Ad Agencies Receiving iAd Details as Apple Looks to Hinder Rival Ad Networks

[MacRumors]

Ilya Vedrashko of advertising agency Hill Holliday yesterday published an interesting blog post discussing a visit to his firm by Apple's iAd team where the parties talked over details of Apple's forthcoming plans for mobile advertising. Among the items discussed in the meeting were Apple's philosophy and approach to targeting consumers, ad pricing, and the user experience.

On the pricing front, Vedrashko is unable to share specifics but notes that Apple will unsurprisingly position the iAd platform as a "premium" service, offering its innovative system to those with high-quality ads who are willing to pay for the privilege.

To answer the burning question -- yes, we did talk about the price. Unfortunately, we can't share much on this either. The pricing isn't that of remnant inventory, obviously -- it is what you would expect from a premier online property. The pricing scheme struck me as very straightforward and elegant.

The report also hints at Apple's plans for targeting consumers. With access to significant amount of users' data from their devices such as iTunes content, App Store downloads, and more, Apple has a unique opportunity to build thorough profiles of its users and use behavioral targeting to more efficiently connect advertisers and consumers with similar interests.

The Hill Holliday team appears to be excited by Apple's plans for iAd and the company's willingness to move beyond what has been perceived as stagnant mobile ad development from Google and others and create a true integrated advertising system within applications that can harness the power of the iPhone OS.

As Apple's iAd platform begins to spin up, however, observers are interested in how other advertising networks such as Google will be affected by the move. MediaMemo reports on another change to Apple's developer terms that has the potential to cripple competing ad networks by preventing analytics companies such as AdMob and Flurry from receiving data on customer ad usage.

As I understand it, Apple is arguing that app makers can't pass along information that incorporates each phone's "unique device identifier" to ad networks and measurement companies.

This doesn't expressly prohibit ad networks from selling ads, but it prevents them from selling targeted advertising, which is close to the same thing when it comes to mobile devices. The same problem would plague analytics companies, which might be able to compile very broad usage info about apps, but little else.

Analytics are a crucial tool for mobile advertising companies that allow them to measure performance. As one mobile executive quoted in the report notes, "“Can't measure it, can't bill for it.”

For the moment, mobile analytics companies are still trying to figure out just what the change in Apple's terms means and how they might be able to work with Apple on the issue, and it remains to be seen how things will play out.

Article Link: Ad Agencies Receiving iAd Details as Apple Looks to Hinder Rival Ad Networks

 

[cmwade77]

I don't want ads on my phone, period. I pay enough for it, I expect Apple to keep away from ads, if FREE apps want to put Ads, then that is fine, but the shouldn't be allowed on paid apps.

 

[Stella]

I shall just be avoiding those iAd enabled apps, especially those paid for.

Consumer choice

 

[alexk82]

hmm

can't say im happy for better ads, but i can't wait to make some money off of it

 

[theheadguy]

At what point is Apple's greed excessive?

Btw, this isn't a rhetorical question and wasn't intended to fire up the fans.

 

[NebulaClash]

Once again, it's not ads per se that are the issue, for we ALL enjoy ads at certain times under specific conditions. For example, if you go into a car dealership to check out new cars, and you pick up one of the car brochures to check out specs, you are reading an ad and enjoying the process of doing so.

So to the extent that iAd encourages companies to provide ads that target things we actually want to know more about, this is a great improvement over the "punch the monkey" days.

In other words, under our current economic system ads are part of the landscape. Can't be helped. So might as well improve the quality and usefulness of the ads so that we are less annoyed than we are right now.

 

[MarketingGuy]

I really believe that iAds make sense if properly used! I run an advertising agency and we are advising our clients to take advantage of iAds by offering two versions of their apps: 1) free version with full functionality with iAds and 2) paid version with full functionality without iAds. This way, their customers can try the free version first and determine whether or not they want to spend the money to eliminate the ads. Since we do interactive design and are working on iPhone / iPad apps for clients, we have strongly advised against using iAds in paid apps (not something I want to be associated with at this time).

 

[mmccaskill]

I really believe that iAds make sense if properly used! I run an advertising agency and we are advising our clients to take advantage of iAds by offering two versions of their apps: 1) free version with full functionality with iAds and 2) paid version with full functionality without iAds. This way, their customers can try the free version first and determine whether or not they want to spend the money to eliminate the ads. Since we do interactive design and are working on iPhone / iPad apps for clients, we have strongly advised against using iAds in paid apps (not something I want to be associated with at this time).

Exactly. It makes sense.

 

[The Phazer]

Trying to break other people's ad sales it really absolutely the sort of thing that is going to land them in massive legal hot water. I don't understand why Apple is being so stupid about these things recently.

Phazer

 

[spazzcat]

I don't want ads on my phone, period. I pay enough for it, I expect Apple to keep away from ads, if FREE apps want to put Ads, then that is fine, but the shouldn't be allowed on paid apps.

Really, this again. Nothing is going to change with iAds. Apple isn't going to put ads on your phone. Paid apps are not going to starting putting ads in their apps now. Unless they were already doing it.

