Adding Interstitial Ads to Your Mobile App

The internet has always found ways to be creative with advertising. While the average person is familiar with native or banner ads, they are also increasingly encountering interstitial ads. These are prominent, full-screen ads that prompt viewers to interact with them to move on. Unlike traditional ads that can be scrolled or ignored, interstitial ads remove subtlety to maximize value. This creates a tradeoff: either frustrating viewers or fully engaging them and prompting them to act. 

To fully optimize interstitials, it's important for brands to understand where and when it’s okay to trigger them. They need to understand the natural transition points in their customers’ journey to be successful. Media outlets typically position them at the end of a news article; mobile gaming brands usually do this between game levels or after a player has lost.  According to HT's 2024 Customer Engagement Technology Study,  38% of respondents respectively say online ads are influential in their decision-making process.

Imagine you’re playing a game, and a full screen ad appears while you’re in the middle of a move, or right after you’ve prepared yourself to begin playing – that’s for certain one way to frustrate a user regardless of what is being advertised.

Gaming Legacy

As gaming has shifted more mobile, interstitial ads have become a fixture of free-to-play gaming. These days the typical player expects to see them, and they have become one of the main vehicles for monetization.  

According to game analytics and personalization company DeltaDNA, approximately 57% of game publishers use interstitial ads. They do so because of the high click-through rates and the likelihood that gamers might buy something from the ad. A recent case study of developer Brighthouse found that using Google AdMob interstitials increased revenue by 130% and about 60% of their app income came from the interstitials alone. 

With the high earning potential of interstitials in mind, hospitality brands have a genuine opportunity to make use of several tools already at their disposal to drive revenue even higher. 

Hospitality Pioneers and Mobile Apps

Most hospitality brands do not feature interstitial ads on their mobile apps. Recently, however, larger brands have experimented with interstitials, a trend that could signal one of the biggest changes to mobile best practices in some time. 

At the end of January 2024, Dunkin’ deployed an interstitial ad featuring its “totally crushable” Cupid’s Choice Donut, a heart-shaped treat filled with Bavarian Kreme and topped with strawberry-flavored icing and red and pink sprinkles, as well as the heart shaped Brownie Batter Donut. And, through February 21 of that year, all of Dunkin’s favorite filled donuts, including Boston Kreme and Chocolate Creme, were made in a festive heart-shape shell.  

Another example came from McDonald’s, which interestingly used the format to educate users  about new app features, such as how to add payment for mobile orders. And lastly, Uber recently promoted its new subscription program with interstitial ads.

Clearly, Dunkin’, McDonald’s and Uber are mammoth brands with vast advertising budgets at their fingertips, but their campaigns are so impactful because they take advantage of advanced segmentation. With the growth of loyalty programs, these brands have significantly more understanding of how and when their guests spend.

When utilized correctly interstitials can be a guaranteed venue to directly advertise unique deals, offers, rewards, and upsell opportunities to already loyal customers. By implementing interstitials, McDonalds, Uber and Dunkin all understand the role that the tool can 100% play in the visibility of a campaign, particularly for high lifetime value consumers.

Bringing Interstitial Ads to Everyone

Unlike game publishers and major brands, smaller brands may not have multi-million-dollar budgets and big agencies to create unique interstitial ads. But that shouldn’t keep those with white-label or even bespoke custom apps from exploring interstitial ads to grab customers’ attention.

For brands with an active loyalty program and companion mobile app, interstitial ads can complement what they are already doing with banner and static ads. They are a very effective way to get guests to visit and spend more.

An animated ad outlining the benefits of loyalty membership can be a great conversion tool. Conversely, marketers can leverage loyalty program data to segment program members and then send them targeted ads. 

For restaurants, this means driving mobile orders, upselling, and cross-selling items. Beyond mobile orders, interstitials also can be used to showcase new app features, LTOs or other loyalty program offers.

Setting Parameters  

To be successful with interstitial ads, brands need to put controls around how often they are shown. This means that they should not flood the user with interstitial ads. To be impactful, they need to be less frequent, and they should never interrupt users when it doesn’t make sense. Nothing is more frustrating than an ad when the show is just getting good right? The same principle applies here.

Effective ads are also personalized through segmentation. Loyalty managers should be keyed in on both frequency and targeting. Who are the ads being sent to? When? Is the offer worth impeding on their customer journey? Be selective about which users will receive each ad, then segment appropriately.

Over the next year, expect more brands than ever before to leverage loyalty data to create interstitial ad campaigns, specifically for loyalty members. Their effectiveness will depend, ultimately, on the brand, and how they are managed. 

About the Author

Alison Evers is Mobile Products Manager at Paytronix.