Interstitial ads for mobile apps see high conversions on Android devices

Mobile apps are themselves frequently a part of a brand’s marketing efforts, but they too must be marketed or consumers may never know they exist. Mobile ads are an obvious choice for app promotion, since a call to action can encourage immediate download.

But with numerous formats available, how can advertisers figure out where to best focus their efforts? According to the October 2013 “App Insight Report” from InMobi, interstitials advertising mobile apps garner a conversion rate of just over 3% on devices running Google’s Android operating system. For mobile apps on Apple’s iOS, text ads for apps had the highest conversion rate, clocking in at close to 2%. Banner ads, meanwhile, had a conversion rate of 1.12% on Android and 1.4% on iOS. Interestingly, expandables proved to be much more effective on iOS than on Android, suggesting that user interactions with ads were significantly different on the two operating systems.

InMobi cautions against going all-in with interstitials just yet, pointing out that a combination of interstitials and banner ads is more likely to allow advertisers to reach a broader range of audiences.

OS and ad format are not the only variables that can affect performance of app promotions. Among banner ads, conversion rates differ strikingly depending on the mobile app category in which they appear, according to the same research. Software apps had the highest conversion rates for banner ads on both Android devices and those running iOS. But after that the conversion rates of various app categories were significantly different. Banner ads had greater success in business and education apps running on Android devices, while weather, travel and shopping apps had relatively high conversion rates on iOS.

Read the original eMarketer article here.