How high is the "iAd for Developers" conversion rate?

The most interesting thing here was how much cheaper AdMob was. If the conversion rate for AdMob is roughly the same as iAd then the cost per acquisition is $2.43.

That's still not good enough for a $1 app, but it's a lot better than $14.90.

AdMob/Google likely have better targeting algorithms due to amazing amount of data that they posses. Also Google employs army of Machine Learning/Recommendation System engineers, while Apple is just getting in to this field.

My theory is that the CPA was high because iAd is a new and captivating ad-platform.

Users who see AdMob (or other older-platform) ads are less likely to click on ads.

However, most users haven't seen iAds and so they may click on the ad just to explore it further - this means that a lot of users may click on iAds even though they may have no interest in the product being advertised.

$0.25 CPC for banners?

Perhaps Apple will change to CPM pricing?