A year ago, Twitter faced one of its toughest positions, when many brand advertisers began pulling marketing budgets at the height of the pandemic. The social media company relies on brands for most of its advertising revenue and its sales fell 19 percent from April to June 2020. To expand its revenue, Twitter is starting to push more direct response ads – types of ads that attempt to generate specific results, such as installing an app or visiting a website.

The numbers indicate that the company is growing after a chaotic year that included the pandemic and elections in the United States, which eventually led to Twitter’s permanent suspension of the former president. Donald Trump. While brand advertising has rebounded as the global economy reopens, the company remains in the crosshairs of Trump allies who say the platform discriminates against conservatives.

Company branding ads can also help you avoid the big impact from Apple’s new privacy updates. For iOS 14 users, which requires companies to obtain user permission to collect certain data about their online activity. Most users ask apps not to be tracked, which is detrimental to targeted ads, especially on Facebook.

However, Twitter says the update has not seriously affected it. While it is too early to assess the long-term impact of Apple’s iOS 14.5 changes, the impact in the second quarter “was less than expected,” the company wrote in its letter to shareholders.

Twitter gave a current quarter operating income forecast of $50 million to break even, saying full-year expenses are expected to increase 30 percent from the previous year, compared to a previous estimate of 25 percent growth.