These days lots of websites and mobile apps make use of Interstitials or Interstitial Ads for online advertising their products, generating leads, and pushing up the sales. However, using too many of them may annoy your users.
Even Google can penalize websites or Apps that use disallowed interstitial ads. Today, you will get to know the essentials about Interstitial Ads. You will also come to know how to use them without getting penalized.
So, what makes something an interstitial and what are the benefits of using it. You’ll come to know all these and much more in this article on Interstitial Ads.
Interstitial ads are one of the most popular digital ads formats because of their high impression rate that tends to increase downloads and revenue.
Let’s get to know its definition:
What is an Interstitial Ad?
Interstitial Ads are full-screen, interactive ads covering the interface of an app or site. They are shown between content and placed at natural transition points or breaks, like in between activities or game levels. They are found both on desktop as well as mobile.
Their full coverage is what differentiates them from other ad types, such as pop-up, native, or banner ads. Moreover, as Interstitial Ads cover up all the screen, this makes them catchier and more effective.
Interstitial Ads can appear as text, image, rich media, and video. Users can navigate past any of these simply by clicking or tapping on the ad and visit its destination.
Moreover, you can close it and continue what you were doing previously. The timing of the close option is dependent on the ad-type.
For example, non-video ads offer an immediate close option. However, interstitial video ads have up to 5-second delay before they offer a close option.
About Mobile Interstitial Ads
These interstitials are full-screen ads that are optimized for mobile display. They offer an opportunity to monetize your mobile visitors by increasing user engagement. Mobile Interstitial Ads quickly grab users’ attention. They maintain high click-through and conversion rates.
Moreover, this latest ad format generates the highest eCPMs across all GEOs and mobile devices. You have the opportunity to reach millions of mobile users across the globe. It gives more room for marketing your message.
Benefits of Interstitial Ads: Why use Interstitial Ads?
Interstitial Ads have been dubbed as “revenue doublers” and are one of the favorites in mobile app advertising. Brands such as Pinterest have increased their in-app installation by as much as 100% by optimizing interstitial ads.
So, there’s much reason for publishers to include interstitial ads in their ad inventory. In fact, marketers and advertisers tend to pay a sizeable amount for interstitial ads.
Here, we list out some main reasons why Publishers or Advertisers prefer interstitial ads. It will help you to know the benefits of Interstitial Ads:
- Interstitial ads have a high click-through rate. In fact, with interstitial ads, users get two options – either they can click on the ad and check out the offering, or else they can close the button and continue ahead.
So, interstitial ads have a 50% chance of being clicked. Moreover, studies show that interstitial ads have a higher click-through rate when compared to banner ads. - As interstitial ad covers the entire device screen, so they tend to prove compelling and convincing with the effect that users are least likely to avoid it. Users get overwhelmed by the convincing visuals and take action on the ad.
- Interstitial ads have high impression rate and tend to increase downloads and revenue. Companies such as Pinterest and Airbnb have increased app installs by as much as 100% and 300%, respectively, by optimizing Interstitials.
- As Interstitial show full-screen ads, they are pretty hard to ignore. So, these ads solve banner blindness.
How to Use Interstitial Ads without getting penalized?
As we have seen above, Interstitial Ads hold many benefits for publishers as well as developers. However, the important thing with Interstitial Ads is the fact that they can attract penalties if not used properly.
So, it calls for proper “timing” with interstitial ads. The ads should not disturb the users while they go on to access some important webpage for information or even while they perform some transaction.
Well, you can avoid penalties on interstitial ads by following Google policies when you run them on your site or app.
Interstitial Ads tend to be much annoying on desktop. With a desktop, you get a big display screen. So, locating the close or continue button becomes much headache for the users. While on mobile devices, the close button [X] is too small and cannot be located easily.
All in all, you should ensure that the ad is not interrupting the user in any way. The best thing to do with interstitial ads is to show them between natural pauses. So, usually, interstitial ads are displayed after the end of a gaming session or when a user switches between articles.
Allowed Interstitial Advertising
Moreover, interstitial ads should not be displayed on a site or app that involves a lot of direct user interaction (such as while playing Candy Crush).
So, you should not show an interstitial ad between those interactions. It hampers your users’ interactions with your website or app. You can even end up losing them forever.
Here, we list out some important guidelines or best practices that you should follow with interstitial ads to avoid getting penalized:
First and foremost, you should never hinder with users’ tasks. So, interstitial ads should not be shown between important user activities or interactions, such as something like filling a form.
The best thing with interstitial ads is to show them during unimportant leisure activities. However, make sure that the ongoing task is paused when the user is shown the ad.
Secondly, you should make sure that the interstitial ad is rendered quickly. These are large-size ads that come with rich media and heavy graphics.
So, you need to ensure that your users don’t have to wait for the ad to load. Moreover, you should start loading the ad before it’s called so that it is displayed without taking much time.
Thirdly, showing too many ads in a short time interval will degrade the user experience and would eventually lower click-through rate.
Last but not least; interstitial ads should be placed between transition points when the user is expecting a break. This would ensure that the user has enough time to have a good look at the ads so that they eventually click on them.
Disallowed Interstitial Advertising
So, you should check your app or site flow and find the best time and place for displaying interstitial ads.
Final Thoughts
Interstitial Ads offer a chance to generate better revenue. These are the latest and among the most effective ad formats around. However, it’s important to use them properly.
With Interstitial Ads, timing and frequency is the key to getting better engagement and retention rate. For example, you should not show an interstitial ad one after another.
As discussed above, you should adopt best practices for using Interstitial Ads and avoid getting penalized. Now, it’s time to get started with your first interstitial ad.
