Apple launched its iAd advertising platform almost six years ago, and is now reportedly planning to soon transfer ad management tasks and revenue to its publishers. The tech giant will reshape the platform into an automated service while handing publishers the responsibility of creating, managing, and selling advertisements.
In 2010 Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs announced that this company would enter the ad business, stating that current mobile advertising was veru bad, according to BuzzFeed. iAd would put eye-catching in-app advertisements in iPhone and iPad applications.
An anonymous source admitted that Apple is not very skilled at advertising. Due to the big change, the company will stop charging a 30 percent fee for its iAd platform. This will allow iAd publishers to keep any revenue they earn from online content, according to Apple Insider.
Apple has not announced any details about the ending of the platform. However BuzzFeed thinks the company could take the first steps as early as this week.
The tech giant would buy out its sales team contracts. However it is unclear about how the company would deal with firms now handling iAd program/buying services.
Eddy Cue is Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services. He reported that the company is developing an ad-buying tool for publishers that would serve content via the iOS 9 News App, and launch within two months.
iAd had a big launch in 2010. However, it never became the complete in-app ad platform Apple wanted to create.
Over the years marketers became livid about several aspects of iAd. They included the company's high prices, opinions about the creative process used to make advertisements, and close control of marketing data.
A source familiar with Apple's iAd explained that they expected the tech company to end the platform for a long time. They were surprised that it did not happen sooner, and argued that for various reasons it should have.
Last year iAd only made up 5.1 percent of the company's stock value, while the figure is much lower than Facebook (37.9 percent) and Google (9.5 percent). CEO Tim Cook called it a tiny part of the company's business.