Interstitial Ads: Meaning, Types and Best Practices.
The pop-up ad was one of the most primitive digital ad formats used in the early days of the Internet. Users would notice large windows “popping up” in front of them we don’t see currently. Pop up blockers are created to help remove these ads. This makes the website more user friendly. Using Interstitial advertising can be a useful addition to your programmatic advertising strategy.
Due to the improvement of digital media, we see these Pop-ups in the form of Interstitial ads.
What exactly are interstitial ads?
Interstitial ads are full-screen placements in the user experience of a site, app, or game that appear between standard interactions.
For example, Navigation between two articles on a news media website or the transition between levels of a hyper-casual game can both justify one of these ads.
We can display interstitial ads between two UI views within the app. YouTube, for example, incorporates both pre-roll and interstitial ads into their video campaigns.
We use interstitial ads in video games because of a lack of space. Since video games and in particular, mobile games need a full viewpoint. This is the reason that prevents them from using banner and pop-up ads.
Interstitial advertisements are beneficial to both parties. Some benefits of Interstitial ads are:
- They are engaging.
- They capture user attention.
- They are comprehensive.
Google has outlined a policy to avoid the overuse of these interstitial ads. Make sure to use
Why are interstitials used?
Some reasons why we use interstitial ads are:
- To improve impression rate: Marketers and developers use these ads to increase downloads and boost your ROI rates.
- For brand growth: Many brands have noticed a significant improvement in their growth.
- For better gains: Companies such as Pinterest, Airbnb have seen 100% - 300% gains. This was possible due to optimising their interstitials ads.
- Large sizes make a big impression on users.
- High impression rates translate into high click-through rates.
- Increased click-through rates equate to higher conversion rates.
Types of Interstitial advertising
Pop-up ads are the most frequent form of interstitial advertising. We can install these in Javascript and display them in a new browser tab or window. There are many other variants with distinct features depending on the device.
- Inline-Interstitials: we display this type of interstitial ad in the current browser window.
- Flash Layer: Works with Macromedia Flash.
Some of the pros of using flash layer are:
- To ensure excellent quality.
- Functional in all browsers.
- This type of ad conceals the original content to a transparent browser window.
- Superstitial: Unicast created Superstitials for interstitial ad format. They are interactive ads and can contain a variety of elements, such as images, sound, and text. As a result, the design of such advertisements has limitless possibilities.
- Pop-under: It opens a new browser window in the background, which is less intrusive than a pop-up.
- Prestitial: This type of interstitial can be used in mobile advertising. It appears when you access the homepage or launch an app before the content gets loaded.
- Video-Interstitial: In-video overlay ads using video clips, are popular. This is especially common on YouTube.
- IntelliTXT: This is the most advanced and intelligent type of interstitial. You can highlight the text’s keywords (bold, underline, etc,) for better visibility. Users need to hover their mouse over the window and information will appear. The advertiser can add important links and offers in this window. IntelliTXT also resembles Flash Layers in appearance.
Three best practices of interstitial advertising:
- Making a smooth transition
Interstitial ads work best for linear user experiences. Some key points to note are:
- The ad’s beginning and ending points should be clear.
- The ad should complement the natural flow of user engagement.
- Present these interactive ads during expected breaks and user-initiated pauses.
Few tips to remember while placing interstitial ads are:
- Make sure these ads appear before the broken page. A broken page is the page that usually asks the user to tap a continue or next button to proceed.
- Avoid placing these ads immediately after a broken page. This will lead to accidental clicks which will reduce your conversion rate.
Another factor to consider is your interstitial creative’s memorability.
- Create a design that stands out and captures users attention.
- Consider the environment before you design in a particular orientation.
- Make sure the rendering is adaptable on all devices.
- Think about the timing and frequency
Ads that are too intrusive are one of the main reasons people delete apps. We should not bombard interstitial ads on users when not required. You might think of increasing the frequency of interstitial ads. This could harm the user experience and shift the focus from using an app to watching ads. Before you add an interstitial ad, place a delay or “loading” screen. It will keep your user from tapping hundreds of times.
- Send targeted traffic to dedicated post-click landing pages
Make sure the interstitial ads you display are understandable and readable. some ways to improve conversion are:
- Redirect your user to a landing page that can access their ad offer.
- Post-click landing pages aid in the conversion of prospects to leads. Create your campaign interstitial to get the most out of it.
- Choose a DSP with omnichannel media-buying technology. It will be beneficial if the DSP has integration with a trusted ad network.
This approach helps advertisers to reach their target customers. They can advertise in the Mobile Web, In-App, Desktop, and CTV ecosystems at the right time and on the right screen. The platform’s ML and AI algorithms provide automated bidding, optimization and reporting.
How to create Interstitial ads?
Some systems available for interactive advertising are:
- Facebook Ads
- Google AdMob
- Mopub.
These are accessible to create interstitial ads with ease. These platforms also provide developers with vital information for integration.
- Linear apps that display advertising can tap into interstitial ads. For other types of applications other ad types, such as a banner, may be preferable.
In a nutshell,
- Interstitial ads can deliver high impression rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and revenue.
- Interstitial advertisements must be well-designed and planned.
- They should have high-quality content tailored for your target audience.
- Interstitial ads should be customisable to your goals.
The same principles that apply to any other form of advertising apply to interstitial ads: an appealing design can reduce the risk of disrupting and losing users. Yet, when used this advertising format can be an effective way to stand out from the crowd and attract attention.