Have you ever received a birthday or holiday gift that looked great, but you really didn’t know how to use it? To many publishers, that’s exactly what interstitial ads feel like.
Publishers are always looking for new ways to monetize their content. However, with so many platforms running similar ad formats, it’s getting harder and harder to stand out of the crowd.
At PropellerAds, we’ve worked with thousands of publishers that manage extremely successful platforms, so we understand which ad formats have the potential to generate stellar results. Although push notifications and popunders are still dominating the landscape, interstitial ads are carving out a place for themselves in the affiliate ecosystem.
As a matter of fact, we’ve recently revamped the interstitials available on our platform. In this guide, we’ll discuss the upgrades we’ve made to this ad format and go over a few optimizations tips publishers can use to monetize interstitials.
Why Should You Opt for Interstitials
Interstitial ads cover the entire screen of the device being used and they usually appear right before or right after the expected content is displayed.
When we first released this format, marketers had to create ads from scratch. Now, as part of the new features, affiliates can choose from a wide collection of templates – including an animated option for bolder campaigns. The results have been nothing short but stellar: much higher conversion rates for affiliates, which translated to more money for publishers.
- In some aspects, interstitials are like a light version of popunders. We’ve recently implemented this ad format into our native feed, which works like a charm on social websites in particular.
- Interstitials are also user-friendly because they feature a noticeable “x” that allows viewers to close the ad. And, we’ve implemented a countdown that closes the ad automatically in order to give viewers a slight sense of urgency.
- Most importantly, interstitials have been providing consistent results in different verticals. It’s becoming a bona fide format that’s allowing publishers to generate more profits without too many adjustments.
What Types of Sites Are Suitable for This Ad Format?
Despite the fact that they’ve provided solid results across different verticals, the best types of publishing platforms for interstitial ads are:
- Social websites
- Streaming platforms
- Media players
- Anime
- MP3 and music streaming
Optimizing Interstitials on Your Site
Interstitials can be fully tailored, but you have to know what to change in order to get the best results. Remember, you can change the size, delays, frequency, and device targeting, but you have to find a combination that provides the right results.
#1 Play with Delays
In most cases, the recommended delay for a successful interstitial is about 10 seconds. This works for most websites, but you can also go as low as 2 to 3 seconds if you want to focus heavily on monetizing.
However, as with any other rules, there are exceptions. All publishers should run a few tests to find the best timing settings. For example, if users only spent an average of 30 seconds on each page, a 10-second ad delay may be too much. In case users spent around 3 to 4 minutes on each page, then a longer delay may help generate more profits without compromising customer experience.
#2 Identify the Best Pages for Interstitials
The most obvious place for an interstitial is on the homepage. But, you should analyze the buyer’s journey on your website in order to find internal pages that can also produce good results.
For example, blogs may be able to pull off interstitials on the homepage because visitors may browse for new posts or access other tabs from here. But, a streaming platform will need to see which pages are the most popular and start by implementing interstitial ads here because users only spend a few seconds on the home page before running a search.
You should closely look at your website’s analytics to find the pages that have the most potential. Plus, researching the audience will also uncover details that can be helpful later on.
#3 Choose Between Mobile and Desktop
CPM rates are higher on mobile devices, so you should check out which segments visit your pages the most and implement your interstitials accordingly. If you have a high volume of desktop visitors, you can make interstitials available for affiliates that target these users.
Publishers that have a significantly higher number of mobile users can just focus on this segment, but they should also check their desktop volumes on a regular basis.
Interstitials are one of the most exciting formats for the end of 2020 and beyond, but you have to learn how to implement these ads in order to get the best results.
