Is Apple Building A Demand Side Advertising Platform?

Apple appears to be launching its own demand-side platform, though details are thin. Recent job postings hints that the company is expanding its ad business. An Apple job posting indicated that the company is looking for a product manager with 8 years of experience building a mobile demand-side platform and optimizing mobile campaigns.

Digiday broke the news that hiring in the Ad Platforms division has risen significantly since the beginning of 2022. It also highlighted job listings that state Apple is building “the most privacy-forward, sophisticated demand side platform possible”.

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Why a DSP?

For any ad company, DSPs represent their intent. Apple’s decision to make it more difficult for companies to sell ads within its ecosystem has enabled it to grow exponentially.

The DSP is a crucial part of any ad tech stack with the goal of winning more media dollars. Basically, it’s the technology that allows a marketer to automate their advertising. The automation of the process is important because it means marketers scale up campaigns based on performance indicator factors, aided by machine learning. It is important that the platform is well-engineered so that advertisers are satisfied and will spend more on it.

In order to create a good DSP, a significant investment of time and money is required. Times have changed and Apple seems to be changing its position on online advertising. This is settled through a DSP. 

Apple has scaled and built its advertising business behind the scenes, leveraging its ecosystem assets and user data, they have created seamless consumer experiences.  The next logical step in this evolution is for Apple to build its own DSP. As a result, they will have full control over how and where their data is used, preventing leakage outside of their walled garden.

Apple adds new ad plans

Earlier this month, Apple announced they were adding two new advertising slots to its App Store. In the near future, developers will have the ability to place ads outside of the Search tab and Search results. The new advertising spot will appear alongside editorial content on the ‘Today’ page of the App Store. Another ad placement will appear on product pages under the tab “You May Also Like”.

Will the DSP succeed?

Long-time Apple observers will know Apple’s iAds failure. It was a mobile advertising platform that allowed third-party developers to embed advertisements into their applications directly.  But Apple takes another chance at that market, to add to its growing pile of services revenue sources. Introducing new advertising opportunities in the App Store and recruiting a team to build its own DSP.

As DigiDay notes, it remains unclear if the intended DSP is geared toward serving ads solely on Apple’s owned and operated properties, such as the App Store itself or on the millions of iOS apps, or even on third-party properties such as the mobile web.

For industry experts, Apple’s plans to launch a DSP are not particularly surprising especially considering industry trends and its privacy-oriented mission.

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