Apple ad business set to rapidly expand digital ad staff | WARC | The Feed

Apple ad business set to rapidly expand digital ad staff

Hundreds of job adverts hint at the iPhone maker’s plans to supercharge its digital advertising business, with current listings likely to double the department’s staff.

Why it matters

Many of the engineering jobs available at the company in this “incredibly fast-growing” area of the business, per one ad, are focused on building both supply- and demand-side platforms, which are the tools necessary to buy and sell ads across the iPhone ecosystem on different exchanges. Effectively, there are ever more places where clients can buy advertising, and the platform business suggests opportunities will only increase.

It follows last year’s adoption of Ad Tracking Transparency features that have curtailed the ability of advertising-funded apps and services like Facebook and Twitter to track users across the online environment. In this space, it has stepped up its advertising business and this latest news reflects the initial scale of the ambition that has begun to take shape in reports.

What’s going on

The Financial Times brings together current LinkedIn data, suggesting 250 current staff members on its platforms team, with open ads for as many as 216 new roles, reflecting an ambition to double the scale of the operation.

• Critics point out that given the company’s current, relatively small ad revenue levels, it would be extremely tough to take on well-resourced, more mature competitors without first taking advantage of its position.
• Some see the firm’s new plans as something of a U-turn, following a longstanding resistance to personal-information fuelled advertising on its platforms that has contributed to its public stance and, quite possibly, its long-term market share gains.
• Finally, it reflects a broader shift in which a privacy-centric mood has chimed with a technical realignment away from third-party cookies and toward first-party data “walled gardens”. Here, Apple has a colossal trove and some of the strongest walls you could imagine.

Sourced from the Financial Times, WARC
^{[Image: Apple]}