Get Ready for Apple Maps Search Ads in 2023

As Apple is supposedly working to expand its advertising business, people will start seeing search ads on Apple Maps as early as 2023.

• What is happening? Rumor has it that Apple plans to expand its advertising business, starting with search ads on Apple Maps in 2023.
• Why care? Because you didn’t pay more than $1,000 to have ads on your iPhone just to use its standard features.
• What to do? Hope this report is wrong.

Apple Maps search ads likely to arrive as early as 2023

As well-informed Apple reporter Mark Gurman of Bloomberg recently reported, Apple’s advertising department appears to be considering introducing more ads to the company’s own apps, such as podcasts, books and even maps.

In the latest issue of his Bloomberg Power On newsletter, Gurman answers the question of when this ad expansion could happen.

“I believe engineering work is already underway to launch search ads in the Apple Maps app, and we should start implementing it sometime next year,” he writes. Read: How to set up Apple Maps on iPhone, iPad and Mac

Apple is currently implementing banner ads like the ones you see online in its News and Stocks apps. It also shows display ads in the App Store when the user searches for something. Ads on the App Store will expand with two new ad placements coming soon, one at the bottom of the app listing and one on the Today tab.

But will people tolerate more ads?

Gurman says Apple has already explored the idea of ​​adding search ads to the Maps app. And why not, no? After all, you’re used to seeing ads on services like Google Maps and Yelp that cost no money to use.

Nobody likes ads, and while Apple seems to be doing its best to avoid intrusive ads, there is a perception that one of the reasons people pay more for Apple products is because the company doesn’t bombard users with ads.

How Search Ads Work on Apple Maps

In a previous issue of the newsletter, Gurman gave an example of how Maps search ads can work. Let’s say a user from Japan searches for “sushi”. A local restaurant can run an ad that will appear at the top of the search results whenever someone in the vicinity of the restaurant types in the word “sushi”.

Ads may also appear in the Books and Podcasts apps:

In the Books and Podcasts apps, publishers could pay to have their work appear higher in the results—or in in-app ads. Publishers have long been able to sell books in the Apple Books app, and podcast subscriptions can also be linked to ads.

Spreading ads to other apps is reportedly part of Apple’s plan to double its annual ad revenue from $4 billion to $8 billion.

A few months ago, Apple’s advertising teams established themselves in the company’s service department. Responsible vice president of the advertising group, Todd Teresi, returned to reporting directly to chief of service Eddie Cue, and not to deputy chief of service Peter Stern. Terezi reported to Cue during the days of the iAd network in Apple apps.

Clearly, Apple’s mobile advertising ambitions are wider than they seem.

Apple closes iAd, but the technology lives on

To be completely honest, Apple did try to get into the advertising business by buying a mobile advertising company called Quattro Wireless back in 2010.

The acquisition paved the way for Apple’s iAd service, which developers could use to display ads in their apps. Although iAd was discontinued in 2016, the technology lives on in Apple Store search ads and news/stock ads. And if Gurman is right, Apple could be using iAd to squeeze more money out of its customers.