A recent Tic Tac mobile advertising campaign leveraged transition screens to provide a context for why users were seeing an ad, helping to drive up the click-through rate to the brand?s mobile site by nearly 50 percent.

The campaign ran across the appssavvy network, with results compared to the same creative appearing on other mobile ad networks. The effort points to how delivering a full-screen interstitial to users can be disruptive without some kind of context for why the user is receiving an ad.

?For all of our publishers, the majority have context points built into their experience,? said Chris Cunningham, co-founder and CEO of appssavvy, New York. ?Rather than just getting an ad in mobile, which happens every day and could be disruptive, we?ve been able to circumvent that by working closely with the app developer or the publisher to give them context for why they are seeing something.

?We are providing context to why someone is seeing an ad,? he said. ?Mobile doesn?t usually do that.?

Transitional experiences
The Tic Tac full-screen interstitial ads appeared in mobile games and other apps targeting the brand?s core audience of consumers 18 to 34 years old.

Consumers often do not know why they are receiving an ad inside a mobile app. This can result in a disruptive experience that can negatively impact results, according to appssavvy.

The Tic Tac campaign delivered a transition screen reflective of the action users had just taken before delivering the ad. For example, one screen said ?Nice Rolling? and showed dice rolling over an image of Tic Tacs for certain users.

After viewing the ad, users could click through to watch a video or view some other content.

The campaign ran in late 2013.

Action-based targeting
Appssavvy targeted the campaign based on activities users took within an app. The company maps the hundreds of different actions that users take in the apps across its network to determine which set of actions a specific demographic group is most likely to engage in.

For example, moms have the highest propensity to do voting and polling as well as to browse photos. This enables appssavvy to put a heavier emphasis on the behaviors that corresponds with a brand?s intended audience when targeting ads.

Appssavvy?s research shows that, in general, engagement rates for full-screen mobile ad placements that include a transition screen are 48.5 percent higher.

In its tests, clicks, views or another type of action increased from 7.6 percent to 11.3 percent across campaigns on its network. The test included a control group that received full-screen mobile brand advertising and one that received a transition screen with context, prior to the brand message.

?We ran across basic demographics based on what they were trying to achieve,? said Mr. Cunningham. ?But we added another layer based on the kind of behaviors given that this is an 18 to 34 year-old demo and there are specific activities that line up with that.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York