By Jo Best, 25 February 2004 11:30
NEWS Pop-up ads have long been known as the black sheep of internet advertising but according to web-behaviour research, pop-ups could do more than just annoy casual surfers - they could actually be harming businesses that advertise or host them.
A recent report from Forrester research showed that 64 per cent of web users found the advertising format irritating but advertisers are still finding it difficult to wean themselves away from pop-ups, believing they grab users' attention better than banner advertising.
However, a research report from web-behaviour company Bunnyfoot Universality, The efficacy of pop-ups and the resulting effects on brands, shows that pop-ups rarely have time to load before a web surfer has closed them down - half clicked off before the ad was fully loaded.
Users' lack of patience with pop-ups seems to have gone unnoticed among advertisers. The average time for a pop-up to display the company's logo was 8.5 seconds but the time taken for a user to shut the ad down was just 2.5 seconds.
According to the report, pop-ups ranged from the merely annoying to the downright harmful to a company's brand, with 60 per cent of users saying that they mistrusted any company that uses - or even hosts - pop-ups.
Rob Stevens, director of business behaviour at Bunnyfoot Universality, said that brands could be doing themselves irreparable damage by refusing to give up pop-ups. "Brands are undoubtedly committing commercial suicide by insisting on using pop-ups. The effect of such techniques goes way beyond annoying the user; they frustrate, they impose and they engender mistrust. Pop-ups are therefore not just a huge waste of money; they are also extremely negative for a brand," he said in a statement.
For those advertisers looking purely at the bottom line, the research shows only 2 per cent of users remembered the brand that the pop-up was advertising.
Web surfers are voting with their feet - or rather their software. According to the Forrester report, 14 per cent of web users have anti-pop-up software on their machines - a year ago, it was just 1 per cent.
Hosting and portal companies are also getting the message. MSN announced earlier this month that it would be phasing out pop-ups and pop-unders across its sites worldwide and Bill Gates has been showing off the new security features in the Windows Service Pack 2 - which has a pop-up blocker thrown in for good measure.
Comments
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1. anonymous
I will never buy from any company that advertised by popups.
2. Levi R. Porter
I hate pop-ups and refuse to purchase anything from a company useing them
3. Peter Gallon
Pop-ups were driving me mad until I installed RedV Popup Protector. Now they're zapped before they even appear. Only annoying thing is that some legit websites, such as Internet banking, use popups as part of their user access, and RedV blocks them too, until you remember to hold down <ctrl> - but I blame the popup advertisers for necessitating the invention of a popup blocker in the first place!
4. nigel perry
Pop-ups are remarkably irritating because they obscure what I want to see and thereby waste my time, so: I just avoid websites that have them.
5. KP
Vastly more annoying than pop-ups are those new Flash ads that are spreading like a cancer across British broadsheet newspaper sites that block the text and have to be closed down before you can read it. You have to look at the ad carefully to find the "close" button. I saw one yesterday that, super-annoyingly, didn't show the close button for a good ten seconds or so.
6. anonymous
Absolutely true! I am an avid motorsport fan and read Autosport online and offline - Vodafone are using so many pop-ups they are really irritating me. Have now swicthed on my anti-pop-up software but lost some of the site-related banners. Come on Vodafone I can't be the only one being wound up by you. There are friendlier ways to advertise!!
7. Bruce
Google's toolbar that you can download is fab as you can click a button to tell it to allow popups on the current web site if you wish, so for legit sites like banks etc.. you can switch of the popup blocking..... it also tells you how many popups you have blocked. Very handy, but now we need a way to block this new breed of "popup" that uses flash and/or css as that's just as annoying.
8. Nick Cole
Yes they do grab recipients attention! Enough to convince them NEVER to consider the company as a trustworthy supplier. They are arrogant and insulting and what makes them more annoying is the inability to control what they may be doing reliably and that they pop up over the top of what you are trying to read. The insistence on interrrupting what you may be doing is the most irritating factor.
Why advertisers don't apply their own experience and reaction to somebody thrusting a document on top of something they are already looking at to what they inflict is beyond comprehension? Pop Ups are used because computers can do it not because they are inherently good.
