My Experience with POP Under Windows

How to drive customers away from your site - A True Story

[lgn]

I installed a pop under window under our site around June last year. Our theory was that one pop under window was not going to hurt and it contained relevent content in a voting link for a top 100 widget website, which gave plenty of resources on widgets. Plus we would get a boost in traffic from our increased rank on the voting
site.

I check my weblogs a month latter and we say only a 2% increase in users who did not stay (less than 6 seconds).

Im ussually guilty of analyzing my weblogs only when I have a problem. The problem was, it is now Janurary but traffic was up and sales were down.

I checked the number of users who do not stay(less than 6 seconds) and there was an increase of 50%. I was losing half my sales leads because of that one stupid pop-under.

What I didn't realized, was that our existing customers didn't care about the popup, but I was getting fewer and fewer new customers.

Sure enought over six months, that 2% increased to 50%.

I wonder how many other people had this experince with pop-under windows. They are not worth it under any circumstance. It appears that the public is very poison on these.

Needless to say those pop-unders are gone.

[pendanticist]

I wonder how many other people had this experince with pop-under windows. They are not worth it under any circumstance. It appears that the public is very poison on these.

I can't speak to "...this experience..." However, as a webmaster who himself has to wade thru all the popups/unders/overs etc., it is more than annoying.

(No, I don't want to use pop-thwarting software or browsers. If I can't see them, I can't ban the site throwing them.)

So much so that, not only do I no longer include any site that throws them (site specific ones excluded), I pull sites that do.

I can't tell you the compliments I get from my viewers when they realize they've found a haven devoid of those critters.

Pendanticist.

[rcjordan]

Thanks. It will be very interesting to see if sales rebound fairly quickly. That would make it all the more telling.

[gsx]

pendanticist:
(No, I don't want to use pop-thwarting software or browsers. If I can't see them, I can't ban the site throwing them.)

I use Nortons Firewall and it has an option for blocking pop-ups, it's not perfect but if you have the tracker open on the side of the screen it scrolls out for a few seconds to tell you which site has had a pop-up blocked, after a few seconds it disappears again. Best of both worlds, but it's not perfect and does not catch them all.

[knighty]

biggst reason for using Opera is that it blocks pop-ups, its is 100% effective.

[pendanticist]

I use Nortons Firewall and it has an option for blocking pop-ups, it's not perfect but if you have the tracker open on the side of the screen it scrolls out for a few seconds to tell you which site has had a pop-up blocked, after a few seconds it disappears again. Best of both worlds, but it's not perfect and does not catch them all.

(For the record, I use ZA.)

If I'm to provide a sanctuary for my viewers from pop-ups/overs/unders then I must allow them to render, right?

That's why I don't use the other browsers (for this purpose), or software.

To reiterate: I do not want to block those ads.

Pendanticist.

[Girumuu]

The only thing that bugs me about Opera is does block ALL pop-ups, even ones you willingly click on. So you have to go change the setting to be able to open one of the javascript pop-up links that alot of sites use nowadays.

[rhyno]

I much prefer AvantBrowser
[avantbrowser.com...]

It needs IE installed to run, but runs it with a tabbed interface (I usually hav 6-10 windows going at a time), can be set for full manual/automatic privacy control (clearing run history, cookies, etc.), and blocks all "automatic" popups, allowing the ones you actively click to appear, and said feature can be toggled from the toolbar.

Pretty slick!
--RHYNO

[engine]

Part of the problem is too many pop-ups/unders. There is nothing worse than an endless stream (some big, so called, respectable services use too many, too).
I don't see a problem with a carefully targeted pop-up/under that delivers relevant information to the visitor, once.
Use cookie-based data to eliminate the annoyance of delivering on re-visits.

What was the prime purpose of your pop-up (to increase relevancy for your site)?

[Shoestring]

I'd have to agree with engine.

We use one pop-under site wide to generate subscriptions to our newsletter. It is cookie-based to eliminate duplicate/re-visit pops and gives the user the option to "remind me later" or "never remind me".

We have not recieved one single complaint over the year+ its been on the site and our newsletter subs are up over 40% vs. those generated with the static promo page alone.

A single, clean, user friendly and relevant pop-under has been a plus for our site.

[HughMungus]

Working on a friend's website and we just had this discussion last night. I asked him, "Are you trying to get people to hit the links on your page [affiliate links] or do you want them to hit the link on the popup?" I think the problem is that if they're annoying, people will get annoyed, think the site designer didn't put much thought into UI, and honestly, it borders on cheesy. If you're using it to get people to do something related to your site, that's one thing. But if it's a popper for some other website, it seems cheesy. I could be wrong, of course.