The death of pop-ups? Do they still work for mobile and desktop?
Picture 2018, the year of the ad-blocker. The average person’s internet user experience may lead you to believe that the pop-up is a thing of the past. Most people’s systems use ad-blockers to streamline their surfing and browsing experiences, and pop-ups are a significant part of those experiences.
Considered to be an annoyance in the overall web experience, pop-ups are, regardless, considered an extremely effective and efficient form of web advertising. While Search Engine Optimization, social advertising and other techniques are still employed, popups offer a unique alternative and are significantly more cost-effective than any other form of internet-based advertising.
Even though pop ads constitute just about 2% of all online advertising, statistics show that they are a niche worth investing in. On average, the CTR, or click-through rate for a popup, is 6 times higher than that of banner ads.
This means that if an ad on the page gets clicked 5 times per 1000 impressions, a popup ad would score 30 clicks — a significant difference.
You might be a specialised user on the internet — or you might be the average man or woman browsing the internet, looking for some information, or a stream to your favorite match. A lightbox will appear, obscuring the content you are about to consume, or wish to, and does not usually disappear until it is clicked various times. Although this method was significantly used by news and news media websites in the past, it is now popular among marketers.
For all the flak they have earned, pop-up ads still remain among the most sucessful forms of advertising online. But first, let us take a look at the downside. The numbers indicate that, as recently as 2015, 45% of users who utilized popup-blocking software wanted to view zero advertising
Pop-ads, however, are still awake, and a few recent studies have shown that Pop ads have proven to convert much better than other ad types, sometimes boosting the ROI by as much as 250%.
Pop-up ads are versatile, and can be adapted to a website in a number of different ways, not all of which need to be a hindrance in the user’s overall experience.
The different kinds of pop-ups
There are several different types of pop-ups; it is not a catch-all term, and these varied varieties of popups each usually function on websites towards several different purposes.
- Entrance Popups
These are the possible “worst offenders”. As the name might suggest, these popups are what faces you when you first login to a website. If a website is new to a user or a specific user base, a pop-up will discourage the user from making any further interations with the website. That effectively takes away one more potential customer the company and/or website may have had.
2. Scrolling Popups
As the name suggests, these move in dynamic fashion with a webpage. When a reader, or visitor is scrolling through a window, a popup might appear at a particular section or part of that webpage. This sort of popup is usually positioned at the end. This sort of popup is significantly less offensive to the reader(s) because they have had the time to legitimately read through, at length, and therefore understand at least a part of the site in question. Given that time to understand a website and therefore, a brand, a user might be more likely to subscribe to that brand’s value.
3. Leading question popups
Gone are the days when pop-ups were ‘simple’. Now that viewers have adapted to the timing of a popup, this sort of pop-up sees the user led into answering a loaded question to complete the purposes of a survey or for website access, rather than using the typical format used by websites — which is to simply suggest user subscription.
4. Timed popups
As the name might suggest, these appear after a user spends a specific, predecided amount of time on a website, and suggest subscription to that user.
5. Exit intent popups
These are a last attempt to convince those people who are about to leave the website into an email subscription. Like most other popups, these are considered irritating, and usually lead to quicker exit times.
The research supports popups
While empirical and personal evidence may make it look as though popups are undesirable, data and analysis prove that pop-ups are extremely effective. According to experimental data, signup dates are significantly affected by popups. This researcher temporarily disabled popups on his website, seeing no major difference in the bounce rate, which is the percentage of visitors to a site who leave after only viewing a single page.
However, his subscription rates were seriously affected. Signup rates doubled with the popup, with no significant change to the bounce rate. What this means that the presence of the popup was not enough to deter or drive away any significant percentage of users from the website.
The difference in user satisfaction is statistically insignificant, as is the tradeoff between the two. While they may inherently be considered an annoyance in terms of overall user experience, they are incredibly effective as a business web tool.
How should you ensure the effectiveness of your popup?
Pop-ups can work; they can easily give you higher conversion rates if you know exactly what you need to do with them.
The design of your popup is a key aspect here: ensure your popup does not appear too soon into the user experience, potentially driving them away.
Make exiting easy. Popups often hide the ‘x’ needed to exit, making it difficult for users to close the window and therefore discouraging them from using not only the email subscription tool, but the website overall.
Make popups relatively infrequent. If they are shown to a unique user more than once or twice during their browsing experience, that may be discouraging for the user and make them less likely to use the tool.
Finally, the design of your popup is also important. Both the elements and the key content in the design should be unique, tailored to your user base, and atypical from other popups. This not only catches the attention of your user, but good copy in your popup ad will make a user significantly more likely to use the subscription tool.
Popups are not a thing of the past in terms of internet advertising, and continue to be one of the most effective tools in internet advertising. Used effectively, they can be an excellent tool in growing a business, particularly a web-based one. However, rigorous testing is required to make sure that the design, layout and style of a popup are supporting across platforms and do not impede the overall user experience.
If these rules are followed, popups are not only far from being a hindrance, but become a very effective tool for user subscription.
