One of the biggest news items in the world of local media & marketing is Apple’s rollout of ads for the first time in Apple Maps. As we examined last week, this monetizes high-intent local searches from billions of Apple Maps users. But there’s a catch… home services ads are banned from the program.
Specifically, Apple announced last week that there are several categories of local businesses that won’t be allowed to advertise on Apple Maps. They include the usual suspects such as bail bonds, crypto, gambling, and other categories that promote behavior that Apple wants to avoid – all logical stuff.
But one disallowed business category isn’t as logical and leaves us scratching our heads. Though they don’t promote nefarious behavior, home services like plumbers, roofers, and electricians can’t advertise themselves on Apple Maps. This is a broad exclusion as home services is a massive local ad category.
To be specific, Apple phrases the exclusion as follows: 2.13 Home services: Ad content that contains or directly or indirectly promotes home services — including but not limited to plumbing, electrical, locksmith, HVAC, pest control, roofing, or general contracting services — is prohibited.
Hit Pause
So the next logical question is why? Home services is a big category, as noted. It’s one of the most lucrative verticals in local advertising, with aggregate ad spending that rivals categories like healthcare and legal. This is mostly driven by the category’s breadth and its heavy competition in local markets.
We’ve heard theories for its exclusion, such as risk avoidance. In other words, Apple doesn’t want to be liable for exploding toilets or bad roofing jobs. But that’s likely not the reason, as there’s little legal precedent. Google and Yelp don’t get sued for connecting buyer and seller when a job goes south.
To make some sense of all this, we called our friend Andrew Shotland. As founder of Local SEO Guide, he’s become an expert on all things Apple Maps, among other things. He believes there are a few likely reasons for the home-services exclusion – which he admits are speculative rather than definitive.
One reason, according to Shotland, could be that Apple wants to take it slow. Management and support of local ad programs are extensive, he says – just ask Google. So Apple may be rolling things out in a measured way. If true, home services is a likely category to hit pause, given its size and complexity.
Puzzle Piece
Another reason, along the same lines, is that Home Services businesses are notoriously hard to authenticate, says Shotland. Retailers and storefront-based businesses have locations that can be easily validated. But Home Services are defined more by their service areas…as they come to your house.
The result is that the system is easier to game when you’re a home services business. So perhaps Apple is still working on its validation systems before inviting home services businesses to the party. Let’s not forget that Apple learned the hard way not to go to market prematurely with mapping products.
This all points to another possible outcome: a specific local ad program for home services. Based on all the above nuances, we could see another flavor of local ads in Apple Maps for home services (perhaps tied to bookings). In other words, Shotland says, home services’ current exclusion likely isn’t permanent.
The bottom line is that all of these theories are more likely than Apple deciding to walk away from such a lucrative local advertising category. Apple is all about revenue diversification these days, and advertising is part of that. Local advertising is folded within that effort, and home services will be a key puzzle piece.
