The interstitial ads or interstitials are web banners that interrupt a user's visit to a web portal and use this attention for advertising purposes. The interstitials can be made in different ways and are also useful for smartphone commercial promotion. A common form of interstices is the so-called pop-up. The word interstitial derives from interstice, which means an intermediate space. This dynamic of commercial promotion first creates an intermediate space between the user and the web portal that is being visited. In most cases, there is also talk of commercial batches. Since January 2017, Google has potentially penalized websites for excessive use of interstices on mobile websites.[1]
Background
Commercial promotion in general and commercial promotion on banners on the Internet, in particular, has a significant drawback: the person gets used to it and ends up disregard commercial promotion. What happens in online commercial promotion is, for example, the so-called banner blindness. This occurs when users no longer see the banners as a commercial promotion and do not pay more attention to the content. In order to get as much attention as possible for ads, markets are always looking for new solutions. The interstitial is one of them.
Functionality
The visualization of the interstices is activated through different actions. These include:
- click on a particular area of a website
- open a web portal
- clicking on a link
The interstitial is automatically hidden after a certain time interval or the user has to close it manually.
Types of interstices
The interstices can appear in different shapes and are flexible in terms of size and configuration. Normally, the interstices are loaded directly in the same browser window. These are called online gaps. Other types include:
- Flash Cloak: also classified under interstices, since they create an additional layer above the real content and can be freely scaled regardless of the browser used.
- Pop-ups: implemented with JavaScript and opened in a new window in front of the actual content
- Superstitials: more complex multimedia interstices that must be loaded when the page is opened and that mostly fill the entire browser window.
- Pop-unders- Opens in a new window behind the active browser window
- Prestitials- A special type that is only displayed when the home page is opened or the program is started.
- Video gaps- They usually use video clips and are very popular in commercial video promotion on YouTube or in the video offers of large private channels.
Advantages and disadvantages
The interstices are usually associated with a high efficiency, since in most cases they appear unexpectedly for users. Hence, interstices are an effective means of business promotion. They are ideal for drawing attention to special offers as part of a campaign and boosting the brand. At the same time, due to their special position, the interstices do not have to compete with other banners. Through the multimedia character and the opportunity to use the entire browser window, web designers have almost unlimited design freedom. Videos, photos or songs, that is, media with advanced technology, can be played using gaps. At the same time, the user has no way to escape the advertising message, unless you click the back button or close the browser window.
However, this results in a disadvantage. If their use is not considered correctly, they can cause uncertainty by the user in extreme cases ("What did I just click?", "I just wanted to search for a new pastry recipe, why does the screen show an SUV? Therefore, interstices and superstitions must be carefully designed and tailored to the target audience.
Another disadvantage of interstices is that they can cause a loss in positioning when used on mobile websites. In August, Google introduced a new algorithm that imposes a penalty on mobile websites when they overlap a certain form of interstitial. Google sees these interruptions as a sign of a worse user experience.
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