Google+: A case study on App Download Interstitials
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Thursday, July 23, 2015
Many mobile sites use promotional app interstitials to encourage users to download their native
mobile apps. For some apps, native can provide richer user experiences, and use features of the
device that are currently not easy to access on a browser. Because of this, many app owners
believe that they should encourage users to install the native version of their online property or
service. It's not clear how aggressively to promote the apps, and a full page interstitial can
interrupt the user from reaching their desired content.
On Google+ mobile web, we decided to take a closer look at our own use of interstitials. Internal
user experience studies identified them as poor experiences, and Jennifer Gove gave a
great talk
at IO last year which highlights this user frustration.
Despite our intuition that we should remove the interstitial, we prefer to let data guide our
decisions, so we set out to learn how the interstitial affected our users. Our analysis found
that:
9% of the visits to our interstitial page resulted in the 'Get App' button being pressed. (Note
that some percentage of these users already have the app installed or may never follow through
with the app store download.)
69% of the visits abandoned our page. These users neither went to the app store nor continued to
our mobile website.
While 9% sounds like a great CTR for any campaign, we were much more focused on the number of
users who had abandoned our product due to the friction in their experience. With this data in
hand, in July 2014, we decided to run an experiment and see how removing the interstitial would
affect actual product usage. We added a Smart App Banner to continue promoting the native app in a
less intrusive way, as recommended in the
Avoid common mistakes
section of our Mobile SEO Guide. The results were surprising:
1-day active users on our mobile website increased by 17%.
G+ iOS native app installs were mostly unaffected (-2%). (We're not reporting install numbers
from Android devices since most come with Google+ installed.)
Based on these results, we decided to permanently retire the interstitial. We believe that the
increase in users on our product makes this a net positive change, and we are sharing this with
the hope that you will reconsider the use of promotional interstitials. Let's remove friction and
make the mobile web more useful and usable!
(Since this study, we launched a
better mobile web experience
that is currently without an app banner. The banner can still be seen on iOS 6 and below.)
Posted by David Morell, Software Engineer, Google+
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eGoogle's analysis showed that promotional app interstitials on their mobile site resulted in a high abandonment rate (69%) despite a seemingly positive click-through rate for app downloads.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eRemoving the interstitial and replacing it with a less intrusive Smart App Banner led to a 17% increase in daily active users on their mobile website.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eGoogle's study suggests that prioritizing user experience by reducing friction, such as removing interstitials, can positively impact overall product usage and engagement.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eNative app installs were largely unaffected by the change, indicating that less intrusive promotion methods can still be effective.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe data-driven approach to removing the interstitial is presented as a best practice for other developers to consider for their mobile websites.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Google+ analyzed its use of app interstitials on its mobile web platform. Despite a 9% click-through rate on the \"Get App\" button, 69% of users abandoned the page. An experiment removing the interstitial and implementing a Smart App Banner resulted in a 17% increase in 1-day active users on the mobile website, with native app installs remaining mostly stable (-2%). Based on these positive results, Google+ permanently removed the interstitial.\n"],null,["# Google+: A case study on App Download Interstitials\n\nThursday, July 23, 2015\n\n\nMany mobile sites use promotional app interstitials to encourage users to download their native\nmobile apps. For some apps, native can provide richer user experiences, and use features of the\ndevice that are currently not easy to access on a browser. Because of this, many app owners\nbelieve that they should encourage users to install the native version of their online property or\nservice. It's not clear how aggressively to promote the apps, and a full page interstitial can\ninterrupt the user from reaching their desired content.\n\n\nOn Google+ mobile web, we decided to take a closer look at our own use of interstitials. Internal\nuser experience studies identified them as poor experiences, and Jennifer Gove gave a\n[great talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqviGwyy7y0&t=36m33s)\nat IO last year which highlights this user frustration.\n\n\nDespite our intuition that we should remove the interstitial, we prefer to let data guide our\ndecisions, so we set out to learn how the interstitial affected our users. Our analysis found\nthat:\n\n- 9% of the visits to our interstitial page resulted in the 'Get App' button being pressed. (Note that some percentage of these users already have the app installed or may never follow through with the app store download.)\n- 69% of the visits abandoned our page. These users neither went to the app store nor continued to our mobile website.\n\n\nWhile 9% sounds like a great CTR for any campaign, we were much more focused on the number of\nusers who had abandoned our product due to the friction in their experience. With this data in\nhand, in July 2014, we decided to run an experiment and see how removing the interstitial would\naffect actual product usage. We added a Smart App Banner to continue promoting the native app in a\nless intrusive way, as recommended in the\n[Avoid common mistakes](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/mobile/mobile-sites-mobile-first-indexing#app-download-interstitials)\nsection of our Mobile SEO Guide. The results were surprising:\n\n- 1-day active users on our mobile website increased by 17%.\n- G+ iOS native app installs were mostly unaffected (-2%). (We're not reporting install numbers from Android devices since most come with Google+ installed.)\n\n\nBased on these results, we decided to permanently retire the interstitial. We believe that the\nincrease in users on our product makes this a net positive change, and we are sharing this with\nthe hope that you will reconsider the use of promotional interstitials. Let's remove friction and\nmake the mobile web more useful and usable!\n\n\n*(Since this study, we launched a\n[better mobile web experience](https://plus.google.com/+googleplus/posts/WcNhWwkvVDD)\nthat is currently without an app banner. The banner can still be seen on iOS 6 and below.)*\n\nPosted by David Morell, Software Engineer, Google+"]]
