Google’s Plan Against Mobile App Install Ads

Google’s Plan Against Mobile App Install Ads

Mobile apps have become the go-to digital product of 2015 and its growth has not stopped skyrocketing. As of June 2015, there were over 100 billion mobile apps to choose from and even with an over 7 billion world population as of June of the same year, it’s still a ton of mobile apps – all of which have to compete for market share and a piece of the US $35 billion global revenue pie.

To push a mobile app forward, there are the mobile app install ads. Last year, eMarketer estimated that mobile app ads amounted to around US $28.7 billion which they figure is still a measly amount considering the number of mobile apps being marketed. Yet, already these ads are starting to get negative attention from users and more importantly from Google.

According to Google, too many Internet users have complained about annoying app install ads that that over the entire screen and have the tiniest “X” box to close the ad causing many to trigger the huge install button. In response, Google has decided to crack down on these ads by marking the sites that are not mobile friendly and pushing the site further down the search rankings.

Are you guilty? Is your mobile install app over the top aggressive albeit beautifully designed yet now at risk for being blocked by Google?

The focus of Google’s new algorithm is not to stop interstitial ads from their business (which is also business revenues for Google) but to find the right balance between helping businesses make money through ads and new subscribers and the overall online user experience.

Thus, according to the new policy from Google, any mobile app install ad “that hides a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page will no longer be considered mobile friendly.” That means your ad can no longer be that big anymore! It certainly sounds like a great compromise since ads should not be overpoweringly large. An ad does not have to be “in your face” to be effective and studies have shown that the size of the ad is not proportionate to the leads it is able to generate. In fact, the large ads tend to be off-putting because they jar the senses. When a user clicks on a page, he or she has certain expectations and when an ad appears to block that expectation, the response can be negative.

Tips to Avoid being Penalized for having a Beautiful Interstitial Ad

Here are a few professional tips on how to avoid being tagged as mobile unfriendly:

• Create better banner ads. Google even recommends replacing your existing ads with banner ads although you may have get professionals to handle your banner ads since most of the available banner apps are limited scope and design options.
• Make your mobile app ads more enticing by offering something your market cannot turn away from like free trials, tie-ups, or ways of earning via the app use or promotion.
• Create a separate special mobile web page so you are able to sidestep Google indexing.

You can also come to us at Planned Growth for a more specific and customized strategy on how to prevent your ads from being pushed down the search rankings.