In a bid to increase the popularity of its iAds and attract smaller companies to sign up, Apple has reduced the minimum spend on iAd advertisements by half from $1 million to $500,000. It’s hoped the new price for the interactive advertisements will help to fill vacant slots and renew existing contracts for a service that is rumored to be “hurting” following its strong start.
A report published earlier this month noted Apple’s struggle to sell iAd advertisements, but Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski says the company’s lower asking price aims to “reverse that trend, bringing more brands to the platform and an increasingly larger portion of their annual ad spend to Apple.”
Although iAds launched with incredible interest from some major advertisers, the reason for the decline in its popularity is believed to be due to Apple’s tight control over advertisements, which has caused delays in bringing ads to market and has disgruntled many advertisers.
It’s not just Apple who wants the service to succeed, however – it’s also in the interest of iOS users for advertisers to choose iAds as opposed other mobile advertising services. If you’ve ever used an iOS device with an application which is scattered with advertising that isn’t through iAds, you’ll know the majority of it is unattractive, unimaginative, and unhelpful. If ever you do find an ad that interests you, clicking on it will take you away from your application, into Safari, and onto the advertiser’s website; which is often rather frustrating if you were caught up in something.
With an iAd, however, the content is alluring, well-designed, and well-executed. Clicking on an iAd will take you straight to an impressive interactive advert within the application you’re using – there’s no switching to Safari – and once you’re finished, you can close the advert and return instantly to whatever you were doing.
The attraction of an iAd to an iOS user made it easy to see why the service got off to such a strong start, and it’s a shame that advertisers are being discouraged to use the service by Apple’s strict rules. Unfortunately, Apple’s tight control over certain products and services is becoming an all too familiar story.
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