Apple activates increase in share of iAd revenue to developers from 60% to 70%

Apple has sent out a notice to participants in its iAd program that it will now be giving 70% of the revenue earned from an ad displayed in an app to the developer. This is an increase from the previous 60%.

The increase is a continuation of Apple’s efforts to jumpstart the adoption and use of the service. The company recently lowered the buy-in for advertisers to $100k and announced that it was going to be making the 10% increase in payouts. Now the plan has been put into effect. The company also tweaked the offerings to advertisers at that time, offering them on a pure clicks-per-thousand basis.

“We’re going into the ad business because we want to help our developers make some money,” said late-CEO Steve Jobs when interviewed at D8 about the program. It seems like it has been making some money for them, but perhaps not enough.

The general consensus has been that the iAd platform has not been as successful as Apple had hoped after its introduction two years ago. Since then, Apple’s VP of Mobile Advertising, Andy Miller has jumped ship to VC firm Highland Capital and been replaced in an interim fashion by Apple’s VP of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue. Then in January, Apple hired on a full-timer in ex-Adobe executive Todd Teresi to head it up.

The increase in revenue share should make for a nice bump for those developers using Apple’s iAd network, rather than a third-party service, but only more aggressive adoption by advertisers and selling by Apple will help the whole service turn the corner.

Thanks Benjamin