Should Your Website Run Pop-Up Ads? Online ads have become a daily part of internet life, especially for online businesses, as they are crucial for their success.
Online ads have proven to be cost-effective, whilst allowing online businesses to reach their target audience globally within a reasonable time.
In addition, online ads provide multiple opportunities for both small and large firms to enhance their sales in an efficacious manner as they are contextual, relevant, and targeted.
Online advertising is, therefore, an essential part of all online businesses that want to thrive.
However, with the rapid evolution of online ads, comes a change in the advertising landscape. New methods of online advertising are being developed, thus making it difficult for new marketers to decide on the type of ad to run on their websites.
Pop-up ads came in vogue as part of this evolution and have since been widely used by online retailers to drive sales to their businesses.
What are Pop-Up Ads?
Pop-up ads are a form of online advertising where marketing banners will often “appear” (pops up) (appear) while browsing through a website.
These are usually generated in a new browser window with the help of Scripting Programming Languages like JavaScript or Adobe Flash.
As a result, they tend to appear to be standalone websites, sponsored webpages, interactive games, or some other form that is likely to get people to interact.
The main goal of a pop-up ad is to convert your website visitors into subscribers, users, webinar attendees, and so on.
The click through rates on pop-up ads are at about 11% higher than other web marketing tactics; making it one of the more popular methods to engage with online consumers.
This is mainly due to its key feature that requires visitors to close them before proceeding, therefore ensuring that the message in the pop-up ad is viewed.
Pop-up ads have therefore proven to be among the most effective tools you can use on your website, right next to live chat and chat-bots.
Despite this fantastic track record, most people view pop-up ads as intrusive, such that pop-up ads are perceived to interrupt the user’s experience on a website.
While some pop-up windows are designed to appear large that they cover the entire screen, some may be in a scaled-down browser window (in most cases) allowing them to be Closed, Minimized, or Maximized.
However, regardless of the size they come in, all pop-up ads are considered aggressive website elements.
As a result of this, several products and techniques have been developed that enable them to be disabled.
Pros and Cons of Pop-Up Ads
Pop-up ads are essentially a kind of marketing strategy that is mainly intended to advertise products/services and increase a website’s traffic volume, with the ad content varying depending on the kind of message the brand intends to convey to its audience.
However, as already established, every marketing strategy has both upsides and downsides. The following are some pros and cons of running pop-up ads on your website:
Pros of Pop-Up Ads
1. Pop-Up Ads are context-driven
Unlike other online advertising strategies, pop-ups are context-driven. This means that they are usually used to trigger various user behaviors.
While other online ads center around the conventional browsing behavior: clicking a link, viewing a video, and eventually visiting the product-landing page, pop-up ads rather speak more to consumer behavior and psychology.
They provide online retailers with an opportunity to make personalized offers at a defined moment during a prospective customers’ journey through their website.
Since context-driven advertising requires the placement of ads on web pages based on the content of those pages, the people likely to stumble on these ads are therefore those visiting the web pages in search for content that relates with the ads.
This in turn ensures that those that need to see them (the target audience) see these ads.
2. Increased ROI
In addition to their context-driven feature, once these pop-up ads appear on the screen, they dominate, requiring site visitors to close them before proceeding.
This is because of the way pop-up ads are set up. They are usually set up to appear at the center of the web page where the attention of the browser is focused. This in turn ensures that the browser and the user view the message in the pop-up ad.
Since one of the important motives of running online ads is to increase brand visibility and eventually increase sales, pop-up ads have proven helpful.
These pop-up ad features bring about an increase in brand visibility, creating more grounds for online businesses to tap into the potential consumer base and grow their businesses.
3. Increased rate of traffic conversion
The more visibility your brand gets, the more rate of traffic conversion you get on your site. Part of the reason businesses run ads is to increase sales. This can be achieved through an increased rate of traffic conversion.
