Citing interviews with at least seven publishers, a report by Digiday has highlighted how publishers are having trouble selling their Apple News inventory directly, which ultimately bogs down the ad revenue on Apple’s publishing platform.
One publisher said it is earning “low five-figures” every month from Apple News, while another said it makes less than $1,000 per month.
According to one publisher, Apple News’s limited user targeting, which doesn’t allow the use of third-party data or IP addresses, is the main reason for them being unable to sell a meaningful amount of ads on Apple News.
Furthermore, Apple News’s incompatibility with the publisher’s current sales strategy of relying on programmatic advertising is believed to be another big reason for them seeing minimal ad revenue from the platform.
Two publishing sources said the best bet for selling Apple News inventory today is to throw it in as a value-add within larger campaigns. “We’ve been able to position it as a premium, in-app audience, which is attractive to some advertisers,” one source said. “There are drawbacks around targeting though.”
Apple News currently has around 90 million regular users consisting of nearly 70 million monthly unique users, and another 20 million international users.
