Google has spoken: operators of websites with mobile pop-ups will be punished come the beginning of 2017. Marketers and publishers must now abandon interstitials ads on mobile sites, or risk de-ranking in search results once Google rolls out changes to its mobile search ranking system.
Plenty of consumers are no doubt saying: “about time.” Afterall, 73% of people dislike online pop-up ads, compared to 36% and 18% for TV and print ads respectively, according to research conducted by HubSpot and Ad Block Plus.
But the distinction between good and bad ads has always been debatable, and frankly, marketers weren’t pressed to worry about the quality of “bad” ads when the only people not seeing them were those using ad blockers—at 200 million users and approximately 25% of internet users, a considerable percentage for sure, but not yet the majority.
However, between Google’s new stance on interstitial ads, and Apple’s approach to ad blocking in mobile Safari, marketers have no choice but to reexamine the deliverability, the design, the security, and the culture of pop-up advertising, else the trend of the web’s power players making executive calls will continue. Marketers’ response needs to be much more wide reaching and holistic than blocking users with ad blockers from experiencing content.
