App Tracking Transparency (ATT). Last year Apple launched ATT which allowed consumers to decide whether they would allow third-party apps to track their activity across apps. The feature was said to cause billions of dollars in losses for Meta, Snap, and other, smaller developers. In response, Meta was rumored to be developing Basic Ads that only tracked the most simple metrics such as engagement or video views. 

The current state of Apple ads. Apple’s current advertising efforts include display ads inside the News and Stocks apps, in the App Store (advertising apps) across all Apple devices, and inside TV+. A portion of ads in the News app go to publishers, and will appear even if you subscribe for $10 a month. You can choose to turn off the ad personalization feature in your device, but the system will still use information from your device, carrier, and types of articles you’re reading to show ads. Apple says they can do this because the system “does not follow you across apps and websites owned by other companies.” ATT is designed to prevent tracking across outside apps and websites. Apple says that since this isn’t happening, they don’t need to show a pop-up.

Where Apple ads are heading. According to a report from Bloomberg, display ads are shown in the search tab. But soon Apple will expand the ads to the main Today tab as well as in third-party app download pages. For search ads in the app store, developers can pay to have their apps featured in the results when users search terms related to the app.

Apple ads group vice president in charge Todd Teresi discusses increasing the ads business to “double digits” from the $4 billion in annual revenue it is generating now. According to Blomberg, that could mean expanding search ads to Maps, adding ads to digital storefronts like Books and Podcasts, and multiple tiers of TV+. 

Read the full article. You can read the full Bloomberg article here. 

Why we care. An expansion could open up a lot more, potentially cheaper, advertising opportunities. Brands who are interested in paying to have their business listings sponsored may be able to do so just as they could on Yelp or other local search platforms. Although tracking would be limited, brands focused on vanity metrics such as engagement and video views could still leverage data from your Apple activity to make the ads worthwhile. Given that there is less user data for targeting, the cost per tap would likely be lower, and brands would need to test placement options to ensure that they’re getting the most out of it.

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