Taboola partners with Apple to power native ads in Apple News and Stocks apps

Taboola has entered a significant partnership with Apple to manage native advertising within the Apple News and Apple Stocks apps, Axios reports. 

The collaboration marks a milestone for Taboola, reflecting its growth to over $1.4 billion in annual revenue as of 2023. According to Taboola founder and CEO Adam Singolda, securing this partnership involved a multiyear effort to align with Apple’s stringent requirements and standards. eMarketer estimates that Apple’s global ad revenues will reach $10.34 billion this year, highlighting the potential scale of this initiative.

As an authorized advertising reseller, Taboola will manage native ad placements within the Apple News and Apple Stocks apps across all available markets, including the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia. These apps, pre-installed on every iPhone, iPad, and Mac, offer substantial reach for advertisers. Taboola will facilitate ad placements within the main feeds and articles for selected publishers.

Taboola is widely known for its “chumbox” ads at the bottom of online news stories. However, its partnership with Apple leverages its extensive network and direct relationships with over 9,000 publishers and 18,000 advertisers globally. This existing infrastructure allows Taboola to provide high-quality control and tailored ad placements within Apple’s apps. The company has already implemented similar quality controls on the open web through its Taboola Select program, which offers premium ad inventory to large advertisers.

This isn’t Apple’s first foray into third-party ad sales partnerships. Previously, Apple had an exclusive arrangement with NBCUniversal for ad sales within Apple News and Apple Stocks in the U.S. and U.K. While NBCU continues to sell ads in these regions, it is not an authorized reseller in Australia and Canada, which opens the door for Taboola’s expanded role.

The advertising industry, nearing $1 trillion in global spend, is seeing more collaborations like the one between Taboola and Apple. Late last year, Taboola inked a 30-year native advertising deal with Yahoo. Other notable partnerships include Instacart’s collaboration with YouTube for shoppable ads and Uber’s work with T-Mobile’s ad unit.