IAd

Apple’s rocky iAd advertising platform is about to see some major changes, says Buzzfeed’s John Paczkowski. According to the report, Apple plans to dismantle its iAd sales team and stop its role as a middleman between publishers and customers:

While iAd itself isn’t going anywhere, Apple’s direct involvement in the selling and creation of iAd units is ending. “It’s just not something we’re good at,” one source told BuzzFeed News. And so Apple is leaving the creation, selling, and management of iAds to the folks who do it best: the publishers.

Apple is phasing out its iAd sales force entirely and updating the iAds platform so that publishers can sell through it directly.

The big news, Buzzfeed notes, is publishers that play ball will take home 100% of the ad revenue generated rather than a 70/30 split with Apple.

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Winston Crawford, a former advertising executive, has left Apple to join Drawbridge. The move comes at an interesting time given Tim Cook’s recent comments on user data and privacy.

Drawbridge is a relatively new company which helps marketers track user data across multiple mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. He joined as COO to help expand the tracking technology to new areas like offering the ability for retailers to show the same online shopping cart to a single customer across multiple devices.

What’s interesting about this move is Crawford’s comments about Apple’s way of doing ads. Going back to those thoughts shared by Tim Cook about not being in the business of harvesting user data for profit, and looking at what Drawbridge does, it’s quite a startling contrast between the two.

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With Apple’s new Wallet app in iOS 9, a revamped version of the old Passbook app with a name that better reflects Apple Pay integration, Apple will let marketers send out dynamic offers triggered by location or a user’s interests through iAd. Apple noted the feature on its blog for advertisers explaining that “marketers can reach loyal customers with specific messages that reflect the customers’ interests, or convert a new customer by presenting a reason to try something new.”
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When Steve Jobs said something was going to happen, it generally did. One notable exception, though, has been Apple’s mobile advertising platform, iAd. Jobs said back in 2010 that it would grab 50% of the mobile ad market; right now, it’s sitting at just 2.6%. That may be about to change after advertising middleman Rubicon announced that automated purchasing of iAds will soon be supported … 
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Apple is reportedly adding the ability to track what users do inside certain apps in order to present them with targeted in-app ads across iOS devices, reports digital media site Digiday.

Say, for example, a visitor to a retailer’s iPhone app adds a pair of shoes to his cart but ultimately decide not to buy it. In this scenario, the retailer will now be able to retarget that user with an ad for that exact pair — even in another app on his iPad. When tapped, the ad would direct him back to his abandoned checkout page and automatically add the shoes to his online shopping cart.

Ad agencies say that Apple has been pitching the new capability since last month …

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Apple has announced that iAd is now available in nine additional countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden. This means iAd is now available in a total of twenty-five countries spanning North America, Europe and Asia.

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Apple announced two changes to its iAd platform today, expanding the reach and available formats of the ad network in an attempt to reel in more advertisers. The first of these changes is support for brand new iAd styles, including those pre-roll videos we’ve all come to know and love on YouTube. Full-screeninterstitial have also been added to the selection, with both new formats detailed in an updated implementation guide.

The company also announced that it starting today the iAd network is available in two new countries: Russia and Switzerland.  iAd creators can use the iAd Workbench to update their target audiences to cover these new demographics.

Apple appears to be readying for an UK iTunes Radio launch in the near future. As indicated by this tweet, Apple’s director of iAd Paul Wright has recently been visiting media marketing agencies to discuss iAd in relation to iTunes Radio.

Bloomberg said that Apple was planning to launch in the UK in ‘early 2014’ last October, but so far this has not happened several months into 2014. Although many people have seen iTunes Radio sporadically appear on their devices in recent months, it is has only officially expanded to Australia beyond the US launch alongside iOS 7.

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As noted in a report today from Ad Age (via MacRumors), Apple is now allowing non-developers to access and use the iAd Workbench platform.

At the onset of its mobile-ad business, Apple extended olive branches to a select group of brands, promising premier reach. But advertisers pushed back against its pricey offerings. Now, it appears Apple has concluded money in mobile ads comes from a wide net; in short, it’ll look more like Google.

Previously, iAd Workbench users had to at least be enrolled in Apple’s $99/year registered developers program, but now opening an iAd Workbench account will only require an Apple ID which is free to create with any Apple service or device. Ad Age reports that customers using iAd Workbench can choose between payment based on cost-per-click or cost-per-thousand impressions, although rates are currently not clear.
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In an effort to boost usage of its new streaming music service that launched alongside iOS 7 last fall, Apple is considering changes to iTunes Radio. The Cupertino company is now testing iTunes Radio as a standalone application with iOS 8, according to sources briefed on the plans. iTunes Radio first arrived as a feature within the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system’s Music application. As a tab in the already-existing Music app, iTunes Radio has not received a promoted presence on iOS, and this likely has deterred growth for the service in terms of advertising revenue and usage…

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According to a new report from Ad Age, Apple is planning to offer a new option for how iAds are presented on its iOS platform. The new iAd option will allow included video content to play automatically at full screen rather than being prompted by tapping a more subtle banner. While interstitial iAds are already possible for iAds presented on the iPad meant for use in Newsstand apps, the report claims the new options will target both iPhone and iPad users suggesting the option could debut for iPhone and iPod touch users. The report believes the automatically playing, full screen interstitial iAds will likely be presented in between activity rather than interrupting content entirely.
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Apple is missing out on iAd sales opportunities because the company is too “slow, cocky and downright stingy” according to Madison Avenue media buyers cited in a piece in Advertising Age.

One exec told Ad Age that Apple doesn’t even have official sales targets for its ad business.

Cary Tilds, chief innovation officer for GroupM, said that Apple doesn’t have a big sales team. “It’s not their main focus to tell everyone in the world how amazing advertising in iAd is,” she said. “It’s just not as loud” … 
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Adweek is reporting that Apple is focusing the iAd sales department almost exclusively on iTunes Radio, rather than developing its in-app ad portfolio, which is how the service originally started. According to the report, Eddy Cue told the advertising unit that iTunes Radio advertisements are a top priority, presumably as Apple is preparing to expand the music service into more countries next year.

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Apple is looking to double the amount of personnel on its in-house marketing and advertising team, according to a report from AdAge. Currently, according to the report, the team includes 300 employees, but Apple is said to be looking to increase that number to between 500 and 600 people.

Apple, in recent years, has reportedly been resilient to growing the team because of a philosophy created by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs:

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