Support for Apple's iAd: PayPal will test it, iDeskera will use it

Apple created waves in the mobile marketing waters last week with the unveiling of its iAd mobile advertising platform. The effort inserts mini, app-like advertisements into iPhone apps, and Apple plans to give 60 percent of the resulting revenues to app developers. Steve Jobs' demo of the service was neat, but will developers use it?

I reached out to about a dozen iPhone application developers with that exact question. The result? Some said they would definitely use Apple's iAd platform, while others expressed support but hedged with a wait-and-see attitude. Here's a smattering of the responses:

• "We definitely plan to use Apple's iAd extensively with our iDeskera applications for the iPhone, which today include iDeskera CRM and iDeskera Project Management," said Shashank Dixit, founder and CEO of Krawler, which delivers iDeskera CRM for the iPhone and the Deskera on-demand business application suite. "The iAd platform holds the promise of seamless integration with Apple's iPhone portal, so that we can easily view our sales numbers and ad statistics from a single interface, which is something that hasn't been possible with other third-party ad platform providers."
• "Parkmobile would consider using Apple's new iAd mobile advertising platform for the iPhone as we feel this is an interesting new platform that could potentially be lucrative for advertising, brand recognition and new revenue," said a representative for Parkmobile, which offers an app allowing iPhoners to pay for parking via mobile.
• "It is an interesting concept and we are exploring the opportunity," said a representative for Pantone, which recently announced its myPantone X-Ref iPhone application and Web tool that lets graphic, digital, multimedia, fashion, interior and industrial designers cross-reference all Pantone Color Libraries.
• "At this point we are planning to test iAd, and performance will determine our next steps," said a representative for PayPal, which recently announced that its PayPal Mobile iPhone app has been downloaded one million times in less than three weeks. "We'd be happy to share our perspective after testing is done."

I also pinged a few of the larger, traditional advertising firms like McCann and Merkley and Partners about Apple's iAd announcement, but didn't get responses back from any of them.

So there you have it: One yes and a handful of maybes, which is about what I would expect this early in the game.

But there are some unanswered questions about iAd. As Forrester Research's Julie Ask points out, there's little information on whether iAd will be able to target specific users, and how exactly it will provide analytics and metrics to advertisers interested in their ad's performance. And CCS Insight questions support for iAd among bigger advertisers: "Some media owners will be less impressed with Apple's solution, as it will put pressure on the attractive margins they can achieve through their own ad networks."

However, the potential is huge, notes Ask: A total of 85 million devices sold so far that can support iAds, representing a potential advertiser opportunity of 1 billion ad impressions per day. Indeed, hundreds of brands are already pushing iPhone apps through the iTunes App Store. "Many simply had the goal of generating ‘buzz,'" Ask said. "We could see more of that."

Concludes CCS Insight: "We predict developers of iPhone apps will quickly embrace iAd, especially as Apple will host and sell the advertising while giving 60 percent of revenue to developers. We believe the App Store has primarily been a break-even service so far, whose main purpose has been to boost hardware sales. The introduction of iAd could make it a more profitable concern."

Meantime, clouding the whole topic is a question posed by Peter Kafka of AllThingsD. Kafka points to new language in Apple's iPhone developer agreement that appears to ban apps from sending data that third-party ad networks would use to track ad performance. If that's indeed accurate, such a clause could block every other ad network--leaving Apple's iAd as the only game in town. Kafka said Apple did not respond to questions on the topic.

If Apple manages to funnel developers into iAd by banning everything else, I suspect there will be a hue and cry but--probably--a bunch of developers satisfied with a 60 percent share of Apple's ad revenues. And even if Apple does allow other ad networks--like Google's AdMob--to play on the iPhone, I'm betting iAd will be successful anyway. --Mike