Apple has made a couple of adjustments to its iAd mobile advertising platform for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, including significantly lowering the buy-in price to $100,000 -- down from $500,000, which was already down from $1,000,000 -- and to increasing developer revenue sharing to 70 percent -- up from 60 precent. iAd was supposed to allow developers who made free apps earn some extra revenue through in-app advertising, but Apple has been facing a lot of challenges getting the program off the ground. iAds were supposed to be both lucrative for developers and effective for advertisers, while delighting users with better presented, more engaging content than your average punch-the-monkey web banner.
However, Apple has had some trouble getting it off the ground, and competing with Google's AdMob. iAd is basically fighting a battle on two fronts. First, trying to get more advertisers on board with iAd. Second, trying to get developers to show the ads they do manage to sell. Higher revenue should sweetens the pot for developer, hopefully creating a bigger target for Apple to sell advertisers. That's also where the significant decrease in iAd price comes in.
The iAd mobile advertising network provides a simple and compelling way to generate additional revenue from your apps. Now we’re making it even better, raising your revenue share to 70 percent. The new revenue share goes into effect automatically on April 1 for all developers in the iAd Network. Learn how easy it is to get started with iAd.
Apple has struggled with adoption among advertisers since Steve Jobs introduced the program back in 2010. When first announced, Apple required participants to fork over $1 million to get started, which they've since realized was far too high an amount given the lack of participation after the program launched. Apple has been experimenting with the buy-in amount from the get-go, cutting the price in half to $500,000 a year ago.
These changes should no doubt encourage more advertisers to participate, but whether or not iAd will ultimately become what Apple envisioned is yet to be determined.
