Table of Contents

Mobile App Interstitials – Yes or No? Not for Google

When people perform searches, they want to get their answers fast. The less clicks required, the better.

Having to go through an advertisement before gaining access to information isn’t always ideal. Some websites, with the best of intentions, recommend visitors to download their native app. This concept materialises into an app interstitial before the actual page. Perhaps the viewing experience would be better. Maybe the app has capabilities not available on the website. Whatever the reason may be, it seems like visitors don’t sit well with this approach.

Google did an experiment with Google+ to see how well visitors took to its app interstitial.

Google Webmaster Central - Google+

9% of the visitors pressed “Get the app”. That’s not so bad right? Turns out, 69% of the visitors didn’t even get past this page. They just dropped out. That’s a lot of visitors lost.

We know what it’s like when we try to access sites on mobile platforms and getting stopped by a page like this. It’s quite the killjoy sometimes. With such big graphical elements on one page, you’d think that the link to the main page would be more visible. Nope. It’s that small hyperlink at the bottom of the page that takes a while to get noticed.

Should we then remove the interstitials completely and disregard native mobile website apps? Google seems to think so. They have removed the app interstitial and banner (another option they tried) completely. Visitors can now access Google+ on their mobile browsers in an instant.

So how can you apply this knowledge to your event websites?

Well, depending on what you want to achieve, having an app interstitial might work in your favour. The key thing to remember is what you want to achieve: More app downloads, or more site visits?

We want to hear from you.

Do you think websites should remove app interstitials? Tell us what you think!

Level up your events with Gevme’s omnichannel event platform

Share this article

We are pleased to announce updates to our privacy policy, reinforcing our commitment to safeguarding your rights. Please click here to review the changes.