:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63706840/zuckerberg-colombia.0.1462606136.0.jpg)
Another quarter, another projected uptick for Facebook.
The social network reports Q2 earnings on Wednesday and analysts are expecting good news from the company, which routinely beats Wall Street estimates. (It missed revenue expectations ever so slightly last quarter, but Facebook and investors were happy to blame it on changes to foreign exchange rates.)
Wall Street is looking for profits of 47 cents per share on nearly $4 billion in revenue in Q2 from Facebook, just over 37 percent growth over the same time last year. Revenue from mobile increased to more than 70 percent of Facebook’s total ad revenue last quarter, and Cantor Fitzgerald’s Youssef Squali believes it will clock in at 75 percent this quarter.
Unfortunately for investors, many of the intriguing parts of Facebook’s business won’t be laid out so clearly. Don’t expect a revenue update from Instagram, for example, or anything substantial on Facebook’s foray into commerce with the “buy button.” Facebook rarely touches on new areas of the business during earnings calls, at least not in any meaningful way.
The same could be said about video, which is becoming increasingly important and prevalent on Facebook. Last quarter, Facebook updated its total video views number to four billion views per day. But we don’t know many more details about the video business, like how many people are generating those four billion views, or how much revenue video ads bring in. We do know that Facebook’s video ad revenue is tiny; the company just started experimenting with monetizing most of those four billion views.
It will be worth listening for an update to Facebook’s new foray into direct response advertising. The company changed the way it defines “clicks” for advertisers earlier this month, giving them a chance to pay only for specific results, like website visits or app installs versus vanity metrics like “Likes” or comments. Twitter was testing something similar earlier this year, and its Q1 results suffered when it overestimated how well the ads would perform.
Facebook didn’t start offering the new ad type until Q2 was over, but it may be the kind of update analysts ask about during the earnings call. Facebook will report earnings after market close on Wednesday.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
