New Breed of Pop-Ups
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Pop-ups are finished, right? Well, that’s sort of right. The old school pops have been sufficiently thwarted by the various pop-up blockers, but just as the big companies create a blocker, the evil genuiuses devise a workaround.
And guess what, there’s a bit of a pop-up renaissance. The reason is that most pop-ups have been killed, and only the slick ones are breaking through. The signal to noise ratio is way down and the effectiveness of pops is climbing.
These days, there are products out there using DHTML to get the pop-ups to pop. The one that snuck past your pop-up blocker was from a service called adimpact.
Instant Attention works around Microsoft SP2 Update*, Google Toolbar Blocker, Symantec’s Pop-Up Blocker and more.
These pops are a great way to highlight a time sensitive promotion you are running through an affiliate link. You can also use them to get opt-ins to your newsletter, promote a sweepstakes, or for any number of other objectives.
One hitch with Instant Attention is that you have to pay an ongoing fee to use it. There is software called the Dynamic Popup Generator that you can pick up for about $50.
The Dynamic Popup Generator can create pressure pop-ups, unblockable DHTML pop-ups, PictoPop-ups, conditional popups, instant opt-in pop-ups, and rotating pop-ups.
* Blocking can occur if user has their Internet Explorer security settings on the highest level. Microsoft states that this is the least functional security level. Most websites would fail to function properly at this level. By default, most security settings are set to medium.
- Posted in Affiliate Tips
I saw no pop-up here, but then I use a real scum-blocker in the form of NoScript.
reply to this commentHere is my take – if you are a user of these annoying services, you definetly lost my business. Netflix has got to be the worst – the virtual AOL CD debacle. I will never use their service again.
reply to this commentDoes the content of the pop-up make a difference to you… like if it's an opt-in to subscribe to a newsletter from a site you like to visit – is that as annoying to you as an ad?
reply to this commentYes, that is just as annoying.
If a site popup a new window on me without me explicitly asking for it (by clicking on a link that is supposed to do that, for example), and your businesses relationship with me is finished. I will immediately cancel all contracts and relationships with your company, period. I will remove your bookmarks, burn your logo, and kick your dog.
You just don't do it. The good will of your customers is not something you want to burn off lightly.
reply to this commentNot so fast… It sure didn't get past my ad blocker. I am using AdBock Plus 1.0.1 and their free subscription of known sites on a Linux machine. Excellent software that works.
reply to this commentI'm using Firefox and I can't see any popups or popbehinds here.
reply to this commentThis post is from January 2005 and I stripped out the pop-up code a while back.
reply to this commentShawn, you're acting as though you're surprised that people don't want pop-up ads – even touting as a great feature that *these* pop-ups work even when people specifically configure their browser to not show pop-ups. Do you really not understand?
reply to this commentKevin –
I understand that any site owner is free to do as they please – if their visitors are turned off by it, they will stop visiting.
I don't currently run any pop-ups, but I've used them for time-sensitive promotions with success, both in response to the pop-up, as well as not experiencing a negative impact on my traffic.
reply to this comment