'Growth has been significant': Publishers are falling in love with Apple News
- Apple News is quickly becoming a significant source of traffic for web publishers.
- Now that Apple is giving publishers more ad sales control, the hope is that revenue from the app surges.
- Ironically, Apple's closed off nature and anti-data stance are proving attractive to many in the media and ad industry wary of Facebook's recent problems.
Many web publishers have been jilted by Facebook. Now they are quickly falling hard for Apple News. They just hope that this new love leads to new revenue.
After a shaky start which led many in the media world to doubt whether Apple was serious about the product (the Wall Street Journal reported in 2016 that neither publishers nor Apple execs were sure how big their Apple News audiences were), a slew of top web publishers are enjoying significant traffic spikes from the news aggregation app.
For example:
- Vice's traffic via Apple News more than doubled in the last year, according to people familiar with the matter.
- Meredith has seen 122% yearly growth in unique visitors reaching its properties via Apple News, and a 327% overall growth in pages consumed.
- Vox has enjoyed sizable traffic from Apple News as well, The Information reported.
- One source said that 17% of the Apple News audience visits every day.
- Some individual stories have generated half of their traffic from Apple News.
"The awareness for Apple News is still building, for consumers and advertisers," said Trevor Fellows, NBCUniversal's executive vice president, digital sales and strategy. NBCUniversal inked a deal to sell Apple News ad space in 2016.
"But the traffic growth we've seen is really strong. One thing we've learned is that once people start using the app they use it all the time."
And now that Apple is ramping up publishers' ability to make money from ads on Apple News, there's growing hope that a solid new revenue stream may be emerging just when publishers need it.
There are a few theories as to why Apple News is suddenly a favorite among consumers and publishers:
- While the early experience for web publishers was not great (many complained about limited data from Apple and little in the way of customer service), now media execs say the opposite is true. Apple seems to care about the media business, and it provides publishers with hands on help.
"They seem to be committed to this," said Meredith Digital president Stan Pavlovsky. "They did a roadshow and the senior folks were actually here. So we're focused on it."
- The product is a lot better than when it launched. It particularly improved during the most recent software update.
- It's user base is potentially huge, as it is pre-installed on every iPhone and is just a few swipes away.
- Apple News is a closed app, meaning it's curated and less cluttered. Top media companies like the idea of being amongst other top media companies, particularly given their experience in anything goes feed environments on social media platforms.
- That closed aspect means no fake news.
- The product allows for content serendipity for consumers, and new readers for publishers. It's almost a new version of general interest web portals like Yahoo, AOL and MSN. In fact, a year ago on average Apple News users were getting stories from four sources, and now the average is 20.
- Ironically, Apple's privacy stance is suddenly en vogue. Traditionally, when it comes to digital advertising, Apple has been seen as behind the targeting times. It doesn't let publishers or advertisers track people or retarget them with ads. That hyper pro-privacy stance may be working in its favor, in light of the recent data privacy fallout from Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal and Europe's looming consumer privacy legistation GDPR.
There are some key best practices emerging among publishers.
It's worth producing customized Apple News content.
"We have been hugely invested since it launched," said Dave Merrell, lead product manager at the Washington Post. "We feel like we need to stand out."
For the Post, that means instead of just sending a straight feed of stories to Apple, the publisher's graphics team produces content that is uniquely formatted for Apple News. They also pitch Apple's editors for inclusion in special Apple News features.
"I'm not supposed to talk about numbers, but growth has been significant," he said.
Merrell also noted that the Washington Post is also finding early success in converting readers to paying subscribers.
Apple News is not just for news.
Several publishers noted that lifestyle content is starting to take off in Apple News, alongside timely, trending news stories. Some have likened the product to a new version of the nightly news on network TV.
Kate Robinson, SVP for business development at Bustle, said she wasn't sure if her site's women's' lifestyle content, or young demographic, would be a fit for Apple. "We've been extremely pleased," she said.
Last summer, Robinson's team started pushing more content to Apple and getting a feel for what worked. "Traffic really jumped after being on the platform for a month and half, and the editors started getting to know us. There's been a steady month over month rise ever since."
More ads are coming. But no 'belly fat' banners.
As mentioned, NBCU sells Apple News ads as part of its digital-media-focused Code team. And last fall Apple started letting publishers implement DFP, Google's ad technology.
That policy is enabling individual publishers to sell and track their own Apple News ad inventory, but with limitations. You can't retarget individual people using shopping data via Apple News, for example.
That should have the effect of limiting Apple News to big name advertisers, and not much direct-response, 'click here to win' kind of ads.
"If you look in Apple News, it's Wells Fargo, Amex, Audi, etc." said Merrell.
Estimates range, but some publishers predict that Apple News ads could turn into a multimillion a year revenue stream fairly quickly.
"In the last month or two, we've seen a pretty steep revenue acceleration," said Meredith's Chief Digital Officer Matt Minoff.
Apple cares about Apple a lot more than it cares about advertising.
Apple famously hasn't had much success selling ads on its own. And many believe that the company has little interest or affection in that business. For example, Apple features ad blocking tools in its browser and on iPhones.
So in the case of Apple News, it seems they're letting the ad experts do their thing. "Their strategy is about selling devices and getting people hooked on the IOS ecosystem," said Minoff. "They're not ad people. For them its about a great consumer experience."
Of course, there are two sides to that. Apple could find that its consumers don't like many ads in Apple News. Or they could shift gears entirely and focus on other products, apps or business categories.
To be sure, there's plenty of recent evidence regarding the danger of building a media company solely on the whims of a single platform, like say Facebook.
For now though, it's love.