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Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

forbes.com

131–140 of 231 posts

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#131
Key, unchallenged assumptions:

the Apple ad purely cannibalizes what would otherwise be a first party brand click or organic click,

and targeted clickers are as (or less) likely to eventually convert if they click the Apple ad.

If either doesn’t hold, Apple may be able to create an incremental conversion that’s net positive for both developer and Apple.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#132
post #71

Lovely corporate ethics. I posted this in our company slack room as an example of how not to act for bizdev Google benefits too much from this sort of arrangement to have any incentive to stop it, even though these are unauthorized advertisements that are specifically against Google's AdWords TOS (side note, I wonder if there is a legal avenue to follow when a vendor doesn't follow their own TOS? An interesting thoug…

a) It is not against AdWords TOS provided you have permission to use their trademarked terms. Which Apple has since in the Developer agreement [1] they have been assigned permissions to use logos, trademarked terms etc in marketing material. b) Google is incentivised to tackle abuse within their system. It's ridiculous and baseless to say otherwise. Lack of integrity in an ad marketplace very easily can translate to…

Perhaps spoofing shouldn’t be trivial? And perhaps they don’t fix that problem for the same reason telcos don’t fix their caller ID spoofing problem?

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#133

How's this different than googling for a Lenovo laptop and seeing ads for Lenovo's website versus Amazon?

There is a third party taking a large commission for the sale and any recurring service. It's like if Amazon put out ads for Lenovo but bundling a protection plan and taking a referer cut.

Are you unaware of Amazon's cut of purchases? Lenovo also uses FBA so Amazon makes even more from those sales.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) It is not against AdWords TOS provided you have permission to use their trademarked terms. Which Apple has since in the Developer agreement [1] they have been assigned permissions to use logos, trademarked terms etc in marketing material. b) Google is incentivised to tackle abuse within their system. It's ridiculous and baseless to say otherwise. Lack of integrity in an ad marketplace very easily can translate to…

I think it would be completely crazy if apple did this without entering into a special contract with google. Theres no way some sales engineer just signed up for a google ads account one day

I have no idea why you think this is crazy.

a) Apple will be a big customer for Google but nothing compared to companies like P&G who manage hundreds of products or those who have more competitive search terms. And in this particular case it's neither.

b) Apple has a dedicated App Store Marketing team who likely signed up or maybe they used their main account. Either way it's pretty simple and you don't need to ask Google's permission.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#136
post #90

It's actually an interesting question how nefarious or harmful this actually is. We obviously know why Apple is doing it and why the apps in question don't like it. But a couple things occurred to me: You could view this like Amazon giving away your book or android app in a promotion. As I understand it, they still pay the author as if it were a sale, so the author seemingly has nothong to complain about. Even that s…

To me it’s an issue if Apple refuses to stop if a particular business asks them to. That seems like an easy measuring stick.

Not sure they can. The dev agreement permanently signs away their refusal.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#137
post #71

Lovely corporate ethics. I posted this in our company slack room as an example of how not to act for bizdev Google benefits too much from this sort of arrangement to have any incentive to stop it, even though these are unauthorized advertisements that are specifically against Google's AdWords TOS (side note, I wonder if there is a legal avenue to follow when a vendor doesn't follow their own TOS? An interesting thoug…

a) It is not against AdWords TOS provided you have permission to use their trademarked terms. Which Apple has since in the Developer agreement [1] they have been assigned permissions to use logos, trademarked terms etc in marketing material. b) Google is incentivised to tackle abuse within their system. It's ridiculous and baseless to say otherwise. Lack of integrity in an ad marketplace very easily can translate to…

I don't think your message will register here. The OG commenter spent the whole comment bashing Google, and the comment doesn't even mention Apple. That should tell you something. If Google stops Apple from doing so as the OG commenter wants them to, there'd be dozens of hot takes how Google is abusing its platform to prevent Apple from advertising. And the same group of people would be outraged at Google again.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#138
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember, it's not that much money for Apple especially considering their whole app store business model depends on taking their 30% tax. Maybe we're talking about $50m/yr vs app store revenues of $10b (?) a year (and 70%+ margins per docs in recent court cases). They would absolutely be willing to lose this money if it extended their stranglehold on app developers - it's the same reason they fight tooth and nail in…

Sorry, I don't understand how your response applies to my third point? Tinder would not be willing to spend $97/user because that is only worth it for users they would not otherwise acquire. In this case, I'm positing that these are users who already want to subscribe to Tinder, and are going to do it somewhere, the only question is whether Apple can get them to sign up through the IAP flow and take a 30% cut. If I'm…

Ok maybe i’m not following your question then - do you mind rephrasing and asking again?

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#139

> When people buy access to a service via a subscription in an iOS app, they are essentially Apple’s customers. For privacy reasons Apple does not provide much information about them to the apps or businesses that run the apps. That means it’s hard to do customer service, address issues, or solve any problems. > “The user experience is much worse,” a marketing executive from one company told me. “When you buy with th…

There are pros and cons. As one example my son purchased $500 of skins in Fortnite on Nintendo (I had the card saved, my fault since corrected). Trying to get that refunded was a huge drama because I had to go via Nintendo rather than Epic. In this specific scenario I would have preferred a first party resolution.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember, it's not that much money for Apple especially considering their whole app store business model depends on taking their 30% tax. Maybe we're talking about $50m/yr vs app store revenues of $10b (?) a year (and 70%+ margins per docs in recent court cases). They would absolutely be willing to lose this money if it extended their stranglehold on app developers - it's the same reason they fight tooth and nail in…

> Theres no scenario where apple can be profitable on this spend when they can only ever get 30% of what the consumer spends. I mean, maybe if tinder's margin was less than apples, but that's pretty unlikely.

Think about this way: both companies are bidding on the same keywords. One party (the developer) collects either $97 if the consumer signs up on their website directly or $70 if the consumer downloads the app and signs up via the app store. The other party (apple) collects only $30 (at a maximum) if they drive the user to sign up via the app store (30% of a $100 LTV).

If they’re both bidding on the same keywords, which they are, then the price of the keywords is the same to each of them. It’s an auction, so whoever bids the most will win the auction. The developer can spend up to $97 to bid on that keyword and still be profitable or at worst break even, while apple can only spend up to $30 to stay profitable or break even. So if Apple is winning auctions, it means they’re spending more than the developer, despite having less than half the purchasing power of the developer. So they’re spending negatively almost no matter what.

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