Apple is set to expand ads to new areas of your iPhone and iPad in search of its next big revenue driver.
[…]Let’s begin with the current state of play: Apple’s advertising efforts today consist of display ads inside of its News and Stocks apps, as well as inside the App Store, across the iPhone, iPad and Mac. The App Store also has Google-like search ads. And more recently, Apple put advertising inside of TV+ for its “Friday Night Baseball” deal with Major League Baseball.
[…]I believe that the iPhone maker will eventually expand search ads to Maps. It also will likely add them to digital storefronts like Apple Books and Apple Podcasts. And TV+ could generate more advertising with multiple tiers (just as Netflix Inc., Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. are doing with their streaming services).
So that was the plan all along. First, Apple tried to cut a deal with Facebook – one of the two online advertising giants (Apple already gets billions a year from the other, Google) – to get in on the online ad revenue. Second, when that fell through, Apple went on a privacy crusade against Facebook (and to a lesser extent, Google) to harm its online advertising business. Third, Apple is now going to expand its own ad business by adding even more ads to iOS.
And all along the way, millions fell for it.
John Gruber, a few years ago:
My concern, again, is what happens if the drive to increase services revenue takes precedence over Apple’s “Prime Directive”: to put product design and experience above all else.
Well, now you know.
“I believe”.
I hope it really is just speculation but I think he may be on to something. As long as it remains sequestered within specific apps like it has been with the News and Stock apps (which I don’t use anyway), it won’t be a big deal. My concern is that it will creep into the lock screen and third party apps like it does on Android devices, selling your eyeballs to the scum of the earth.
For every good thing Apple creates, they always seem to follow up with a disaster that makes me question owning anything they make.
Where does all this advertising come from anyway? I have never, ever, bought anything just because I saw it being advertised online. Who approves so much spending for online ads anyway?
The vast majority of the world population owns mobile devices, specifically smartphones. When your potential customer pool is billions and billions of people, largely with predictable and modeled behavior/habits, the ad investment becomes a lot easier to justify. Advertising is not throwing darts in the dark, its evolved into a meticulous science that works because at the end of the day, “we” aren’t all that complicated, In fact, people make it easy for companies the dissect the best way to manipulate them by offering up, one way or another, a gazillion data points on themselves as if to say “Please, take my money! Let me show you how!”.
I still think online ads are snake-oil. They don’t have the reach of TV ads, they aren’t well-regulated (which means putting your ads next to ads for much shadier businesses), and you have bots clicking on ads.
Here is a nice example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/augustinefou/2021/01/02/when-big-brands-stopped-spending-on-digital-ads-nothing-happened-why/?sh=7e64d6ea1166
That’s why I can’t believe big companies still spend so much money on online ads.
kurkosdr,
I didn’t have time to read the whole article yet, but your link is very insightful, thanks for posting it!
Regardless of bot-clicks, people ignoring/blocking ads, etc., online ads are bringing in serious money. Online ads don’t have the reach of TV ads, they far surpass it! Digital ads are creeping into everywhere you go, everything you do, and everything you use. The article you linked in missing some important considerations. What it doesn’t mention is how much revenue growth those companies saw prior to completely saturating their online ad presence. It doesn’t detail the key differences in various types of digital ad campaigns. Carpet bombing ads all over the internet and expecting big returns is snake oil. Spending ad money more wisely with the right modeling and campaign is not. Yes, online ads can be a game-changer if you’re not stupid or careless in how you go about it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/02/20/digital-advertising-surpass-print-tv-first-time-report-says/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/digital-ad-revenue-jumped-35-in-the-u-s-last-year-biggest-gain-since-2006-11649759401
Some industry experts, like The Adcontrarian who has decades of experience in the advertising industry and is one of the most vocal critics of Adtech, would disagree with your statements.
