Apple may plan big expansion in its digital ads team – FT

Yep, even this old iPhone 8 still gets search ads

While we wait on the iPhone 14, yet more evidence to suggest Apple may intend increasing the extent of its advertising business has emerged, with the Financial Times reporting significant expansion of the workforce for its ads team.

Apple may be doubling its ads teams

The FT has taken a look at Apple’s recruitment pages and claims the company is seeking to add 211 new hires to its global ads team, which currently comprises 250 workers. The report does tell us Apple has disputed the numbers claimed but hasn’t made any additional statement.

The move may be a little controversial, given Apple has taken steps to secure privacy on its platforms. At the same time, it is also plausible to think that this evens out the playing field for new entrants to the ads sales space to create viable business models that protect privacy while also promoting products.

I imagine this reflects the old routes to advertising, in which excellence in advertising content translated into sales far more effectively than micro-targeting via social media.

[Also read: News Corp says Apple News is ‘important source’ of revenue]

The latest FT report does lend weight to recent speculation from Bloomberg, which said Apple has been internally testing search ads for inclusion in Maps. It also follows Apple’s recent decision to expand ad slots at the App Store.

A big business to unleash, maybe?

Apple says 70% of App Store visitors use Search to find their next app; 65% of all downloads take place after search; and that it sees a better than 50% conversion rate for search ads.

Apple already offers publishers on Apple News 100% of ads a publisher sells and 70% from ads inventory sold by Apple. It also offers the News Partner Program. It has also been shown that Apple News is already more popular then the BBC news app.

There are some areas in which Apple could conceivably introduce ad-supported services. Appe’s critically acclaimed TV+ service is better without ads, of course, but could Apple introduce an ads-supported layer? If it chose to do so it would likely be able to reach a vast global audience across a multitude of platforms and devices, so it’s not such a terrible idea.

We shall see, but it seems quite probable that Apple is now expanding its ads business.

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