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Anyone who has ever used the Internet has seen a pop-up.
Over the years, they’ve come to garner something of a negative reputation, especially
among casual users, and because of that, many Internet marketers may shy away
from using them. However, despite these concerns, pop-up ads can still be a good
investment and, when deployed correctly, can offer your website many
benefits.

Pop-ups in Action
When most people hear the term “pop-up,” the first thing
they think of is an advertisement. You know, the kind that comes complete with
flashy, colorful images and some woman’s voice telling you that you’ve just won
some contest that you never even entered. It goes without saying that these
are, at best, really annoying.

But the truth is that this is just one (very poor) way that
you can deploy pop-ups on your website, and it isn’t even necessarily the most
profitable; there are other effective choices for utilizing pop-ups that won’t
irritate users and immediately drive them off of your site.

In addition to ads, pop-ups can be used to build email lists
with an opt-in form, conduct surveys, announce special offers or deals on your
site or display multimedia, such as a video.

These different options all serve the same purpose, which is
the basic purpose of all pop-ups: to
call attention to a specific bit of information that you don’t want to be lost
on the main page. This is important to remember when considering deploying
pop-ups: why are you showing this to
the visitor? Since pop-ups are generally frowned upon by users, you have to
provide them with worthwhile, beneficial, actionable content; otherwise, it’s
just a waste of your resources and their time.

As an Internet marketer, you’ll likely want to use pop-ups
primarily to generate leads and/or build an email list for future marketing
endeavors.

Picking a Pop-up
In addition to selecting meaningful content, the other
important factor in crafting a successful pop-up campaign is selecting the
right kind of pop-up. That’s right – there are a number of different types of
pop-ups you can choose to deploy.

The classic style that we all know, but don’t necessarily
love, is called an entry pop-up, which shows up right away when a visitor opens
a Web page. The opposite of this, an exit pop-up, appears when a user closes a
page; these are a great way to alert the visitor to information that is soon to
be obsolete, such as a promotion that is almost over.

Delayed pop-ups are set to appear after an elapsed period of
time, so if a user has been on your page long enough (and, theoretically, is
interested in your content), they’ll be introduced to new information via
pop-up. Triggered pop-ups follow a similar logic and show up when/if a user
interacts with a specific part of your website, meaning they’ve made an effort
to engage with specific content, thus must be interested.

The most unobtrusive (which also kind of means “sneaky”)
pop-up method is the pop-under, when a pop-up appears in a new window (or tab)
that isn’t immediately visible because it’s hidden under the current window.

Each type of pop-up has its own pros and cons, and each is
also better suited for different types of content. For instance, if you include
multimedia content with sound and video on an entry pop-up or a pop-under, it
will probably be more off-putting to visitors than anything else; however,
using video in a triggered pop-up may ultimately increase user engagement. What
it comes down to is carefully selecting what type of pop-up will best suit the
content that you want visitors to see.

Pop-up Problems
Let’s be honest, though, there are some drawbacks to using
pop-ups. That’s not to say they’re not worth employing, because they certainly
can be, but it is important to be aware of problems you may face when deploying
pop-ups on your site.

The first is an adaptation of the widespread problem of
“banner blindness.” As you can probably guess, what happens is that over time,
users have become so accustomed to seeing and just ignoring pop-ups that when
they appear now, visitors will often just click out of them without ever even
looking at or considering the content they’re sharing. This problem is
especially prevalent with entry pop-ups.

Some advertisers seem to just accept this issue and move on.
There are two positive scenarios to consider as it relates to “pop-up
blindness.” The first is that users may accidently click on the pop-up and send
themselves to the advertisers website unintentionally, only to find that they
enjoy what they’ve found and will continue on this new site and things will
just kind of work themselves out; needless to say, this is unlikely. The other
is that although users may be irritated by the distraction and will immediately
close out of it, they’ve still seen the content and the name/information in the
pop-up will be ingrained in their memory, and isn’t that the whole point of
advertising, anyway?

In addition to pop-up blindness, you’ll be competing against
pop-up blockers built-into or added-onto a user’s browser, which have been common
for over a decade now.

Best Pop-up Practices
There is one overseeing truth when it comes to the Internet,
and especially Internet marketing, and that is that content is crucial. Again,
the most important aspect of your pop-ups is the content, because the ultimate
goal is to have a relevant message that visitors will want to know more about.
Also, make sure a privacy policy is clearly and boldly listed on the page,
especially if you’re using it to gather user information, such as emails.

But pop-ups have to look good, as well. Few people will want
to read a pop-up that’s just a wall of text, so it’s important to spice up the
page and give it some style. This doesn’t mean it has to be over-the-top or
gaudy, but it should be appealing enough to make the user pause a second to
look at your window.

Finally, be kind to the user and recognize that, for the
most part, people are turned off by pop-ups, no matter how great they are. Keep
the amount of pop-ups on your site to a minimum, like don’t use more than one,
and make it easy to close; don’t employ any tricks to make it hard to get rid
of. In the end, while the information on the pop-up is (or should be)
important, what you really want to do is keep users on your site and
interacting with your page, and too many annoying pop-ups is a surefire way to
do the exact opposite of that.