Piling on Pop-Ups

Everyone hates pop-ups. Yahoo and eBay found that 95 percent of Internet users viewed pop-ups “negatively” or “very negatively.” According to the same research, 69 percent of users report using pop-up or ad-blocking software. There’s even an “official hatelisting” website called “Pop-Ups Suck!”

All well and good, but does this matter, as long as pop-ups are effective? For example, pop-ups are 13 times more effective than banner ads, according to Advertising.com. As Jim Nail of Forrester Research notes, “Everyone hates advertising, but it works.”

In my opinion, it does matter. In fact, it’s possible that the short-term gains from pop-ups may have long-term consequences that ultimately could cause their demise. The first negative consequence may be brand damage. According to Jakob Nielsen, “In a survey of 18,808 users, more than 50% reported that a pop-up ad affected their opinion of the advertiser very negatively and nearly 40% reported that it affected their opinion of the website very negatively.”

Further, writes eWeek's Kevin Zaney, “Pop-up ads hurt company brands. The Federal Trade Commission found that more than 40 percent of consumers who experienced pop-up ads believe the Web site they were on – not the pop-up advertiser – had permitted the ad to appear. Approximately one-third of consumers surveyed by the FTC said the pop-up ad would cause them to have a less favorable opinion of the Web site.”

Beyond brand damage, consumer dislike of pop-ups could lead to legal and regulatory considerations. There are already laws that prevent advertisers from engaging in deceptive practices to harvest email addresses through pop-ups. Laws also prevent advertisers from deceptively using pop-ups in an attempt to persuade consumers to purchase products that stop those same pop-ups from appearing. The federal CAN-SPAM Act, for example, regulates pop-ups that collect information.

If the consumer dislike rises to a level that spurs congressional activity, and if brands that have been burned by pop-ups fail to come to their rescue, from a lobbying perspective, it is possible that new and expanded federal legislation could impact pop-ups in the same way that do-not-call legislation has impacted telemarketing.