Yesterday,
eMarketer's Senior Analyst David Hallerman published an article about pop-ups and by the sound of things, these pesky creatures aren't going away
anytime soon. Why? Because they're profitable.
Here are some frightening stats, thanks to eMarketer:
According to the most recent IAB/PricewaterhouseCoopers report, pop-ups make up 3.5% of all
US online ads in Q4 2002, based on impressions. That's nearly double 2001 levels. What's more, Nielsen//NetRatings says that publishers served 13.4 billion pop-up ads in Q1 2003 (not counting house
ads), a 24% increase from the previous quarter.
Hallerman also cites a number of research studies, all of which show that consumers find pop-ups incredibly annoying, infuriating and downright
worse than spam (don't get me started on that one).
So why do they keep popping up all over the Internet?
Hallerman says that's because they perform better than a lot of other existing
formats. "Average click-through rates for pop-ups surpass those for banner ads-a draw for advertisers," he writes. "Recent research released by Advertising.com shows how both the click-through and
conversion rates for pop-up ads are 13 and 14 times higher, respectively, than for standard banner ads.
In conclusion, Hallerman quotes Nielsen//NetRatings, which says that one of two things will
happen in the future: either consumers will boycott sites that use pop-ups and advertisers and publishers will reconsider their use, or consumers will eventually just learn to live with pop-ups.
I, for one, will never learn to peacefully coexist with pop-ups, but I think the question is worth a vote - what do you think the future holds for things that go 'pop?' My inbox awaits.