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LinkedIn Joins Yelp In Bashing Google App-Install Interstitial Study

Google recently shared results from an internal study about app-install interstitials, looking specifically at their own Google+ app, saying that they make for a negative user experience. Yelp CEO Jer...
LinkedIn Joins Yelp In Bashing Google App-Install Interstitial Study
Written by Chris Crum
  • Google recently shared results from an internal study about app-install interstitials, looking specifically at their own Google+ app, saying that they make for a negative user experience. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman has been slamming Google over the study and questioning the company’s true intent.

    The general gist of Stoppelman’s postition is that Google is discouraging the use of such ads in an effort to fuel its own self interests.

    Now, LinkedIn has weighed in as well, calling Google’s study flawed. It’s not as finger-pointing as Stoppelman’s words have been but does go so far as to say that nobody wants Google+.

    “Naturally, an interstitial that interrupts the user experience to promote something that most people don’t want is bound to backfire,” writes Omar Restom, mobile product manager at LinkedIn (via Re/code). “Google shouldn’t extrapolate based on this one case. ”

    “Google admits that it was showing their interstitial even to users who already have the app – that’s bad mojo and fundamentally bad audience targeting,” he adds. “Again, Google should only have shown this promo to people who actually want and need the app. The Google+ Team also violated Google’s own SEO policy by showing this interstitial on SEO Pages.”

    He goes on to make the case that LinkedIn’s interstitials work better because of better targeting and better creatives.

    Restom also backs up his argument with some numbers, comparing clickthrough rate, bounce rate and incremental app downloads driven between Google+ and LinkedIn.

    interstitials-numbers

    This week, Google officially announced that pages using these interstitials will no longer be considered “mobile-friendly” by the search engine, and that means using them will hurt sites in search results.

    Image via LinkedIn

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