The Ad Business Just Got More Interesting | Apple iAds | Twitter

The Ad Business Just Got More Interesting – iAds and Promoted Tweets

by Dema Zlotin | April 15, 2010

Last week during the iPhone 4.0 software launch, Steve Jobs introduced iAds as a built-in ad platform for app developers to make 60% of every $1 of ad spend that appear on their apps.

Yesterday, Twitter released its long-rumored self-service ad model that allows companies to pay for their tweets to remain at the top of search results pages on Twitter.com and 3rd party Twitter apps.
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Both announcements demonstrate how much opportunity these companies believe exist in targeting ads to their lucrative customer bases. While these ad platforms are both in their infancy, we expect targeting of various types (demoraphic, location-based, category, keyword) and numerous biding models (CPC, CPM, sponsorships) to be tested.

There are a number of implications of these new offerings:

Expect an increase in the velocity of 3rd party app development for iPhone, iPad and Twitter with additional revenue available to developers. This will continue to enable both Twitter and Apple to lead their respective segments as their ecosystems quickly grow.
Phone manufacturers with their own operating systems (RIM, Nokia, Palm) will all review their ad strategies and look for potential acquisitions where they have gaps.
Twitter is now a media buy in addition to a PR effort. We expect accelerated use of Twitter by advertisers to communicate offers, information, and latest news on their products and services.
Once Twitter has enough advertisers, they will be able to compete with Google/Bing/Yahoo as a source of revenue for bloggers and news sites as they deliver their own content network to 3rd party sites.

Our recommendations to our customers are:

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT #1: If you have been waiting for an opportunity to test or grow your mobile marketing, instruct your agency or internal team to work with Apple to launch ads on the iAds network.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT #2: Instruct your agency or the internal PR team working with Twitter to test the new Promoted Tweets platform. Focus on direct response messages.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT #3: Measure the onsite impact of customers from both of these two new ad types and compare to other forms of interactive marketing. Remember most of these users will be early adopters.