Digital Advertising Revenues are on the rise and every Company is striving to invest more and content providers are aiming to earn more. While the developments are fast, one company that has not been able to catch upto speed with others is Apple. Google & Facebook posted close to ~$60 Bn & ~$12Bn in revenues for 2014 respectively, whereas Apple’s iAd posted just ~$500 Million.
Apple started iAd in 2010 to compete with the likes of AdMob but with an initial investment target of $1 Million to become an advertiser. Over the years it has lowered down the initial investment to as low as $50. During all this time small advertisers were not able to use the platform to advertiser hence might have lost out on a lot of business opportunity.
Though iAd had its Advantages always like:
+ All interactions with the ads happen within the App, hence users don’t need to leave the app while experiencing the advertisement.
+ Multiple bidding options (CPM,CPC & CPA)
+ Excellent user experience while viewing or interacting with ads. Highly Interactive ads
+ Higher CPMs to App Developers
Advertisers did not get enough targeting options and hence spent less on iAd and hence it always remained a challenge for Apple to provide good revenues to the App Developers. I understand that they offered better rates but Rates can be the first benchmark and not the last. The last benchmark is revenue and if there is not enough revenue available the App Developers may shy away from iAd and move to Facebook or Google.
iAd: (The process :old)
- Publisher integrates iAd SDK to their apps.
- Advertisers Create Ads in iAd producer & Login to iAd Workbench and create and run campaigns
- CPM, CPC & CPA bidding options
- Options for banner, full page, Video and Audio (itunes Radio) ad options available
The Rising:
In the last 6 months Apple has changed the way iAd provides Advertising opportunity to Advertisers as well as Publishers. Here are a few of the updates:
++ Publishers can sell ad themselves or let iAd sell it for them or a combination of both.
++ Unlike other ad servers iAd does not charge publishers any revenue for advertisements sold directly by them.
++ iAd allows users to save deals and offers on the iPhone app called Offers. Hence helping sales happen later as well (with option wherein the links get automatically updated with time)
++ iAd offers Advertisers target audio and Video ads on Apple Music which helps Advertisers reach users on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV, as well as on Mac and PC.
++ Advertisers can serve ads on News app as well using iAd. It has given option to News Agencies and publishers to integrate their news to the NEWS app and earn money by monetizing through iAd.
++ Apple has integrated with 5 DSPs (AdsWizz, Amnet, MediaMath, The Trade Desk and Triton Digital Media) to serve ads on iTunes radio. And the intelligent part, the new feature also comes with updated targeting capabilities, using customer phone numbers and email addresses that can be cross-referenced anonymously against marketers' data.
++ While Apple cares for user privacy; when a brand matches Apple's customer data with its own, Apple insists neither it nor the client can see which customer is matched.
++ Apple has 40 million iTunes Radio users and has CarPlay integrated to 40 car models. It has now also increased its user base with the acquisition of Beats Music.
++ iAd has integrated with top DSP & ad Exchanges (including MediaMath, The Trade Desk, Rubicon Project, GET IT Mobile, Accordant Media, Adelphic, and AdRoll) to sell inventory programmatically. Hence iAd inventory can now be bought by advertisers through DSPs and not just iAd Workbench
++ iAd expanded to 100 countries across the Globe to serve ads on iOS devices
With all these changes & new features Apple is expected to close the year at $2.8 Billion against ~$500 Million in 2014 (nearly 600% increase in just a year) and I am sure in the next few years Advertising revenues will be more evenly split among the top giants. The Apple vs Facebook vs Google advertising revenue war is going to get really strong and for good.
Let’s watch….
