Why Google’s Move to Crack Down on Interstitial Mobile Ads Matters

Last week, Google unveiled plans to send less traffic to mobile websites that are implementing interstitial advertisements — those pop-ups that can take up users' full screens. According to Google, "Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible. This can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller." Therefore, they are instituting a new policy early next year in which "pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly."

While many are hailing this move as a step forward in improving the user experience, many content publishers are worried about their revenue stream.

The move comes at a rough time for publishers and website operators who are already hurting due to AdBlock and the diminishing value of banner advertising, which has suffered due to ad fraud and very low engagement rates. The move also comes after an announcement last year in which Google said it would begin penalizing mobile webpages that showed app install interstitials, encouraging visitors to download a site's app rather than viewing content on the mobile web. This pattern could be a sign of Google attempting to maintain its dominanace in the advertising market by limiting those platforms in which it does not operate. Or perhaps they truly care about the user experience on every website across the entire internet. Either way, with Google making this change, it's likely other search engines will follow suit, creating waves throughout the advertising industry as marketers scramble to find new places to share interstitials and reach prospects and customers.

Snips offers a unique approach to interstitials that isn't impacted by Google's upcoming change. Snips Social Impact places interstitial ads independent of the landing page so as not to interfere with the viewer experience. By positioning ads as native content, they are indistinguishable to Google and AdBlock technologies. Furthermore, the Snips URL and domain are separate from a publisher's domain, ensuring no impact to search results. In other words, publishers no longer need to worry about the impact to their search traffic and revenue stream.

Snips can be easily integrated with any online or social media content strategy. There are a range of uses cases, including ad placements behind content shared across any digital platform — mobile, social, email, messaging, and more. You can even work with any of our thousands of influencers to boost your reach organically.

Contact us if you would like to learn more about our performance-driven Snips Social Impact influencer campaigns.