Publishers are underwhelmed with Apple News app
Other publishing execs are unhappy about everything from the traffic they’re getting from the two-month-old news aggregation app to the user experience to the data Apple’s giving them.
It’s hard to really know how much traffic to expect from a new platform. But when Apple launched the mobile app Sept. 16, it was baked into the home screen for iOS 9, which reportedly has had the fastest adoption rate ever for Apple, with 66 per cent of iPhone users having upgraded to it, as of 2 Nov. So given the adoption rate and Apple News’ coveted real estate, publishers pumped a lot of their content into the app, seeing strong potential to reach new audiences. (Apple said last month that the app has 40m users.)
But as one publisher, who like others wouldn’t talk on the record for fear of jeopardizing their relationship with Apple, said, “The traffic is underwhelming.”
For that publisher, that means under 1m views a month — not terrible, but not worth it considering the work involved to train staff in Apple’s process and to prepare the content for the app, much less take advantage of other features that Apple offered to entice publishers to use the app.
“They’re not generating a ton of views or traffic, and the data they provide is basically nonexistent,” another publisher said. “They claim they’re working out kinks, and they probably will. I’m disappointed, but I’m not giving up on it.”
Data is also a sticking point. Apple is providing weekly data reports including basics like the volume of page views and shares, but publishers want a dashboard that they can use to analyse data on demand, and more demographic data on users. To appeal to publishers, Apple was supposed to let them count the views toward their traffic and let publishers sell ads into the app. But publishers said Apple has been delayed in adding measurement firm comScore tags to the content.
For that publisher, that means under 1 million views a month — not terrible, but not worth it considering the work involved to train staff in Apple’s process and to prepare the content for the app, much less take advantage of other features that Apple offered to entice publishers to use the app.“They’re not generating a ton of views or traffic, and the data they provide is basically nonexistent,” another publisher said. “They claim they’re working out kinks, and they probably will. I’m disappointed, but I’m not giving up on it.”Data is also a sticking point. Apple is providing weekly data reports including basics like the volume of page views and shares, but publishers want a dashboard that they can use to analyze data on demand, and more demographic data on users. To appeal to publishers, Apple was supposed to let them count the views toward their traffic and let publishers sell ads into the app. But publishers said Apple has been delayed in adding measurement firm comScore tags to the content.
