• by Ken Liebeskind , December 7, 2001

CMP Media TechWeb, a suite of sites from CMP Media, publisher of InfoWeek, InternetWeek and other high tech magazines, has developed a new online ad format that helps advertisers reach surfers more interested in reading content than advertising.

DataPop installs a clickable icon atop a banner that when clicked allows surfers to receive email from the advertiser. Surfers can continue reading content without stopping to read advertising material.

"It provides a service for surfers who won't click on an ad and gives advertisers the opportunity to save a banner for later action," says Michael Grover, CMP Media Tech Web's director of marketing.

"At content oriented sites, people come for the articles and most want to finish the articles, so it's less likely they'll click." he says. "With DataPop, they can continue reading and still get information from the advertiser."

The icons are 18 pixels high. The email that gets sent is a Web page with a maximum width of 360 pixels that can be any length. No changes to the banner need to be made as the DataPop is a separate image.

DataPop was launched recently on seven company websites: TechWeb.com, InformationWeek.com, NetworkComputing.com, InternetWeek.com and the CMP TechWeb Financial Technology Network sites Bank Systems & Technology, Insurance & Technology and Wall Street and Technology.

The sites get about four million page views per week.

Grover says eight advertisers are using DataPop so far, including AT&T, Compaq and RLX Technology. Kevin Bohren, vice president of marketing for RLX, a computer server manufacturer in Houston, says DataPop produced substantial results, with a five to 10 percent jump in Web traffic. "It's a viable format we'll most likely continue to use," he says.

Advertisers pay for DataPop on a performance basis. The first 100 emails cost $7 each, with no charge after that. This is a charter rate, according to Grover, so it could change.

Rudi Grahn, a Jupiter MediaMetrix analyst, lauds DataPop because it "gives users more control. They understand users are there for a specific purpose and it gives consumers the option of prioritizing their time."

He says Clickvu developed a similar delayed interaction format, where a banner opened a second window. But no other format uses the same mechanism as DataPop.

While the DataPop format seems valuable, Grahn wonders how effective it will really be. "There aren't a lot of conversions that are missed because a person doesn't want to go there, but maybe there's enough so they can sway it," he says. In other words, maybe there are enough surfers who will request the email and convert to make these efforts valuable.

"It's something advertisers should consider," Grahn finally says, so maybe it will work.