Good riddance to them and their equally harmful negative marketing cousins spam!
9. anonymous
I forgot that people were still looking at pop-up's. I haven't had one on any of my computers in 2 years. Using Mozilla, Safari, or even the Google Toolbar have prevented me from even seeing them
10. anonymous
Popups bugged me until I got a browser that, by default, disabled all popups. Mozilla firebird/firefox. Now, I whitelist the sites that I trust or wish to allow popup windows. IT's a much better system.
The REAL problem ads now are those float-over flash ones. I despise those.
11. anonymous
Maybe the companies hosting these pop-ups should consider the long term effect. Personally, I have a hate-list of sites I have stopped visiting because of the rash of ads which breaks out as soon as I open them. I don't remember any of the advertisers either, because I shut them down so fast.
12. PVO
There are different solutions out there, I personally love the Opera web browser which has a great built-in popup blocker. It will still show requested pop-ups so sites that use them for a useful purpose will still work. I really hate it whenever I have to use a stone-age browser without pop-up blocking now. There are solutions out there, if you use them you don't have to be irritated anymore and eventually even the most die-hard pop-uppers will give up.
13. Brian Challis
Pop Ups are the most annoying , frustrating of all adverts and as mentioned elsewhere, users click them off before they are "digestable".
"Gain is the Biggest Pain" for me followed by those banners that tell me evry day I am the 5 millionth user.
There is no doubt that this is a totally negative approach to adverising that turns us all off the brand
14. anonymous
Duh! I can't believe it took so long to figure out that a business plan that is guaranteed to piss off your potential customers won't work.
15. ioana rodica
Tell me about ! Is the third pop-up blocker I'm using - and finally a good one - efficient and discreet (Gooogle toolbar)
16. AOE
Pop-ups are so annoying that I think twice about going to pages that support them.
17. anonymous
Ahhh ... the glory of Macs! No popups since i installed Safari......... Way ahead of the game, as usual...
18. anonymous
I certainly support the idea of Euthanasia for those who pollute my screen with pop-ups.
19. anonymous
I stopped reading my local newspaper online because they host pop-up ads and defended the practice when I complained. I finally started reading it again, but only because I use a pop-up blocker and I use other news sites more often.
20. anonymous
I automatically nullroute all pop-up hosting providers at the router. I dont even see their ads. Doubleclick, fastclick and speedera are all unscrupulous piles of <expletive>.
21. Klaus Wosuna
No surprise here! It was foolish for anyone to fail to anticipate a backlash against popups. I haven't had to sit through one for a year or so, but I used to flame companies that sponsored them.
22. anonymous
It was bad enough when I had access to broadband, but now that I am again on dial-up, it frustrates me that it takes so long to get what I want, and it is made so much worse because some of my bandwidth is 'stolen' by these ads. What makes anyone think I would be encouraged to buy their product after they do that to me?
23. anonymous
I stopped using msn because of thier popups. I will not go to web sites that use pop ups.
24. anonymous
Let's list worst offenders for pop-ups: Marketwatch.com, CNN.com, USAToday.com, any more? these sites always spam me with pop ups, they have no clue and that's why I don't use them -- EVER!
25. Bruce
To be honest, I think that no matter what technology exists it will be used & abused by people in the marketing/advertising industry (not all by any means, but a good number).
Some people seem to think that the only way to convince you to buy their product/service is to shove it down your throat. This attitude of forceful selling is what needs to be addressed, technology will continue to invent new ways of communication and these will be abused. Take for example the simple telephone, our company repeatedly gets calls from all sorts of agencies and if you don't put them straight through to the MD they go nuts and start swearing and all sorts, not the way to convince you to ever deal with them! Pretty stupid really as they assume that they are talking to a receptionist, we don't have one and therefore they will be ignored and never dealt with. The same could be said for popups......
26. GT Konen
Webwasher -free, then Filtergate, then settled on Admuncher were the programs I used to avoid popups and banner ads - webbugs, Flash animation and other annoyances are also to be avoided if possible. Maybe when the new version of IE comes out popups will die off...