Some (very valid) arguments are that digital is non quantifiable (ad campaigns with click/views exceeding Earth’s total population), ineffective at creating native brands (there are zero new non digital brands created through online advertising), fraud is the norm (estimates at over 80% of “views” are non rendered, bots, or flat out fraudulently reported), and *yes* poor reach (a traditional broadcast TV ad routinely exceeds any one single digital ad campaign, and there are no hyper reach events comparable to The Super Bowl in digital land).
In my opinion, whether you agree or not, if you are in that industry (I am), his blog is worth a read.
@devloop
Nobody is disputing the blatantly flawed statistics and downsides of online advertising. However, it seems you’re conveniently ignoring the simple fact that online advertising generates billions of dollars in revenue. You’re not acknowledging that there can 1) be successful online ad campaigns, and that 2) they can have real impact on business. Per the linked Wall Street Journal reporting, “Digital ad revenue in the U.S. jumped 35% to $189 billion last year as marketers chased consumers spending ever more time on online media and shopping, according to a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.” I’d love to hear your explanation of that since it directly contradicts the theory that online advertising is nothing more than snake oil or smoke & mirrors. I doubt any of the companies who enjoyed a share of that $189 billion in revenue would describe online ads as non-quantifiable bullshit.
What is it you think The Adcontrarian disagrees with? My description of $189 billion in ad revenue as “serious money”? That I said digital ads are creeping their way into all aspects of life, which is something I witness myself. That thoughtless naive digital ad spending typically doesn’t create positive results, and that a well-planned and executed campaign certainly can?
You mention hyper reach events like the Super Bowl, something that happens once a year and mostly ignored outside of the US. Further, an event that very few companies can take advantage of. How many of these hyper reach broadcast events are there in a year? I’ve never seen a live broadcast of a Super Bowl ad. I have, on the other hand, seen tons of them in non-broadcast digital form. That means 100% of any potential influence they may have on me fully comes from those ads online and 0% comes from broadcast tv.
Speaking of tv, you didn’t mention that streaming viewership is the fastest growing segment with market share only slightly behind cables #1 position. Cable viewership is consistently declining, and traditional broadcast trails both by a double digit gap that is only widening. At least according to Nielsen that is.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nielsen-streaming-accounted-for-more-than-one-third-of-tv-viewing-in-june-according-to-the-gauge-301590810.html
friedchicken,
Out of curiosity do you have any data on that?
That seems to be referring to “revenue” for companies selling views/clicks (ie google, facebook, etc). I don’t think anybody would disagree that selling online ads is a very lucrative market! But I’m more curious to see the return on investment for those actually buying online ads compared to traditional ads and I think that’s what devloop was referring to as well.
I don’t know how credible it is, but the source in devloop’s link suggests that online advertising had little impact on buying behavior. Is there data that clearly disproves this? To be clear, I’m not making any assertions myself, just saying it would be interesting to see the data for it.
Keep in mind that cable companies also offer streaming that is quite similar to hbomax, netflex, amazon prime, apple, hulu, etc.
The turf war going forward is likely going to be over who has rights to the content. Many shows are exclusive. IMHO this fragmentation kind of sucks for consumers who don’t want to pay for 5 different services.
The Apple apologists are going to come out to narrowly define why Apple is better. And it will always be a narrower defense every time Apple does one more thing.
Nah, the Steve Jobs reality distortion field is gradually weakening. With no Steve Jobs to come on stage, call it FairPlayAds or something, and tell Apple users how it’s supposedly good for them, there is nothing to replenish the distortion field.
kurkosdr,
The reality distortion field still exists, only it migrated to trump. It’s the exact same authoritarian mentality, but it’s more dangerous now because democracy is at stake
Not sure who you’ll include by Apple apologist, but large parts of the techy Apple fans (including many of their developers) seem quite frustrated by a lot of what the company has been doing for quite a while now. Personally, I cannot stand at all that Apple is now both an Ad-company and a Bank.
As for why we still use their products, we find that the alternative is worse and share many of the same issues. If you’re able to switch to something better, more power to you, but that’s not the case for a lot of us.
Pretty bleak landscape in the tech world these days.