Advocating the Interstitial: How Transitional Ads Can Rewrite Your Direct Marketing Playbook
I have been an advocate of interstitials (or transitional ads) for about 3 years now. Numerous reports have shown that not only are they more effective than pop-ups/pop-unders, but they are also considered far less annoying by the user. Here is a graphic from a September 2004 eMarketer reportc comparing effectiveness of interstitials over pop-ups/unders. (click on thumbnail for larger image)
What other types of ad format affords major advertisers with the best of both worlds? We are in a day when you can go to a site and the publisher has loaded four or five different ads on each page. It becomes very easy for the marketer’s message to get lost among all the content and the competing ads.
Interstitials provide the advertiser with a very powerful medium since they are delivering their message when they have the user’s full and undivided attention. Since I have been preaching the use of interstitials as a powerful and effective ad format, it has been interesting to see the evolution and acceptance of the ad format. The general sentiment on the format is still a bit misunderstood though.
The single most common response I hear from advertisers and agencies alike is that interstitial ads are great for branding and not so great for direct response marketing. I believe that this common misconception is due, in part, to the timed nature of the ads. I believe that many people liken the ad format to that of a television commercial because much like a TV commercial, the ad appears for a set amount of time and then goes away.
Reader Comments.
No comments yet
Leave a Comment
Pages: 1 2 next page »
Article Sponsor
More Features
Features
- Down Year Will Bring Opportunities December 3rd 2008
- Mobile to the Rescue December 2nd 2008
- Ideas On Effective Management December 2nd 2008
- Quality Video: DIY (Cheap) or Else December 1st 2008
- Will Widget Channel Be Tuned In? November 26th 2008
Latest News
- Reality Bites Google December 3rd 2008
- 2009 Revenue For Twitter December 3rd 2008
- Funding Round-Up: Evernote, Angie’s List, UTest December 3rd 2008
- Ads Not Working? Change The Font December 3rd 2008
- MySpace Breaks Into Mobile Ad Market December 3rd 2008
- Cyber Monday, Profitless Boon? December 3rd 2008
- Yahoo, Rumors and Stupidity December 3rd 2008
- FCC To Mull Free Internet Plan December 2nd 2008
Spotlight
Mobile to the RescueADOTAS EXCLUSIVE — The industry is still wary about mobile advertising — does it work, how significant is the ROI [...] more...
Reader Favorites
Classifieds
Most Commented
- Targeting Is the Ad Network "Killer App" (7)
- Vengence is Mine Saith Ballmer (6)
- When Boomers, Gen Y Collide (5)
- Study: Blogs Beat Social Networks on Purchase Influence (5)
- Federal Bailout Proposed for Online Ad Industry (4)
- Ad Networks That Buck the Downward Trend (4)
- Self-Serve Ad Exchange: This Century's Strowger Switch? (3)
- Bust-Outs and Layoffs: Apple, NBCU, Nokia, Spot Runner, WildTangent (3)


