Apple News monetization – or lack of same – is still a huge problem, say large publishers, who describe the situation as ‘abysmal’ and ‘atrocious.’
We heard back in September that while traffic was growing, ad sales weren’t generating meaningful revenue for publishers. Indeed, we saw one stark example back then …
Media and marketing site Digiday has spoken with seven publishers, who suggest this is a widespread issue.
Publishers said there were three problems with Apple News monetization.
One year later, most publishers are still waiting. Monetization on Apple News remains a slog, according to seven publishers interviewed by Digiday […] One source said their publication earned “low five-figures” every month from Apple News; another said they earned less than $1,000 per month.
First, Apple’s privacy focus means they can’t take advantage of the most profitable form of advertising: highly targeted ads.
Second, Apple also prohibits the use of something known as ‘programmatic advertising’ – when ads are sold by software rather than human beings. This also rules out real-time bidding, when ads sold to the highest bidder in automated auctions.
Third, while Apple claims that it will sell any unsold ad slots, it has a terrible track-record for achieving this, leaving anywhere from 75% to 85% of slots unsold.
There is a little good news: all the publishers contacted said they were seeing increased traffic being driven to their own websites, and that is likely their best hope for indirect Apple News monetization.
A second publisher, which saw fill rates of around 15 percent throughout 2018, has noticed a bit of an uptick in 2019 too, with fill rates climbing to between 20 and 25 percent. This source said that increase was encouraging, but stressed that the fill rate remains “abysmal” on the whole.
Apple is currently trying to sign up publishers to its news subscription service, but is meeting opposition from major players due to wanting a 50% revenue cut, the remaining 50% being split proportionately between all the publications people read.