27. anonymous
yes. this is plain commonsense. what about the commonsense about spam!, we already know short of surgery penis enlargements don't work.. etc etc
and I don't need viagra!!
28. anonymous
lol, no popups here on Mozilla Firebird/Firefox and Opera (which i used to use)
29. john smith
popup blocking Mozilla -M|cr0$0ft IE lacks
30. anonymous
POpups are annoying I close them before they finish rendering.
Get rid of them, I wont buy from
these people either.
31. Is a name not anonymous on the web
I make a point of NOT buying from anyone using POPUP's AND SPAM.Period! i don't care how big they are and how good their products are. Stand up people the quality of our lives is degenerating with this attitude hating it BUT.... And for the one who posted that he had to reinstate POPUPs "because they work" well he will never ever get any support from here as he is worse to have a decent amount of empathy and then deliberately disregard what is right for what is profitable..you are sooo not right..Shame
32. anonymous
Surely marketers use the web? Can they not see just how irritating pop-ups are?
I would love to sit in on a marketing meeting where someone excitedly pipes up with 'Pop-ups! Everyone looks at pop-ups! You see them all over the place so we should use them as well'. Surely someone in that meeting would have actually experienced one of these virtual vermin and put their point across? Maybe even delivering a swift punch to the nose the ingrate who made the suggestion.
33. anonymous
Just look at this for a situation. On one side we have us, all paying for extra bandwidth, and on the other side there are all these bastards, filling it up with rubbish.
Pop-ups = Spam
34. Andrew Edwards
I ALWAYS close a pop-up window, without even waiting for it to load or before reading it's content. They are SOOO annoying! What is worse, is when another pop-up appears when you close the first one!
I spend a lot of money via the internet each month, and actively shy away from sites that annoy me with too many pop-up boxes.
35. Jacqueline
The race is to close the pop-up before it completes loading: and if it does get there quickly enough to become identical, one develops a hatred for the advertiser. Kelkoo on French sites, for example. Of questionnable use as a sales tool, therefore.
36. mike bell
I have started avoiding sites with these kinds of popups and on principal, will _never_ click the links. Subtle banner adds do work. Just drop the ridiculous number of animated flash ads to a minumum and maybe people will click them.
37. Merrick
Yet another unwarranted intrusion by these agencies into our every day lives. To cap it all, I heard the other day that soon, there will be internet adverts directly streamed to the end user that you will have to endure before proceeding with whatever task you actually sat down to do. This has to stop! The internet is fast diluting the useful tools and sources of information by ever increasing streams of rubbish.
I will not buy anything from money hungry corporations that invade my privacy in such a way!
38. anonymous
The worst one I have experienced was for an O2 XDA, which appeared on the New Scientist Website, it was not bordered in any way and appeared to be only a picture of an XDA. I clicked on the advert several times before realising the close button was up and to the right of the picture, completely separate from the advert itself hidden in the hosting pages menu, it left me fuming!
39. nick lamming
I haven't read a popup for years. As soon as the popup window starts to load I x button it and carry on with the page I am reading.
So any popup advertising is completely lost on me - and millions like me, I suspect.
40. anonymous
I find the smugness of "Mac" users much more annoying than any pop-ups i have ever come across!
41. Yawni Soo
Install papup blockers; eradicate menace; boycott contaminators!
42. anonymous
Ad Muncher is the absolute best popup and ad blocking software available today. A must have.
43. Don Morse
I now use netscape as my browser because you can completey eliminate popups.
44. anonymous
Red V pop-up protector collects private data and has no uninstall feature.
45. anonymous
Pop-ups are the spawn of hell. Eversince they first started appearing on the internet, I began boycotting all products being advertised via pop-up ad. It's for good reasons also, since pop-up ads have been responsible for gradually destroying my computer (dammit I'm so frustrated I'm on the brink of forming a law-suit against those capitalist pigs). Die advertisers die..
46. anonymous
popups drive me so crazy as to AVOID purposely any company or site that used popups. So unless I walked into their store physically, I would do all I can to avoid their sites.