Apple now sells its own Apple News ads for the first time

Apple’s in-house advertising efforts are growing. According to a new report, the company recently started selling its own ads for Apple News—a big shift in its News ad strategy.

Apple grows in-house ad efforts with News expansion

Sara Fischer writes for Axios:

Apple has started selling its own advertising inventory for Apple News, two sources familiar with the effort told Axios. It’s pitching new ad units that it hopes will maximize revenue for itself and its publishing partners.

[…]

Apple is pitching marketers on new ad units within the Apple News feed and within individual stories on Apple News, Axios has learned. Beginning next year, Apple will sell premium sponsorships of editorially curated content for relevant events, such as the Met Gala, the U.S. Open, and more. In addition to premium sponsorships, the Apple News team is also pitching banner placements and video ads across 17 different formats, including carousel ads that feature different products.

Fischer notes that publishers are set to earn 70% of the revenue from Apple-sold ads. Presumably this is an increase from the ads sold by Apple’s third-party partners like Taboola.

That recent Taboola partnership isn’t ending, but rather Apple will continue to offer unsold ad opportunities through Taboola and potentially other new partners.

9to5Mac’s Take

Apple News recently gained some acclaim for its US election night experience, and it sounds like Apple may lean harder into special events-based coverage in the future—creating not only compelling user experiences but also unique sponsorship opportunities.

Apple already sells its own App Store ads, but otherwise the company’s in-house advertising efforts have been fairly limited. Various hires have pointed to a possible Apple TV+ ad tier in the future, but nothing has come to fruition yet.

Hopefully Apple’s ad teams can produce a higher quality ad experience inside Apple News. In any case, for a company always looking to grow services revenue, this move makes a lot of sense.

What do you make of Apple’s expanding ad efforts? Let us know in the comments.

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