Web interstitials are a big part of digital advertising media space because digital advertising is dynamic. This dynamism is driven by constant innovation aimed at improving functionality and user experience, achieve higher engagement and increase revenue on web pages, apps, blogs and social media platforms.
What are web interstitials?
For those familiar with gaming apps, it’s a common experience to notice interstitial ads before or after a new level. Google Ad Manager has brought this exciting ad unit to Desktop and Mobile web in the form of web interstitials.
This ad unit displays to the user between page views as they navigate from one page to the next on the same website.
These ads will not pop up while a user is in the middle of reading an article on the same domain.
The difference between web interstitials and standard display banners is display banners do not cover anything but, rather display pages on specific positions.
The implication is that users are more likely to engage with interstitials than standard display banners. When designing and implementing interstitials, Ad units are supposed to provide a clear exit / close option. Interstitials should also by design either be automatically hidden after a certain time interval or the user has to close it manually through the provided exit/close option.
What are the benefits of web interstitials?
Viewability
These ads have a high impact and viewability, putting your brand right in front of the user. Because these ad types are so prominent, higher click-through rates are also predicted.
What about accidental clicks? Because these ad types have a very clear close / exit option, the design of this ad unit aims to avoid confusion.
User Friendly
Apart from having a clear close / exit option and not interfering with the user’s reading experience, interstitials fall in line with Google Search Standards when it comes to intrusiveness, and respects Better Ads Standards.
Better Ads Standards classify Web Interstitials as a “prestitial ad without countdown”.
A fixed frequency cap is also in place – only one Interstitial can be shown to a user per hour. From here, other frequency caps can also be put in place depending on your campaign needs.
What are the recommended creative sizes?
- 300×250
- 336×280
- 320×480
Booking Options
Hive Digital Media is hoping to harness the power and potential of web interstitials.
“Offering a high viewability, web interstitials allow you the opportunity to capture a user’s attention. Because of its functionality – displaying between pages, covering the entire screen – you don’t have to share on-page real estate with other advertisers. I believe with this format, along with strong creative, we could create some magic.”
“What I really like about this ad unit is its built-in user friendliness, ensuring that users do not get interrupted in the middle of reading an article, or accidentally click on something while trying to close the interstitial,”
Annabel le Roux, Publisher Programmatic Advertising and Search Engine Optimization Specialist at Hive Digital Media.
For more on this new product, you can contact the Hive team at [email protected].
Trained as a Journalist, he carries wealth of experience having worked across the media spectrum in print, electronic and currently in the digital media space.
Patrick's current responsibilities include writing commercial content and most importantly ensuring quality control is achieved on internal and external content which gets published on various platforms.
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