 

[vincebio]

At what point is Apple's greed excessive?

the alternative is allowing google to take control of it all, and apple is left with no room to move....so its the best of 2 bads.

if ads are coming, id sure as hell rather have a well designed clean iAd than a google mis-spelled google-ad.

nobody wants ads, but free apps have to make some money from somewhere.

apple cannot allow google to start controlling the mobile space, the same way they left Microsoft control the desktop space, that would be a disaster and Jobs is hell bent on not making the same mistake twice, despite knowing he will be pissing some fans off.

 

[TheCheapGeek]

Its not greed, its capitalism. I wont buy any app that has ads in it. Vote with your wallet, if you dont like ads dont pay for apps with them. If these stay in free apps I am happy with that.

 

[jaw04005]

I hope they don’t plan on putting iAds in paid applications. However, ads on a whole don’t bother me. I’m reasonable enough to understand developers, web site owners, etc have to make money somehow on free content.

The ads Apple demoed were OK. They seem to be a little better than the AdMob/Google ads that are in free apps right now.

I do think it’s hilarious that Google is getting tons of demographic and usage information from Apple’s devices (search, Ad mob, Web site, Maps, Gmail, Calendar, etc) and in turn using that to further development of their own advertising platform and products (Android, Chrome OS, etc).

That really has to gall Steve Jobs and Apple.

 

[Small White Car]

I don't want ads on my phone, period. I pay enough for it, I expect Apple to keep away from ads, if FREE apps want to put Ads, then that is fine, but the shouldn't be allowed on paid apps.

You're acting ilke iAds are in some way different from what we have today. It'll be up to the developers. Same as yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

 

[Veri]

I assume that the iAdBlocker I write will be approved to the Apple store, yes?

If not, I'll just block the Apple ad servers at every gateway I get any say in...

 

[Digitalclips]

I really believe that iAds make sense if properly used! I run an advertising agency and we are advising our clients to take advantage of iAds by offering two versions of their apps: 1) free version with full functionality with iAds and 2) paid version with full functionality without iAds. This way, their customers can try the free version first and determine whether or not they want to spend the money to eliminate the ads. Since we do interactive design and are working on iPhone / iPad apps for clients, we have strongly advised against using iAds in paid apps (not something I want to be associated with at this time).

Mmmm, well I see your point and it is politically correct, but we get ads in many things we pay for so it is not black and white. In fact glossy magazines are often popular for the ads. It's about doing things right.

I like Apple's apparent stance against identifying the actual phone thus keeping data simply about statistics. Although using limited location data to at least approximate to City would make sense to me so that an ad say for a restaurant is at least local.

 

[*LTD*]

At what point is Apple's greed excessive?

So just a little bit of greed is alright?

 

[John.B]

I'm curious as to what control the developer will have over the types of advertising that are displayed inside free (i.e. ad-supported) apps.

Can they pick a list of vendors or categories to include or exclude?

IOW, how does the developer keep the Viagra, shady mortgage deal, and teeth whitening ads out of their app?

 

[vincebio]

Really, this again. Nothing is going to change with iAds. Apple isn't going to put ads on your phone. Paid apps are not going to starting putting ads in their apps now. Unless they were already doing it.

i agree with you to a certain extent, and i know where your coming from....but iAds are in mu opinion going to expand the amount of ads we see, purely because they are going to be massively improved as an interactive method of gaining a 'reason to buy'.

 

[Salacion]

You know we'll see some developers implement iAds into their paid apps. I mean heck, some already do (Ngmoco off the top of my head). And I don't buy these apps, nor do many others. In this way, people will know not to place ads within their paid apps. If they continue on ignorant, then so be it. You can avoid the app.

If iAds will ad some sleekness to free apps, I'm all for it. Though, I'm always willing to pay a buck or two just to not have to deal with ads. It really isn't too much money.

 

[jaw04005]

IOW, how does the developer keep the Viagra, shady mortgage deal, and teeth whitening ads out of their app?

They don’t. Apple does if they’re using the iAd framework. Does anyone know how much control is available on the AdMob side?

 

[John.B]

At what point is Apple's greed excessive?

Oh, stop already.

You can either have iAd ads or you'll get AdMob ads (or worse). Certainly the revenue split announced by Apple are in line with the other options available to the average developer. I think the average non-developer isn't aware that's true, but it is.

From a user perspective, these ads will be far less intrusive from a tracking perspective than what Google, etc. are marketing.

As I understand it, Apple is arguing that app makers can't pass along information that incorporates each phone's "unique device identifier" to ad networks and measurement companies.

 

[inlovewithi]

Very innovating.

 

[lifeinhd]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11a Safari/525.20)

Personally, I'm welcoming iAds. I don't ever click ads intentionally, but when I hit one by accident it's quite annoying having it take me to safari and then the app store and then having to quit, go back to the original app, and return to where I was. I love the idea of just being able to tap an x button when I accidentally hit an ad and not having to relaunch anything.

EDIT: I wonder what an iPhone/iPod user running os 2.2.1 will see in place of iads? Considering it's a core part of OS 4.0, I doubt we'll get all the "benefits"... If we just get a blank space, I'll be fine with that but more likely I won't be able to run those apps

 

[rwilliams]

I never click on the damn ads anyway, so Apple can do whatever they want.