• by Masha Geller , September 13, 2002

For the last week and a half, the Minute’s sister publication, The Online Spin, has been full of columns about pop-ups. All of them inspired by the recent Nielsen//NetRatings report, which showed that only 9.2% of all companies advertising online use pop-up ads.

One of our writers, Dave Smith, had an issue with the “only.” He said that almost 10% is a significant number and that pop-ups are here to stay. “In all forms of media, intrusiveness has won the day,” he wrote.

Another Spin columnist, Tig Tillinghast, wrote, “advertisers believe [pop-ups] comprise a necessary evil” that will soon die out and that “on the day when pop-ups die, they will not be missed.”

Jim Meskauskas chimed in as well, saying, “The real issue with the pop-up isn’t the format so much as it is the method of delivery. I don't mind getting an Orbitz pop-up. It is the fact that I get 50 of them in one day that I find unbearable.”

I agree with Jim. First, there’s no denying that pop-ups are somewhat effective for some advertisers. If they weren’t, advertisers like Orbitz wouldn’t bother with them at all. At the same time, if things stay as they are today, the format will die, as Tig suggested.

Granted, the NetRatings report says that advertisers purchased and launched more than 11.3 billion pop-up ad impressions (that includes pop-unders) for the first seven months of 2002, but that makes up only 2% of the online advertising market. According to NetRatings, things aren’t as bad as they seem from our consumer perspective, but that’s because they’ve averaged things out across the web.

On a site-by site basis, there are several sites I simply won’t visit unless I absolutely have to, all in order to avoid having to close scores of pop-ups.

Yes, as advertisers we are too biased to gauge the average consumer’s relationship with pop-ups, but common sense should lead us away from clutter and toward strict frequency capping. And soon.