Interstitial Ads in Apps: Earnings and Timing

It is also the steadiest earner after rewarded video. All eight mobile networks we track support it, and because you decide when it fires, it reaches every user rather than only those who opt in. The real question is how often you can show it before people stop coming back.

Estimated Interstitial eCPM by network

Android baseline, USD per 1,000 impressions, before category and platform multipliers. Networks that do not offer the format are left out.

AppLovin MAX has the highest Tier 1 eCPM for this format in our tables at $9.80.

Share of revenue by app category

How much of a category’s estimated revenue this format carries with the typical setup (Google AdMob, balanced audience).

How it earns

Most interstitial demand comes from app advertisers chasing installs, who value a full-screen canvas for video or a playable demo. Our Tier 1 Android estimates run from about $6.00 on InMobi to about $9.80 on AppLovin MAX, with Unity at about $9.00 and AdMob at about $8.00. That is less per view than rewarded, but the audience is everyone who reaches a break.

Frequency matters more than price. In the short run, if prices hold, showing twice as many roughly doubles the revenue, which is exactly why the format is so easy to overuse. Our calculator begins at a cautious two per user per day.

What it does to the experience

Badly timed interstitials are a recurring theme in negative app reviews. An ad that cuts across a tap, appears the instant the app opens, or arrives twice in a row feels like a trick. A user who leaves takes every future session with them, so a small lift in daily revenue can be cancelled by a fall in retention.

Google's AdMob guidance has long discouraged interstitials that appear unexpectedly, interrupt the task in hand, or show on app launch or exit, and other networks set similar rules. Put them at natural pauses where the user has just finished something. Policies are revised now and then, so check the current version for each network you use.

Best practice

• Trigger the ad after the user completes an action, such as finishing a level, never in the middle of one.
• Set a cooldown between interstitials and a cap per session in your mediation platform.
• Give new users a grace period before their first one so the app can make a good impression.
• Load the ad ahead of time so it appears at once rather than after a visible pause.
• Hold off for a while after a user has just watched a rewarded video.

Common mistakes

• Firing an interstitial on a button press, so the ad lands where the user expected the next screen.
• Judging a frequency change by revenue alone, without comparing day-1 and day-7 retention for the same cohort.
• Assuming every audience reacts the same way, when hypercasual players and subscription users tolerate very different levels.

All figures come from our benchmark tables: Android eCPMs by tier, category or niche multipliers, modelled fill and the iOS multiplier. They are estimates for planning, not quotes.