Forum Moderators: skibum
It reflects my attitude that pop-ups are not as hated as a small number of webmasters may like you to believe. All advertisement is intrusive to some extent. The vast majority understands its need and buys into the concept that free content needs to be paid for somehow. That's my take, read the article and see his take.
And you can't compare popups to TV advertising. I don't have to pay my TV connection by time and/or amount of information I get. Any type of advertisement on the Web is disturbing for that, but it's true most of us agree ads are necessary, but I'll take 5 standard banners to one popup.
It is far more helpful for you to cite an opposing study.
I have no hard evidence to back this up and nor do I have any stats on the success rate of pop-ups but that is just my experience of them.
I've nothing against ads in general but personally I'd far rather see then in web pages that I have chosen to go to rather than appearing all over my screen in new windows.
Pop-ups may or may not be successful but they are certainly very irritating..
The author seems to count on the fact that most people won't check the study and doesn't even mention that many more people accept banners than popups. Basically, he chooses the findings that speak for popups and 'forgets' about the others. Like when he mentions that popups are about as desirable as tv ads, but doesn't say that direct mails are on the same level. And direct mail is one of the most disliked forms of advertising.
The popup/hour measurement makes no sense, because noone stays for an hour on a site, so people can't imagine what it would be like and just give a random answer, probably based on other advertising forms, like TV where they find 3 ad breaks per hour acceptable.
And the fact that the sample was recruited through advertising methods, among others popups shows that it cannot be representative, as this already shows they are more attentive to (and attracted by) those forms of advertising.
Higher frequency users I guess, like higher frequency mail users, are far more sensitive to unsolicited advertising and are highly irritated by it.
Sinner_G, I think your are underestimating WebmasterWorld's addiction by some members. ;)
Let's rephrase this : because noone stays for an hour on a site that uses Pop-Ups.
- banners > 53%
- skyscrapers > 35%
- large rectangles > 17%
- popups > 6%
- full page interstitials > 3%
Also from the survey:
"Pop-ups on par with TV ads and Direct Mail in their desirability"
If popups are given only 6% approval by respondents this says as much (or more) about the lack of popularity of TV ads and Direct Mail!
"72% feel some pop-ups are appropriate..."
Only 6% of respondents approve of popups in the first section of the survey, and yet here 72% feel some popups are appropriate. All I can infer from this is the data should be thrown out.
Finally, the survey is attempting to deal with approval or tolerance and doesn't reveal anything about effectiveness. 3 an hour is how many the average user would tolerate having to delete.
IMO
[edited by: toadhall at 4:39 pm (utc) on Aug. 21, 2002]
Pop-under windows, things that slide across the screeen and pictures that jump out at me will cause me to immediately leave the site and more than likely I will never be back. I especially dispise those exit window "services" Of course, programs like Gator deserve immediate deletion.
What kind of advertising do I respond to? I prefer a well-written article reviewing a product or service with a link to the supplier or order screen, or a side-bar that I can read, or even a small graphic. I want information, I want to know WHY I should look at a product or service.
But most of all, I want a reference to that product or service. A more-or-less trusted source saying, "yes, this is worth looking at". That's the best kind of advertising by far.
Imagine walking down the street lined with a bunch of shops. Some shops have very nice window displays which show off the products very well. These are the stores which I would tend to visit as I can see exactly what they sell. The best of these stores have knowledgable employees who know all about their products along with good signage which explains various facts (for example, coupons with recipes scattered throughout the produce section). Their advertising would consist of flyers which described the products, perhaps a newsletter and reviews by knowledgable, respected people.
Other's have someone out front screaming "buy this stuff!". These people may wander up and down the street shouting buzz-words that may or amy not attract people into a shop. This is the equivilent of banner ads. These might get my attention, but if the shop didn't produce the goods, then I would lose interest fast. And if shops consistently didn't deliver what was promised, then I would probably just ignore these hawkers altogether.
A really clever shopkeeper might hire someone to run around and plaster brochures to car windows - these are also banner ads and similar things.
Very aggressive shopkeepers might hire some very entertaining jugglers to put on shows - these are the strange ads which do weird things with the screens. I might look, but I almost certainly won't buy. These can, however, attract many people and some of them are likely to find something in the shop to purchase.
Then there are those shopkeepers which send out people to stop shoppers on the street and hold an ad in front of their face (this is a pop-up). I find this rude (it's happened in real life) and simply will not buy this stuff. I relate this to the people at airports (do they still exist?) who try to sell books for donation. I've never bought one because I don't want to encourage their behavior.
A pop-under would be similar to the above, except the ad is slipped in the shopper's back pocket so they can be surprised by it later.
Gator runs around and with some sleight-of-hand changes as many ads as it can to it's own as they are being handed or shown to patrons.
I hope this is helpful.
Richard Lowe
Mac, don't tell me you spend one hour or more exclusively browsing WW? I have it open all the time and click the recent posts link every 5 minutes, but I don't really stay on it.
