Apple is reportedly moving away from its iAd platform and shifting towards a more automated platform.
The company launched the platform in 2010 to let developers insert advertisements into their apps, which allows ad sellers and publishers to work things out on their own.
Apple is not phasing out its iAd sales, but it will reportedly no longer take the 30% cut of iAd sales and will let publishers keep all of their revenue.
BuzzFeed News cited a source familiar with the matter as saying: "The big publishing groups will just fold programmatic buys into the stuff they’re selling across all their properties."
iAd sales team members are likely to be offered buyouts and released by the end of the week.
According to reports, iAd did not receive attention from the start and by making the service free the company is expected to give competition to ad networks like Google’s on price.
Another source said: "I think this is going to be great for publishers,"
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"It gives them direct dialogue with their customers as opposed to forcing them to go through an Apple middleman. Access will be more plentiful and easier to manage — theoretically."
According to EMarketer, in 2015, iAd’s share of mobile display advertising revenue was just 5.1%, which was less in comparison to the 37.9% claimed by Facebook and 9.5% claimed by Google.