Since pop-up ads are contextual-driven and tend to trigger consumer behavior, they have proven helpful in causing an increase in site traffic rates.
What’s more, including a good call to action in your pop-up ads could induce the readers to click on the advertisement.
4. Versatility
Regardless of the message you wish to convey, pop-up ads have proven to be a very versatile and accommodating platform.
If the site owner wants it, he can custom design these pop-up ads to prohibit the users from leaving the page without clicking on the ad.
To make the ad more attractive and enticing you can embed a video or a video game in the ad. This would not only increase your visitors but also boost your brand credibility.
Cons of Pop-Up Ads
1. Pop-Up Ads are Intrusive
Pop-up ads annoy some users, as they typically clutter the desktop or mobile phone and require time and effort to close the ad window.
Many view these ads as annoyances and as obtrusive, as they cover other windows and become the active window.
While pop-up ads are effective, the intrusive nature of these ads can cause irritation/hostility towards the brand, thus driving visitors/potential customers away from the product.
2. It can affect the reputation of the host website
Before pop-up ads became globally known, they were used mostly by frauds to forcefully introduce malicious software to site visitors – owing to their intrusive nature.
This makes visitors that still bear the negative mindset of pop-up ads in mind hostile to the site, thus ruining the reputation of not only the advertising brand but also the host website.
This backfires the goal of running the ad in the first place, reducing the rate of traffic conversion instead of bringing about an increase.
3. Conflict
While the content of pop-up ads is usually in tandem with the contents of a web page, each time the ad gets clicks by a visitor, the visitors’ attention is always redirected to the advertiser and away from the site’s content, potentially making him forget about the original content site, to begin with.
For sites wanting their information to be read or viewed, this could create a conflict of interests.
Guidelines for Using Pop-Ups on Your Website
As already established from the pros and cons, pop-up ads are a very controversial technology. With all the amazing benefits, most users still have a strong resentment towards them.
If you permit a window that pops up out of nowhere on your website, it will surely interrupt the user experience, and potentially irritate your audience.
However, if a pop-up is used effectively, it may be a functional addition to your website, assisting users and consequently moving them down the sales funnel.
Some guidelines that you can follow when using pop-up ads on your website include:
1. Only use pop-ups when necessary
Use pop-up ads only for a good purpose. As much as you can, ensure that these ads are enriching user experience rather than interrupting it.
Use pop-ups that add value to the original content. For instance, when a user reads an article about materials for home improvement, it is really helpful to offer a video guide on how to start home improvement.
2. Make your pop-up visually lightweight
It is essential to make the pop-up less abrupt. Although these types of ads allow versatility, as much as you can, ensure you use pop-up ads whose content is in line with the content of the web page.
You could also consider using a pop-up ad since that resonates with the style of that web page. This helps to make the effect of the pop-up a lot more subtle.
3. Optimize your pop-ups for mobile devices
Proper mobile pop-ups are super important for converting mobile traffic. Responsive pop-ups designed for a desktop version of your website may not provide optimal mobile UX.
In that case, it’s necessary to create a mobile-first version that is optimized for mobile UX and progressively adapts itself to the desktop version of the website.
Should Your Website Run Pop-Up Ads and is it Worth It?
Pop-up ads are universally known for their aggressive and intrusive nature. But it is in fact, this interruptive behavior that makes them even more effective!
When these ads pop up on your screen, they inevitably catch your eye, constraining you to look at it, pay attention to it and deal with it.
Considering all the pros and cons of running a pop-up ad on your site, with the right strategy, they can be a very effective way to lead people to your products/services.
The key is to maximize this intrusive ad to create value while minimizing frustration.
Conclusion
With such amazing benefits, it is no surprise that pop-up ads have become a huge hit among online businesses. When properly utilized, they bring about the desired results. Today, more and more businesses, especially the small-scale online retail business owners are utilizing these ads to great advantage. Would you like to harness the power of these ads for your business? Contact the best digital marketing agency in Nigeria for more details.