I'm sorry to say that, but ClickZ has some very good authors and some really bad ones writing. It is not the first time I see an article there which seems more motivated by wanting to sell something than by giving an objective opinion.
Richard, what is SEO then
I look at SEO as making the shop more attractive for reviewers (spiders) so they get included in the newspapers list of recommended shops for that category. More attractive shops get listed nearer the top of the list.
Richard Lowe
It's for sure that some TV ads do very well for the advertiser, whether people SAY they like them or not. Infomercials work. People tune in to programs that are nothing but ads.
And direct mail can bring very solid returns. That's a huge industry with measured success rates and incredible potential for precise targeting.
So if anyone has reason to suspect that pop-ups hurt their business model, I say run a test. Same thing for a site that isn't using them, but suspects they might help.
In my opinion, the problems are not in the delivery method, they're in the targeting. Everyone hates an ad for something they're not interested in, no matter how it arrives!
The web can be a targeting medium without equal, but we shouldn't expect just any old kind of advertising to be a plug and play money maker. Advertising based on pre-web "interruption" models is often unsuccessful, and that describes MOST pop-ups I see.
In fact the only place I hear about how bad and annoying are popups is in webmaster related forums. Nowhere else.
But what I know is that last year, after reading the following post (http://www.gethighforums.com/Forum3/HTML/000135.html), I placed a popup at my site and subscriptions to my newsletter raised from aprox. 6 daily to aprox. 70 daily. So, it seems that if you show good and valuable info, people don't get annoyed about popups.
I stopped using popups for a while and started again and I find them very useful. I use only one popup per day per visitor. I never place an ad from other site. I always promote my site (newsletter, giveaway, etc.).
In fact, Adobe and Amazon use popups very carefuly to promote products or to conduct surveys. Those sites won't use popups if they were to distract or annoy visitors, don't you think so?
Of course, About.com is using very annoying and unrelated popunders that open everytime you click on an internal link. I really hate About.com popunders.
Best regards,
Enrique Flouret
Bull's eye!
All those programs, browsers and ISPs trying to cash in on pop-up killing feature are there to supply demand. I wonder what percentage of click trought pop-ups brings because users missed the 'X' box in a frustrated hurry. All advertising pop ups killers do gets users more aware of the abuse. Soon, more of them will know they finally have a choice. 'Efficiency' will decline.
The author is dreaming in color when he talks about finding a 'balance' with such an abusive practice in this dogs eats dogs market.
I am glad to use a browser [opera.com] to offer me this pop-ups killing feature. It just works, no pop-ups, no bully. ;)
There's nothing new in this article, it exists only to repeat an argument the author has already made and to make a link to his earlier study.
And we discussed that in depth here back in March, right after it was published: [webmasterworld.com...]
So: is there anyone besides this one author, and any study besides this one that was done months ago, to corroborate his data and conclusions?
I've heard people complain about all forms of advertising from time to time including pop-ups. I am in general agreement with you eflouret that this site has a particularly vocal anti-business group. That is one of its strengths, it doesn't rubber stamp everything. All points of view are needed in the marketplace.
Pop-ups exist simply because they are cost-effective and produce good returns for advertisers. They often cost a fifth of the cost of banners and will return results on a par with banner ads.
In a consulting business a good consultant will try to recognize his biases and try not to pass the on in the form of wisdom. He seeks out market studies and presents alternatives.
Here on this site we make it difficult to see the sites that the posters are from. So it is hard to sort out the relevance of the poster"s comments. I would be more inclined to be guided by what the webmaster of a major site says than what a tiny site says.
Pop-ups exist simply because they are cost-effective...
I agree. The downside is that they irritate or alienate some visitors. And the decision whether to use them or not can only best be made while weighing both the "pro" and "con" by recognizing both of those facts.
Careful JayC one could very well turn that question around and ask if after all these months why can no one cite a study with a different conclusion.
I think pop-ups, are a waste of time, can be useful if descreet, but its an easy get out of coding into the web page, and getting a profesional look.
I have never seen a good looking pop-up, they all look naff, especially if you're trying to limit the amount of bandwidth that you are dragging for the page load.
And 6% like, way to small a number. And i dislike TV adverts of any type.
Thumbs down for POP-UPS, but i am sure that will not diswade your attitude towards them. As i remember coming accross other pop-up related threads.
one could very well turn that question around and ask if after all these months why can no one cite a study with a different conclusion.
It's clear that there's not a lot of need for people who want to argue from that side of fence to recruit believers; they are available in plenty. There's no need for the majority to cite studies to win people over.
But... the study presents numbers. Conclusions are drawn from an interpretation of those numbers. You and Mr. Graham drew similar conclusions, but several posts in the old thread point out that a completely different, much more negative, set of conclusions can be drawn from the same numbers.
