $800 million and overseeing the departure of nearly half of its workforce, combined with major cuts to its infrastructure, including data centers, it is not wishful thinking to predict that many departments at Twitter will be understaffed or stretched beyond capacity.
This is exactly what has happened to Twitter’s analytics department, which records or measures metrics and the number of tweets and tweeters. According to people familiar with the situation, the layoffs and resignations that have rocked Twitter since Musk’s takeover have decimated the insights and analytics teams, leaving questions about who is still around to handle audience measurement and brand safety issues.
According to the source, the Audience Insights unit, which was heavy on technical talent and looked at conversation volume and trends as well as worked with Twitter’s sales and marketing teams, lost 70% of its staff. While the Advertising Research group, which worked with client teams for big advertisers like Samsung, Verizon, AT&T, and Google, doing custom studies and handling third-party measurement, lost more than 70% of its people, according to this person, leaving only two to handle prioritized work for a slew of tech and telecom advertisers.
According to the source, a third team that handled global consumer and customer research studies was disbanded with the exception of one employee. At times, employees from all three groups collaborated on brand safety issues.
The sources for this piece include an article in AdAge.
