Twitter hires a new GM of revenue products

Meanwhile, at Twitter HQ, the leadership revolving door at the entrance stops spinning clockwise for just a moment as a new face enters the building…

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today announced that the company has hired Bruce Falck, previously the CEO of adtech firm Turn, as its head of revenue product.

Amid all the headlines of departures of Twitter executives, the company has faced quarter after quarter of disappointing news for Wall Street as it tries to turn its business around. The problem Twitter faces isn’t just one of getting new users, but also building attractive products for advertisers that can drive additional revenue growth. So, Twitter made a pretty obvious choice to bring in an executive with adtech experience to start working on the team.

Amobee, a marketing tech firm, acquired Turn in February for $310 million. Twitter’s ad business started stalling in the past few quarters, and while the most recent quarter was more positive than what we’ve come to expect lately, it still has to figure out a way to restart its growth engine as its stock continues to struggle.

Twitter increasingly faces a similar challenge that digital advertising companies that aren’t Google and Facebook face: convincing advertisers to move their money from Google and Facebook. While those companies continue to bring in billions in revenue every quarter, companies like Twitter and Snap increasingly have to make a case to advertisers that they can be a strong option three or option four that can get in front of a different audience with a different kind of user behavior.

Building good advertising products that tap into behavior that’s different than Facebook and Google is just as much a part of the problem as the actual audience. Much of Twitter’s pitch is it is the real-time communications platform for what’s happening around the world, and Twitter has to figure out how to monetize that huge amount of information. It’s made some core product moves — like switching to an algorithmic timeline — but it has to also make sure it has the advertising products to back it up.

That’s led to an enormous amount of uncertainty around the company for Wall Street. The situation is not quite as dire as it was not long ago, however, with the stock up around 28 percent on the year. Getting its stock price up — with positive news, and not just reports that it might get acquired — is critical to attract new talent and keep it as it tries to figure out how to continue building its business.

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