Apple’s announcement that it will begin to show ads in its Maps app offers businesses new opportunities to showcase their services to iOS users.
The company’s decision will add revenue to the Apple Services income stream, which has been clearing $100 billion annually from products such as iCloud, Apple Music and the App Store. Apple expects initial income to be around $8-$9 billion as the Maps service monetises, with advertisers bidding for rank via the Apple Business portal.
Apple has continued its PR drive that attempts to establish it as the privacy-focused alternative to Google by stating that its implementation of on-map advertising uses a ‘privacy-first’ architecture. The company’s announcement of the new feature, which is to roll out later this year, initially in North America, assures end-users that: “Where you go and the ads you see and interact with are not associated with your Apple Account. Personal data stays on your device, is not collected or stored by Apple Ads, and is not shared with third parties. Age and gender are not used to target ads on Maps.”
Ads are not shown on Maps screens on devices registered to the under-13s or those managed by educational institutions.
Feedback to Apple on which properties are tapped or investigated further is associated with a rotated and randomised ID.
During the early stages of the service running, advertisers of niche, market-specific products and services can’t be sure that their ads will be reaching the right segment. As an example, without specifics of an iPhone user’s demographics, ads for a company selling mobility aids for the elderly could be shown to anyone in the vicinity of their store from aged 13 up.
There would also be no way to identify returning customers as they approach the store and ensure they’re shown contextual ads based on their habits.
Some commentators have noted that the emphasis will be on creating a Maps service that’s a passive discovery layer akin to a browsing experience. As an iPhone user enters a locale, they’ll see ads that only may be relevant to them. This means that advertisers will need to follow the ‘discovery’ narrative as if every ad display is reaching a brand new prospect, every time.
For professional marketers, that’s a surmountable problem as far as content creation goes, but Apple’s decision not to identify specific users means decision-makers will need to categorise their spend on Apple Maps carefully.
- Do my products appeal to a broad selection of the population?
- How do I create messages relevant to both new and returing customers?
- If my products are specific to a market segment, can they presented in such a way as to make their appeal broader?
Apple states that ads will be shown to users based on their location (obviously) but also on search terms the user has entered. That creates a different proposition from ads served from ads optimised for search results.
For further consideration in the coming months, it’s worth speculating how the ads service on Maps may change in order to increase revenues for Apple. Depending on the levels of pressure put on the internal Maps monetisation team and pushback from the company’s privacy advocates, the scope of the service may grow. Methods for greater personalisation of end-users may be announced, or, conversely, Apple may consider it to be enough that it can offer Maps as a less-cluttered, less-commercialised alternative to Google Maps.
Once the project of Maps ads goes into production later this year, the company is sure to be examining feedback from users and businesses very carefully. If Apple’s product development history is anything to go by, it will again be able to take an existing product or market (monetised Maps à la Google) and turn it into something more successful than those it’s imitated.
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