Apple Just Announced A Boon For Marketers - But It's Not The Big New iPhones Or The Apple Watch

Marketers will always find a way to advertise their wares, absolutely anywhere, so it seems obvious that they must already be thinking about new ways to reach people on the big new iPhones and the Apple Watch that Apple introduced today.

Indeed they are--but those aren't the main event for marketers, judging from several ad agency types reached today. Instead, they're most excited about the Apple Pay mobile payment service and Apple's embrace of Near Field Communication, a way to use your phone to make payments wirelessly. "It's the biggest game changer of the day," says mobile entrepreneur Krishna Subramanian, founder of the incubator Team in Residence and former chief marketing officer at Velti.

For one, says Subramanian, Apple Pay offers a more direct way for people to buy directly from a marketer's ad, and with a device people rarely are without today. "Now you will have your payment info with your phone, which you always have with you," he says. That makes it far easier to complete a transaction once you click that buy button, eliminating a major point of friction. (And if it catches on, he adds, "it's going to end up crushing companies like Square and Stripe.")

What's more, Apple Pay gives more marketers the ability to own the entire purchase funnel, from image ads on television all the way to the actual purchase, and even beyond. "Apple Pay gives brands the ability to close the marketing loop, all on one device," Will Kassoy, CEO of mobile video ad firm AdColony, recently acquired by Opera, said in an email. "It's true end-to-end marketing on mobile." Thus the interest of Apple Pay partners from Target to Staples to McDonald's.

Not only that, but by maintaining direct contact with customers at the point of purchase, marketers have a better opportunity to make additional offers based on that purchase, cross-selling or up-selling other products and services. (Want fries with that?) "There could be more service-based plays for marketers," says David Hewitt, VP and mobile practice lead for agency Sapient Nitro.

Then there's the more overt advertising play: notifications that can be sent directly to the Apple Watch, where they're even more readily viewed than on a smartphone that may sit in your pocket or purse most of the time. Possible Mobile, for example, has been working for several months on apps that can take advantage of notifications enabled by iOS8, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating software. "The key is information at a glance," says Possible Mobile President Ben Reubenstein. "The push notification marketing will flow through to the user's wrist."

Not least, adds Kassoy, connecting advertising directly with purchases suggests a solution to the perennial challenge, especially online, of attributing the impact of an ad to actual purchases. "Apple Pay is a great example of the future of marketing, where brands can drive more attribution of their paid media to purchase and ROI," Kassoy says. Potentially, that data could be useful beyond ads and purchases on Apple devices, because it would provide a proxy for attribution on other platforms such as Android as well.

Truth be told, marketers are getting ahead of themselves with this kind of enthusiasm. For now, at least, Apple Pay will work only with the new iPhone 6 models, and with iPhone 5 models only if they're paired with the Apple Watch. Popular as iPhones are, they're hardly the only ones out there in wide use. And people may be reticent about tying their payment methods to a phone given so many high-profile security breaches associated with smartphones. "It's not enough to create mass adoption" by itself, says Hewitt.

Still, it's pretty clear that for better or worse, Apple just provided marketers with several more new ways to reach us no matter where we are.