Apple Has Plans to Let Ad Tech Platforms Publish Ads Within Apple News

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    Good news, publishers! Apple News is now looking to make the ad serving process a whole lot easier. According to people familiar with the plans, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:$AAPL) is planning on letting certain publishers use their ad technology to occupy ad space on their Apple News content.

    Up until this point, publishers have been able to set up ad campaigns in Apple News articles, but they were constrained to Apple’s ad technology. As reported by a publishing executive cited by AdAge, the ad serving process tends to be burdensome because of the extra effort required to go through Apple’s ad server. With this pivot in ad technology, Apple may now be able to address a key issue for publishers, which is low monetization.

    Here’s 5 reasons as to why Apple’s forecast changes are important:

    1. These changes could generate more ad revenue for publishers on Apple News. By giving publishers the chance to use their existing ad serving technology, they could save time setting up campaigns, and it could act as an incentive for publishers to use the platform. In addition, existing Apple News publishers may be tempted to post more content they can construct through ads.

    2. If more ad revenue is generated, this could stop publishers from leaving Apple News. According to AdAge, a common complaint amongst publishers is that they aren’t generating enough revenue from Apple News. This in itself could cause trouble for the company’s news platform goals – numerous publishers including The New York Times left Facebook’s Instant Articles because of low monetization.

    3. The planned changes could help Apple further monetize its current user base. As of November of last  year, Apple News had 70 million monthly users. There are approximately over 700 million iPhones in use worldwide, according to Tim Long, an analyst for BMO Capital Markets. Apple News is pre-installed on iPhones and iPads, and iPod Touch devices with iOS 9 software or later. This could illustrate that a small percentage of users have taken to Apple News. By serving more ads to current users, more revenue could be generated for Apple News – which could help Apple gain a competitive edge against other news aggregation competitors with sizable user bases. For instance, Flipboard has over 100 million monthly users.

    4. With that said, these changes could turn users away if the ad experience becomes too invasive. For instance, Apple News pages that have too many ads could interrupt reading experiences and slow down load times – which could be extremely off putting for some. It’s likely that Apple will try to keep the user experience as smooth as possible to prevent this uprise from occurring. Numerous tech giants, including Apple, are working to balance user experience with ads. While Apple is working to create its own video autoplay blocker, Google is working to develop its own ad blocker for Chrome.

    5. By allowing ad tech platforms to publish ads within Apple News, the company has positioned itself to become less of a walled garden. This could suggest that Apple has finally realized that publishers and advertisers have a desire for more flexibility and ad standards.

    Essentially, ad tech companies take on the role of an intermediary between advertisers and publishers. These companies will add value to the ad delivery process by securing inventory, automating workflows, and offering exact targeting capabilities at scale. The automation of ad buying is referred to as “programmatic advertising” – that means that software and technology is used to purchase digital ads. Programmatic ad spending is becoming increasingly popular in the United States: It will surpass $20  billion in 2017 and reach $38.5 billion by the end of 2020.

    However, like many things, ad tech’s dominance has it’s fair share of flaws. In the United States, the advertising sector is run by two main players: Google (NASDAQ:$GOOGL) and Facebook (NASDAQ:$FB). As such, ad tech players are fighting for revenue, which is one of the main drivers of increased consolidation in the industry.

    Research analyst for BI Intelligence, Kevin Gallagher, has assembled a detailed report on ad tech that:

    • Predicts US programmatic revenue through 2020
    • Discusses and highlights the factors that drive consolidation, and makes known attractive targets and new acquirers
    • Looks into the challenges ad tech companies face, such as the dominance of walled gardens, ad blocking, and measurement
    • Summarizes emerging technologies that will help to propel ad growth in the coming decade

    Featured Image: twitter

    Author Caroline Harris
    About the author: Caroline Harris is a third-year student at Capilano University in North Vancouver, Canada. Having already completed an Associates Degree in Psychology, Caroline is now finishing her Bachelor's degree in Communications. In preparation for working in the advertisement sector, Caroline is writing financial content and analysis. On a daily basis, Caroline works on articles regarding the following topics: finance, cryptocurrency, technology, and politics.