Why RBC Is Bullish On Google And Facebook, But Not Twitter

RBC recently conducted its fifth online advertising survey, and it is predicting good times ahead for social media players Facebook Inc FB and Google Inc GOOGLGOOG. However, for Twitter Inc TWTR, the going could be tough as advertisers' interest wanes.

RBC's Mark Mahaney was on CNBC Friday to discuss the findings of the survey in detail.

"We are seeing increased interest in social media advertising," Mahaney said. "We ran with Ad Age, our fifth survey of approximately a thousand advertisers, marketers, digital ad agency representatives. Seventy-five percent of them plan to increase their spend with social media in 2015 versus '14. So, we continue to see rising interest for the group as a whole, not evenly, but for the group as a whole."

Related Link: Twitter Approaching Danger Zone

Facebook Close Second To Google

Mahaney was asked whether big advertisers have the budgets to experiment with different platforms across the board and which platform small advertisers see as providing the best ROI.

He replied, "I think social media, digital and Internet long left – many years ago – the experimental phase. I think social media left the experimental phase of ad budgets. At least Facebook, I think it left that about two years ago, and now you are seeing people look at them as a relatively competitive ROI channel."

He continued, "One of the most interesting results of the survey for us was that Google of course is the highest regarded ROI channel online and probably anywhere. Number two, however, was Facebook. So, they have really proven themselves to a broad range of advertisers both small and large."

Problem With Twitter

"This is the first time that we have seen decline, kind of a cresting, in advertiser interest in Twitter. Now, it's still positive," Mahaney said.

"We still see more advertisers wanting to spend more with Twitter than less, but the rate at which they want to spend more is declining."