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MAIN
 Technology
POP-UP's:
Between the Lines
Are Pop-up Campaigns Based on Incomplete
Data?
Everyone complains
about pop-up and intrusive ads. Everyone except the ad marketers,
that is. Has
anyone stopped to think about why a company would ignore the pleas
of the consumer and invest more online advertising money in these
obnoxious ads?
 The
answer is data.
Surveys and
demographic studies keep turning up the fact that pop-ups work
- and they work well...much better than other ad forms. The only
other competition is from rich media ads - you know the ones.
A butterfly flitters around the page blocking the text you are
trying to read - or a man in a canoe propels down a waterfall
- in front of the article you are trying to read.
Anyone with
a cat should be familiar with the annoying interaction. Try reading
the Sunday paper with your cat around. It's guaranteed that your
sweet Tabby will intuitively know where you are trying to look
and block your view. Move your eyes to another article, the cat
adjusts his position. Two year olds exhibit the same behavior.
From our cats or kids, this may be amusingly irritating. From
companies trying to get us to spend our money, it is offensive.
But if that's
how everyone feels, why are these ads so successful? Or are they
really as successful as the ad market likes to think?
Look at the
numbers. A recent report from DoubleClick stated,
"For
those [ad programs] that measure effectiveness in clicks, the
250 x 250 square—often used for popups —has the
highest average click-through rates (1.17%). The 550 x
448 unit also has extremely high average click rates at
0.9%."
Check those
numbers again. Highly successful seems to be a very loose term.
Any business
owner who had less than a 2% return on a mass mailing or traditional
media marketing campaign would not call it a success. Any response
rate below 1% can't be called good... but Internet ad marketers
are saying that "extremely high" is 0.9%.
Targeted
text ads - ads that carry information that you do want to see
- tend to get attention well beyond a paltry 0.9%. Not because
they are screaming at you, but because you need the information
or want the product they offer.
The next generation
of ads threaten to pop up and play music, talk to you and do everything
they can to get your attention... except meow (well, O.K., that
too). It may be time for businesses who are paying for
these ads to stop believing the hype and look at the real figures.
The bottom
line has always been that if you give people what they want, they
become your customer and give you repeat business. If you annoy
them, they just go away. That's true on or off the Internet.
More
on the Pop-Up Controversy around the Web:
Pop-Ups
Must Die
Pop-Up
Ads: Good? Bad? Ugly?
Will
Pop-Ups Upset Customers?
Spam,
pop-ups affect television advertising
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