Re: pop-up messages

From: Luis Martins <lbravo_at_companhiapropria.pt>
Date: Wed 11 Sep 2002 07:28:16 -0500

Jonas Hollander wrote:

>"Safa Rashtchy, Senior Research Analyst Internet Media and Marketing for US
>bancorp Piper Jaffray, recently issued a report, and he too believes that
>'pop-ups are here to stay,' as stated in his newsletter, Silk Road Weekly."

>Here's why:
>"+ Pop-ups are highly effective. We know that they get higher click-through
>rates. Their conversion rates are high also. Yes, some people hate them,
>but not so much that it affects the traffic on the sites serving them.

Hi all.

Some pop-up's are effective, some aren't. At least, on my experience, the
great majority are not. And the most effective are the ones that trick the
user into clicking thru. So you can say they have a high conversion rate,
but this marketing game is not only a numbers' game.

>+ Major advertisers like Orbitz, Dell, Providian, Morgan Stanley and
>Columbia House are among the top ten users. This shows a trend. It won't be
>long before other major advertisers use pop-ups too.

Do you know how many "trends" I've seen in the last 4 years? Last one ended
in a .com crash, if I remind. :) See also
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2001/may01/may07/3_wed/news2wednesday.h
tml for the article "Pop-ups can sully a brand's image".


>+ Sites banning pop-ups are in a minority and have good reason to ban them
>(e.g., Google and iVillage who do not want to interrupt the user
>experience). This is not likely to spread to the majors, according to
>Rashtchy. And he makes a good point. After all, aren't the highly
>effective rich media takeover ads that have zoomed across sites like
Yahoo!,
>The New York Times and CBS MarketWatch also pop-ups, albeit much more
>creative than the X-10 camera ads (which we cannot forget, still worked
like
>crazy)."

Well, now we know Google and iVillage aren't majors. :) Do you know why the
pop-up were banned on those sites? User feedback. Check
http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/1456961

Again, marketeers taking advantage of people's ignorance. At a given time, I
clicked that camera ad. It was so huge that I had to resize the window and I
somehow clicked it. But, as many, I was not interested in the product. So,
one more for the statistics, one less for the ROI.

Oh, and you can really see pop-ups appearing on google too: if I recall,
pop-ups are the preferred advertising format for scumware like Gator and the
likes...

>In addition i'd like to add my own list of elements required to succeed
with
>pop ups (in no particular order):

>- Frequency control

Hmmm...Annoyance control? OK... But I never asked for the first one, in the
first place...

>- Be relevant (contextually relevant that is)

Yep. It would be so wonderful if our world would turn that way...But if you
want visitors, you'll not get segmented - you'll try betting on a portal's
homepage and wait for the slippery mouses. That's what those great
announcers you've used as an example are doing, anyway.

>- Don't crash users browsers

Never saw that one. :)

>- Don't change the browsers behaviour (such as modifying close buttons etc)

Hm...But trying to make a second close button - that's fair game, right?

>- Be clear about the sender (people should know where it came from and
>where to complain)

Oh yes. Every pop-up I've seen has phone numbers, e-mails for the Mkt VP and
CEO and the mailing address, just in case. And all of this before clicking
the damn thing. Yes!

>- Use pop ups instead of the more sneaky cousin, the pop under.

Can't see much of a difference...Only that the up-cousin stand in my way to
finding my desired content and the under-cousin doesn't...

>- Allow people opt out (if you don't have that function at least allow
people to block you out, no point in upsetting people who are easily upset).

Opting-out is very different from getting-out. Opting-out should allow me to
avoid seeing pop-ups ever again. Getting out will only rid me of that one.

>Besides those points it's all down to plain old brilliant creative, being
>innovative, good offer, right targeting the right people etc.

And all the good things that can be done with other, nicer and more
effective (on ROI) formats.

Feeling the lurker flame, Jonas?







Received on Wed Sep 11 2002 - 07:28:16 CDT