Yahoo and Google help you block pop-up and pop-under ads. So do AOL and EarthLink. Mozilla Firefox, the populist web browser, has a built-in pop-up ad suppresser. Not to be outdone, Microsoft offers one in its Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Google the term "pop-up blocker" and you'll encounter millions of results and hundreds -- if not thousands -- of products and services, with names like Pop-Up Stopper, Pop Swatter, Pop This and Pop-Up Zapper. You can download them in exchange for filling out consumer surveys, participating in various data-mining schemes and targeted ad campaigns, or paying an annual fee for tech support.
Of course, the reason pop-up blockers are so popular is because pop-ups (and pop-unders) are so unpopular. A study conducted last year by Dynamic Logic found that almost 80 percent of those surveyed had a "very negative" opinion of pop-up ads. They hijack our screens, often touting products and services that bear little relation to the content we are viewing. One second you're reading an article about the Iraqi elections, the next a digital billboard from Orbitz ("Put a thousand miles between you and your next meeting") or Trade-In-Value.com ("What's your car worth?") appears.
Nevertheless, a number of well-trafficked online media sites haven't heard the news that pop-ups and pop-unders have become pariahs. CNN.com and ABCNews.com subject their visitors to them. The New York Times' website and washingtonpost.com do, too. The Fast Company website and Slate also rely on them to enhance their revenue streams. The sneaky Drudge Report even goes so far as to pre-empt Mozilla Firefox's ad blocker. How? By opening a window when you leave the site by clicking on an article link.
In a sense, in-your-face ads like these are the browser equivalent of e-mail spam. But advertisers will tell you the reason you see so many of them is because they work. Since pop-ups and pop-unders are so cheap, you only need a small fraction of clickthroughs to earn back your investment. Of course, even this is debatable, and sites that deploy them may be risking reader loyalty.
Topix.net, a news service, experimented with pop-under ads for a while. "Our users hated (them) and our stats suggested (they were) hurting our trial exposure to new users," said Rich Skrenta, who runs the site. "Visitors were less likely to explore the site upon a first visit if they got hit with (a) pop-under when they arrived. Since our goal is to get new users onto the site and have them look around, clearly this wasn't optimal."
The clickthrough rate on some ads was very high -- some topped 20 percent -- but Topix.net discontinued them, Skrenta says, because "they were pretty intrusive ads though and we did get user complaints from them."
One survey conducted in 2004 by Bunnyfoot Universality, a U.K.-based web consultancy, determined that as many as nine out of 10 users who clicked on a popular pop-up ad were really just trying to get rid of them and clicked through by accident "because the close button was so difficult to find."
Another Bunnyfoot study (.pdf) found that half of the pop-up ads were closed before they had a chance to fully materialize, and 35 percent of ads were ignored altogether. Users saw the company's name or logo in only 2 percent of the ads. The bottom line: Test subjects indicated "a strong and intense dislike for pop-up ads, resulting in a negative attitude toward the website itself and the brand owner."
Although the sample size involved in these two surveys was too small to take as gospel, the results aren't surprising.
Thankfully, however, the reign of the much-maligned pop-up ad may be coming to an end. Eric Valk Peterson, vice president and media director for Agency.com, reports that his firm has been buying less than 20 percent of what it was a year ago, and there's a lot less inventory available, too. Nielsen/NetRatings estimates the number of pop-ups polluting our screens plunged 40 percent last year.
"We've seen less of a role (for pop-up ads) over the last couple of years," Peterson said. "They probably don't offer a return on investment for a client, and it's not a solid value-added for consumers because they are not responding."
If this is the case, then why do the sales staffs of The New York Times website, washingtonpost.com, CNN.com and ABCNews.com continue to sell them -- even at the risk of alienating their readers?
Correction: A stream of reader e-mail has come in, pointing out the irony of a columnist (that's me) criticizing media sites for deploying pop-up ads, only to have his publisher (Wired News) serve up one (for Blockbuster) on this very same column. I hadn't encountered one on Wired.com in the eight months I've been writing this weekly media column, and my editor had assured me the site hadn't used them since even before then.
I'd now like to add Wired News to the list of clueless media sites that rely on pop-up ads for additional revenue but who, judging by the reader reaction, may instead be alienating its audience. The "money side" of the house is investigating the matter.
My apologies.
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Adam L. Penenberg is an assistant professor at New York University and the assistant director of the business and economic reporting program in the department of journalism.
