For the past two years we have heard a lot about iAds, Apple’s premium advertising network. IDC reported in December that Apple’s share of the mobile ad market has been in decline, slipping from 19% in 2010 to 15% last year. Meanwhile, Google leads the field with 24% of ad revenue — followed by Millennial Media with 17%, according to IDC estimates of what the market researcher says was a $2.1 billion-dollar mobile ad market in 2011.
The biggest issue with iAds is that the rates for advertisers are quite high in comparison to other competing mobile ad buys. Apple has maintained their high prices due to the belief that their ads are significantly more interactive and engaging than other rich media ads in the mobile ecosystem. The problem is that these ad buys are relegated to iOS devices only, while other competitors like AdMob (Google) and Millennial (who recently filed for an IPO) enable advertisers to buy across platforms thus increasing there overall reach.
From Spreed’s perspective, we have integrated iAds into CleverAds, our mobile ad platform, with varying degrees of success based on the market in question. The CPM from iAds is always higher than other networks, but the fill rate in the US is much lower. That being said we are seeing a fantastic fill rate in the UK. If the US arm of iAds can start exciting advertisers again and increase the fill rate, iAds will be the obvious ad network for all premium publishers.
There is certainly hope on the horizon for change within the iAds program. Apple just hired Todd Teresi, who was formerly the VP of Adobe’s Media Solutions Group to head up the iAds program. This will be an interesting year to watch iAds and see whether it can get back some of the market share it has lost over the past couple of years. Bloomberg wrote the below article on this recent shake up and it is certainly worth a read.
Apple Is Said to Hire Adobe Executive Todd Teresi to Run IAd
Teresi, who was vice president of Adobe’s media solutions group, has already started at Apple as vice president of iAd, said two of the people, who declined to be identified because the move hasn’t been announced. Teresi is reporting to Eddy Cue, a senior vice president who also oversees Apple’s iTunes and the App Store.
