Pop-up ads are useful because they work
In response to The 10 Commandments of Web Design posted recently on BusinessWeek, Matthew Magain responds with Why The 10 Commandments Of Web Design Are Complete Baloney. He works hard to combat the list, but in his own responses is very vague. It just seemed more like a platform to rant than to intellectually respond to the initial list. One particular response stuck out to me:
2. Thou shalt not hide content.
Allow me to offer a somewhat contentious view — popups aren’t always evil. Yes, they (almost always) introduce usability issues, and yes, for regular visitors they are annoying and frustrating and can harm a site’s credibility etc etc. No doubt you’ve seen the occasional popup ad on sitepoint.com.
Here’s why: they work.
When it comes down to it, it’s all very well to stand on one’s usability soap box and declare “Don’t use popups!” But if your site is a for-profit enterprise, then you may be doing your business a disservice by not contemplating popup advertising as a legitimate revenue stream. Why? Because people click on them. They are engaging, and many visitors find them useful; this we know from experience.
Sidenote: Occasional? Occasional? Try at least twice every visit. It would be interesting if he backed this up with research, instead of his experience.
Read that again. His reasoning is they work. Huh? Lets present his first piece of evidence: the popup ad I received while I was reading his very own article.
Ahh yes, that’s a very well thought out and targeted ad towards a supposed community seeking to help web developers. Now, in his defense, he had to take this stance—he was writing the article for one of the worst promoters of popup ads in the web development community. I know, we could travel a lot, so it might be useful to a few. I avoid Sitepoint like the plague for this very reason, littering my screen with useless advertising that shows their for-profit roots and priorities.
Reading down through the comments, I saw that many people thought the same thing when reading that section. I think the response by Andy Budd sums it up best:
Regarding your second point that pop-ups work. My immediate thought was, “so does spam, but it doesn’t make it right.” The ends do not always justify the means.
Thank you Andy, for saying what everyone else was thinking.
So, there you have it. We can all rest easy using pop-ups, pop-unders, or other spawning of windows because it works. How’s that for an educated response?
As you can tell from my response, I do not advocate the use of pop-ups, pop-unders, or any other form of advertising on the web that forces itself upon visitors by spawning new windows or interrupting a user from achieving their goal.
7 Comments Add your comment
Brendan Cullen July 15th, 2008
I think it was pretty clear on where they stand when they started their spec work site, and then threatened to send their lawyers after Kevin Potts when he called them on it.
Just wait until they discover the clickthrough potential with interstitials
Nate Klaiber July 15th, 2008
@Brendan Cullen
I remember seeing part of that a while back, but didn't realize it was Sitepoint guys behind the scenes. Needless to say, it's not much of a surprise.
I can see it now - popup ads, ads injected into their articles (much like their emails), then spreading articles out even longer and injecting the use of interstitials. What a great resource to teach people how to work as professionals on the web.
Chris Hattery July 15th, 2008
Sitepoint Loves pop up ads.
I Love Sitepoint.
Therefore...I love pop up ads?
Their advertising is working on me!?!?! ~:|
(Does that look like a man frowning with steam coming off his head?)
Nate Klaiber July 15th, 2008
@Chris Hattery
Nice use of logic with a sad result.
I used to like Sitepoint, until their emails turned useless as they are flooded with advertisements and their website, well, it's becoming more spammy as it changes.
Chris Jewitt July 26th, 2008
I was a bit confused what your position was at first, but realized once reading through. I couldn't agree more. Pop-ups suck! Sometimes I click on stuff in an attempt to skew their results with no intention to buy what they're selling... Drives me nuts that they keep pestering me like mosquitos in the middle of the woods with pop-up ads, banner ads, google ads... WTF. For goodness sakes, I just want to get some quality info without feeling like I should be hiding my wallet. - done ranting
Good point on the article.
Brendan - enjoyed reading Kevin Potts blog as well. I hate the whole concept of 99designs.
Cheers!
Derek Featherstone December 5th, 2008
Hiya Nate - one quick point. I had an interesting discussion about this with Matt when I was speaking at Web Directions South in September. I think there are two kinds of popups we need to keep separate from each other: external ad popups, and those that are internal to SitePoint. I may be putting words in Matt's mouth here, but from what I recall, the ads that "work" are the ones that promote new and related SitePoint books.
I think those are the ones that work, and I'm pretty sure Matt has sales figures behind him. I'd be interested in seeing some A/B testing done on the popup promotion of new/related books vs. the same but embedded in pages. I dislike popups as much as the next person, but I understand this conflict, at least to a degree :)
panorama May 21st, 2010
I think it was pretty clear on where they stand when they started their spec work site