Apple Begins Showing More Ads in App Store

As expected, Apple today announced that new ad placements are now available in the App Store, allowing developers to advertise their apps in more spots.

App Store Ads
Starting today, developers can now advertise their apps in the App Store's main Today tab and in a "You Might Also Like" section at the bottom of individual app listings in all countries except China. Ads are already beginning to appear in these places, and as usual, the ads have a blue background and an "Ad" icon so they can be identified.

"With new Today tab and product page ad placements, you can drive discovery of your app in more moments across the App Store — when customers first arrive, search for something specific, and browse apps to download," says Apple's announcement.

This marks the first time that developers are able to run ads in the Today tab, which until now has only displayed content handpicked from the App Store's editorial staff, without any paid placement. And with the "You Might Also Like" section, developers are now able to promote their apps at the bottom of other apps' pages.

In a tweet, legal expert Florian Mueller argued the "You Might Also Like" ads are "another means of increasing the effective app tax rate, forcing developers to buy ads on their own app pages in order to avoid that others steer customers away from there."

App Store ads were previously limited to search results based on keywords and the "Suggested" section of the Search tab. With ads in the Today tab and the "You Might Also Like" section, the App Store now offers four advertising options in total. Apple first announced plans to expand its App Store ad placement offerings in July.

In August, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple wanted to nearly triple its current advertising revenue to at least $10 billion per year in the future. Gurman said keyword-based search result ads are coming to the Apple Maps app starting next year.

Top Rated Comments

doboy Avatar
8 months ago
New motto for Apple: make every hardware configurations under the sun, nickel and dime you, and monetize more with ads. Oops, forgot, break something with every "update"
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
britboyj Avatar
8 months ago
Just so everyone knows, Apple doesn't require itself to abide by the ad tracking rules it sets for developers. It doesn't already. Tracking for Apple advertising is turned ON by default and has no prompts to opt-out, whereas other developers are off by default until the pop the AppTrackingTransparency prompt to ask users to opt-in.

Rank hypocrisy from Cupertino.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheYayAreaLiving ?️ Avatar
8 months ago

Tbh I thought Apple had already been doing this… for years.
Either way i’m fine with them doing ads, as long as they’re non-tracking ads, which appears to be the case for all of their services up to this point.
The scary part is it will be implemented in Apple Maps in the near future. Imagine using GPS navigation and you get bombarded with some stupid Ad.

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/21/ads-coming-to-apple-maps-report/

#Say NO to Ads!
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ProfessionalFan Avatar
8 months ago

Agree. It would be ideal if Apple give the users to turn off this Ad feature functionality point blank period
App Store+

For just $9.99 a month, you can enjoy an ad-free App Store.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DinkThifferent Avatar
8 months ago
October has been a bad month for Apple. Disappointing new iPads with huge price increases (here in Europe), now price increases for Apple services, buggy iPad OS release and now more ads in iOS.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macfacts Avatar
8 months ago
Apple double dipping, collecting apple tax and Google tax.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)