Every quarterly earnings report is an important one in the modern market environment. But, when a publicly traded company is fighting for its life, every sliver of data is scrutinized under a microscope. That’s where Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is right now, fighting to justify itself as an investment opportunity when little seems to be going right for the organization.

On Thursday, October 26th, the TWTR earnings report for its third quarter of 2017 will be released. It will either suggest the microblogging site is finally on the right track or confirm it’s simply beyond salvaging.

If a recent look at some internet-advertising preferences are any indication though, owners of TWTR stock don’t have much reason to be optimistic heading into earnings.

Low Expectations for TWTR

For the record (and for better or worse), analysts have set the bar pretty low for the upcoming earnings report. They’re only expecting revenue of $586.5 million, down nearly 5% from the year-ago top line of $615.9 million. And operating earnings are projected to be nearly halved, from 13 cents per share a year earlier to only seven cents per share this time around.

You may recall Twitter beat its top-line and bottom-line expectations last quarter, though in both cases the year-over-year comps fell. You may also recall TWTR stock plunged 13% the day the Q2 numbers were unveiled. This was largely because Twitter reported literally no sequential growth in the number of users that log in at least once per month.

And don’t think for a minute that advertisers, which are Twitter’s lifeblood, haven’t taken notice of Twitter’s ongoing weakening of its ability to grow its audience. More important, don’t think they aren’t responding accordingly.

RBC Capital Markets waved one of a couple major red flags earlier this month. It conducted a survey of 1,400 marketers that advertise on the internet using platforms like Twitter, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) (the parent company of Snapchat). The survey found that Snapchat and Twitter were at the bottom of the pile in terms of the amount of money budgeted to advertise on their platforms. It also found that both social networking sites were perceived by advertisers to offer among the lowest return on the investment of those ad dollars. This survey was conducted recently, after several quarters of an effort to specifically combat the key reasons why advertisers don’t care to run ads at the microblogging site.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney went on to explain to CNBC in an interview regarding the survey: “Twitter’s the only company that’s actually showing revenue declines in a secular growth industry.”

Aegis Capital analyst Victor Anthony waved another red flag, though mostly by echoing what Mahaney had already concluded. Anthony just heard comments like, “Twitter’s management has not quite made the case for shifting meaningful ad dollars to Twitter” at this year’s AdWeek conference held earlier this month. This was a comment made by an advertiser with a mission to spend advertising dollars as effectively as possible.

Aegis Capital foresees a slight sequential improvement in the number of active monthly users Twitter boasts, though not enough improvement to matter. However, Anthony also foresees the company coming up short of an already-tepid revenue estimate.

Bottom Line for TWTR Stock

The irony? As negative as Aegis Capital may officially be on Twitter now, Anthony still believes it’s possible for Twitter to turn things around, even though it’s had plenty of time to find a winning formula. He doesn’t see such a turnaround on the horizon, but says it’s not out of the realm of possibility. In the meantime, Aegis maintains a “Sell” rating on TWTR stock.

It was RBC’s Mahaney that may have better summed up the current situation Twitter shareholders are facing, though. His simple assessment, “There’s obviously something wrong there,” in reference to an ongoing deterioration in the company’s revenue, inadvertently hit the nail on the head.

There is indeed something wrong there. That is, Twitter has still yet to give its users a clear explanation of what the microblogging platform is supposed to do for them that makes them want to come back for more. The evidence? Less than half the site’s total user base check in at least once per quarter, translating into a monthly user churn rate of about 20%. Without even really knowing who they’re marketing to, advertisers just can’t justify spending money with Twitter when they know exactly who they’re advertising to at Facebook.

Next week’s earnings report may be the last chance Twitter has to convince TWTR shareholders it knows exactly what’s wrong and how to fix it.

As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter.