Six years ago Apple launched the iAd service for placing ads in mobile applications on iPhone and iPad. The company’s founder Steve jobs then announced that in the first six months iAd will take 48% of the U.S. mobile advertising market, but in reality the platform is not able to cross even 3% threshold. Apple on Friday announced the closure of ad network iAd in late June of this year.
The iAd became part of the operating system iOS 4 and it was created on the basis of the acquired company Quattro Wireless. Initially, Apple limited the audience of advertisers and put the bar of minimum advertising budget of $1 million. The first advertisers in iAd became Citi, DirecTV and Nissan. When by the end of 2010 it became clear that the growth of the platform has stopped, Apple began to lower the barrier of entry to the platform. In February 2011, the minimum budget was reduced to $500,000 in July to us $300 000, in February 2012 — up to $100,000. The last attempt to save JFK was the reduction of the minimum advertising budget to only $50 000 in June 2013, but it has not brought any tangible results. In 2014 at iAd had to 2.6% of the U.S. mobile advertising market, and in 2015 this share will increase up to a maximum of 2.8%.
The global mobile advertising market today is estimated at $100 billion, according to eMarketer principal engine of market is the segment of video advertising. The operators, a marginalized market in the era of smartphones, today back in the game thanks to its own video services, sale of advertising in which they control independently. In the era of mobile video advertising operators have a distinct advantage over other services, they can make the traffic for these services is free and thus attract more users than an independent video service.
Why didn’t iAd? Perhaps the critical role played by the snobbery and complacency of Apple, which is thought possible the total control of everything that happens in the iOS ecosystem. As a result of application developers have become popular the services of mobile advertising, which allowed all advertisers. iAd with the principle “who don’t have a million, he goes by” simply couldn’t attract enough advertisers.
In the future, according to rumors, Apple plans to migrate the platform for automatic placement of ads, giving publishers the control over advertisements placed, but also all the profit from it.
