We previously speculated about how Twitter deals might be promoted through the @Earlybird account using a group buying model. However, as it turned out, Twitter is merely partnering with group buying sites like Groupon and Gilt to deliver time-sensitive discounts on products with limited quantities. Unfortunately, Twitter’s initial promotions weren’t exactly killer group buying deals. The first one was a buy one, get one free movie ticket for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the other deal offering was for a 32-inch Vizio HDTV at Target. Depending on how much you may have disliked the movie, the TV is the worst deal out of the two since it could have been purchased at Sam’s Club for $1.99 less ($349.99 at Target, $348.00 at Sam’s). The most recent deal promotion was a 30% off discount code for Moxsie, an online store that sells men’s and women’s clothing and jewelry created by independent designers. Testing the promotional code (EARLYBIRD) revealed that it only applied to a special selection of about 100 women’s products. Given that RetailMeNot has a 25% off coupon code (DAILYCANDY) that works on nearly ALL Moxsie products, regardless of gender, this isn’t what I’d call a killer deal either.
How Successful Have Twitter’s Earlybird Deals Been?
It would be very interesting and quite useful to know how many sales are generated per deal that’s promoted through Twitter’s Earlybird. According to TweetReach, the terms “moxsie 30% off” reached 158,589 people via 50 tweets. We didn’t purchase the entire report but TweetReach indicated there were an additional 66 tweets not included in the analysis. At 3252.48 impressions per tweet (162,624 impressions/50 tweets) our calculations indicate that those additional 66 tweets helped achieve a grand total of 116 tweets and 377,288 impressions. Based on a 3% CTR rate for tweets and a 1% purchase rate of those CTRs, Earlybird helped Moxsie attain at least 113 buys by now. With 100 products included in the Moxie deal at an average price of $87.66 each, that’s $9905.58 in gross sales (113 sales x $87.66/product). Twitter’s cut for its promotional services is unknown but a 10% commission agreement would yield them $990.56. Groupon in comparison charges the merchant 50% of all sales that it generates but those are primarily for deals involving services (i.e. spas, restaurants, entertainment) and not products. Profit margins for product resellers are usually much less versus service providers. Thus, it’s probably unrealistic to assume that Twitter would be able to negotiate a 50% share of the gross sales for any product it promotes.
Earlybird Follower Rate Down, Projections Recalculated
Twitter’s @Earlybird following rate has slowed quite a bit recently according to TwitterCounter. In the past week it has been averaging about 3,000 to 4,000 new followers per day. This is down from the initial 10,000 followers per day that it was averaging in its initial first few days of launching. It’s hard to say whether this diminished growth rate is a product of less media coverage or lackluster deals, but it seems reasonable to assume that a deal’s value should positively correlate with the acquisition of new followers. Currently, @Earlybird has a little over 82,000 followers and with a follower acquisition rate of ~3,500 per day that milestone of 1 million followers won’t be reached for 262 more days. On the brighter side, if we assume Twitter can earn relatively the same amount per deal offering, one million followers would earn Twitter about $12,080 per deal (1,000,00/82,000 x $990.56) or about $4,409,200 per year ($12,080 x 365 days/year). This would mean that an Earlybird follower is worth a little more than $0.01 per day or $4.41 per year. Those aren’t exactly horrible stats but they could definitely be a lot better if Twitter was able to offer more enticing deals.
Is This The Best You Can Do Earlybird?
If all Twitter does is promote products that are on sale, what’s to keep everyone from creating their own Earlybird-like account? As cited above, it’s not that difficult to find better deals than what Earlybird’s been promoting lately. Of course, the affiliate generated revenue that a competitor could earn would be much less than an exclusive promotional contract that Twitter could negotiate but does that really matter? People want to see meaty deals they can sink their teeth into and they don’t necessarily care whose promoting them. Twitter should reconsider its approach and use its influence to leverage the kinds of deals that just aren’t possible through non-group buying websites. Otherwise, Earlybird isn’t much more than a glorified feed of mediocre discounts that can be pulled from any old coupon code site.
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