To be clear, I've used pop-ups and will continue to use them where it seems to be appropriate -- and while recognizing that some sector of the visitor base will be, to some extent, put off by them. But I don't see this study as making a clear argument for them; I see numbers that can easily be used to support either side of the argument.
Absolutely not.
Popups contribute to a decline in returning visitors--Period. So keep using popups if you like, but don't count on seeing your numbers increase.
Didn't mean to offend anybody. In fact I find this site one of the most respected webmasters site (if not the most).
Anyway, I feel that webmasters are more reluctant to popups than regular web surfers.
I'm the webmaster of a "tiny" web site (only 50.000 monthly visitors). Despite of that, my site is a very respected Photoshop site with positive reviews from PEI magazine and ResearchBuzz.
So if my stats are not high enough to consider (and I'm aware of that, of course), then take into account that AMAZON and ADOBE use popups for promoting surveys and offers.
If used carefully and with relevant content, I don't see anything harmful in popups.
Best regards,
Enrique Flouret
Anyway, I feel that webmasters are more reluctant to popups than regular web surfers
I agree - I use pop unders on some of my sites - and I doubt MOST websurfers even know where they are coming from.
Some people may never come back. I am not abusive with them - I use one popunder.
It makes plenty of money - I could live off just the popunder.
Anyway, I feel that webmasters are more reluctant to popups than regular web surfers.
I think they get more annoyed in a different way because they have an idea where they come from....
Someone compared it to walking down the street looking at ads in shop windows - I would suggest the closer similarity is to walking down the street and being accosted by timeshare or live show touts.
The simile is deliberate because I am sure that pop-ups work in certain areas of the web. Maybe that is what people expect down those twisting turning redirect alleys reliant on impulse buying.
Or if Time magazine wants to offer me a subscription when I leave their site, then OK.
The key in both the areas is relevancy, I think. And if I get hit by the about.com-style multitude of pop-ups and -unders then I am never, and I mean never, going to buy anything from or return to that site.
I also have a friend who runs a Pentium 133. I know someone else who runs a 166 with 32Mb RAM. Just loading in an extra window (an extra version of IE is loaded) takes an age on these machines.
When you design your site, think about these people. After all, next week they may not visit your site. And they may have a 1Gb RAM, 2GHz machine, capable of displaying more pop-ups than a...
1. They produce more revenue...not only for the site being advertised, but more so for the company selling the pop-up advertising space on their website. If they weren't making money, none of the big companies would be using them.
2. Banners don't work. There have been studies that show that people not only don't click banners, but they also have a tendency to look away when a banner is displayed on a website.
I've heard the same thing from a lot of my friends about never returning to a site that uses pops. I think this is like saying "I'm so weak as an individual, that I might actually be tempted to buy something". Get real... pops are here to stay for a while, no matter how much people cry about them, so just do what I do--> Glance, evaluate, hit the X button! When pops stop making extra revenue for the advertisers, people will stop buying them.
I think this is like saying "I'm so weak as an individual, that I might actually be tempted to buy something".
I don't think that's it at all. I'm not someone who's ever said I wouldn't go back, so I'm only commenting -- like you -- on what I've observed, but as I remember anyone I've heard making that argument has done so on grounds based on inconvenience, increased loading times, etc... or simply on feeling that they're being "forced" to see stuff they don't want to see.
I certainly see no reason to think that those giving such reasons really are just covering up some deep fear of being unable to say "no." Seriously, do you really think that?
Such generalisations about popups and their detractors and supporters are not very useful IMHO. The web IS powered by people looking for information, NOT to buy something, no matter how you would like the latter or no matter how you would like to convince yourself or others. People who use the internet as a communication and information medium may well buy things, but not via unexpected pitches. Our own model we utilize in our websites show that people are very willing to buy after careful consideration and respect for the web site operators and the information they provide. And yes, a small percentage, also go to the Web in order to buy something.
My feeling is that websites that depend on solitary visits may gain by pop ups and even some that depend on revisits can afford a few "not-unexpected" ones.
Users are incresainly becoming more spophisticated in what sites they visit and what they don't. Pop up revenue in the end will prove as illusory as banner ad revenue. People as a whole DONT want popups.. Even the article in question say only 6% "prefer" them. That some people click on them enough to generate revenue is fine, but Its a very short term strategy.
Finally my working theory addresses your point that if people are clicking and ad agencies are going well on their back, may just indicate a pop up bubble, just like the banner ad bubble of a couple of years back. Those late to the game, and "weak enough" to be susceptible to the pitch, made a dying technique look good far beyond the point that it had outlived its effectiveness. Very few of those later commers ever made money. Most lost heaps. Pop ups are actually dead already. Lets wait for the next "magic" technique promising to make money for web site owners and ad networks without having to do much work like providing good content. Tower ads? flash ads? The next on line advertising industry scam is always just around the corner.
[edited by: chiyo at 3:53 am (utc) on Aug. 23, 2002]
