We all hate when they popup, it always seems to happen just as we’re about to finish that long level or randomly while navigating our favorite game’s menus. In-app advertising, the epitome of what people hate to see in their apps but at the same time is something necessary for most app developers to make money. And if you hate them now then you’re going to love to hear what Google just announced this afternoon.
First, lets take a moment to talk about mobile in-app ads. Mobile ad growth has always lagged behind the actual size of the mobile market audience, essentially meaning that a good portion of mobile users go through life barely ever seeing ads in their apps. The reason for this is simple, mobile ads just aren’t very appealing to advertisers, especially brand advertisers. You can’t really blame them, instead of immediately hitting the little x that pops-up on the next ad you see on your mobile device, actually look at it. Chances are, it’s ugly as all hell. Google is finally attempting to change that.
Google has come up with some tantalizing new units that are mobile-optimized so that they will actually look good on a phone or tablet. Google says that the new ad formats are “similar to what people are used to on TV.” What Google means by this is that the new ads would popup during a break in something you would be doing in the app instead of popping up at random times like most mobile ads annoyingly do. This, all coming from Jonathan Alferness, Google’s Director of Product Management for mobile display ads.
The one new ad type that seems to be getting all of the attention right now with this announcement seems to be the interstitial ad type. This ad type would take up your entire device’s display and is currently used in some games and the YouTube app. But now, with Google’s announcement, we will start to see the interstitial ad type in any app that is part of AdMob which is Google’s mobile ad network.
Other new ad types such as the mobile lightbox engagement ad will go as far as to make the ads interactive by giving the user options and choices in the ad. Some of Google’s new ad types will work better in certain apps than others but the fullscreen ads seem to be the most popular and honestly, they will probably be the most adopted. Needless to say folks, get ready for more ads in your apps! But hey, at least they will be prettier.