Pop-up marketing has always been a source of controversy. While some advertisers deem it an efficient approach, others believe it does little apart from annoying and alienating the audience. If you ever research this form of digital promotion, you will come across both of these opinions, and you’ll find it difficult to decide whether to make pop-ups a part of your landing page design. Learn how to use a landing page or website pop-ups and their pros and cons.
When looking at statistics, you can understand more about the controversial nature of pop-ups. An overwhelming 73 percent of consumers say that they dislike such ads. An even more impressive number is 81 percent of people closed a page or left a website because of a pop-up ad.
This information could make you think about scraping the pop-up strategy altogether. Don’t rush it! When done right, pop-up advertising could deliver results. Two keys to getting the best possible outcome are relevance and timing.
When Will Landing Page Pop-Ups Work & When Use on Your Website?
On-screen pop-ups are marketing tools with a promotional window on top of the page the audience is viewing. If they’re not interested, people can close the pop-up and continue exploring the content they previously engaged with to use pop-ups and their pros and cons on your website.
The effectiveness of pop-ups went down significantly when ad blockers were introduced as a part of internet browsers.
At a certain point in time, ad blockers nearly killed pop-ups. This was when a whole new range of advertising approaches began emerging. Because of the convenience, ad-blocking use is growing all the time. In 2016, 20 percent of internet users relied on an ad blocker. In 2017, the usage of ad-blocking software went up to 40 percent for US laptop users.
2017 alone, United States advertisers lost dollars of annual revenues due to ad blocking (including pop-ups, pop-unders, and banners). Internationally, in conclusion, publisher losses reached 42 billion dollars.
These bleak statistics suggest that pop-ups are becoming nearly instinctive but is that the case?
There may still be ways to get this advertising method to work.
To see good results from pop-up advertising, you will have to meet all of the following conditions:
- Make pop-ups relevant and easy to dismiss. Otherwise, you will annoy your audience, and your search engine score will also suffer.
- Please switch to a timed pop-up that shows on the screen and disappears on its own after a short period.
- Use pop-up segmenting to show different audiences to different ads.
- Don’t spam people – make the pop-up appear once during their experience on your landing page or website.
- Do A/B testing
- Have a backup plan and rely on a less intrusive advertising approach if the audience isn’t interested in viewing pop-ups.
The Benefits of Page Pop-Up Advertising
When strategic and done right, pop-up advertising could benefit your business. There are multiple reasons why companies still rely on this marketing approach today. Learn all the pros & cons of website pop-ups.
The first and most important benefit is that pop-ups rank among the most visible types of ads. In-text links and CPC campaigns will not ensure the same prominent display for your message. There are ways to work around ad-blocking software and ensure your message reaches the right audience.
Marketing professionals from dating companies, widely using such advertising on their websites, highlighted the key advantages of pop-ups based on their experience:
- A pop-up ad provides instant feedback about the audience’s tastes and preferences. You can learn a lot by going through the campaign data. In addition, the pop-up itself could feature survey questions provided in an easy-to-complete format.
- A versatile platform that can accommodate numerous different types of advertising.
- Pop-ups are a great tool to increase your social media following (providing direct links works wonders).
- There are dozens of pop-up creation tools (including various WordPress plugins) that you can utilize on your own to reduce the cost of organizing and planning the campaign.
- In some instances, when relevance is ensured, a pop-up ad can significantly increase the conversion rate compared to other marketing approaches.
The Most Important Shortcomings: Use Landing Page Pop-Ups Pros & Cons
This sounds great, but pop-up advertising isn’t always the answer. The most significant advantage – the visibility of your pop-up ads – could also become a campaign’s demise.
Landing page pop-up advertising is annoying. Even if you provide website visitors with an easy way out, they may still be annoyed by having to deal with unsolicited content. Thus, you must be careful and use relevant pop-up ads sparingly for a good outcome.
Let’s take a look at the other critical shortcomings of the marketing approach:
- Even if you have a good tech team, it may be impossible to get around ad-blocking software. This fact will inevitably decrease the reach of your campaign.
- Pop-ups could take attention away from the landing page’s main content.
- Historically, pop-up advertising has had a bad reputation, and it’s not the most innovative or engaging method for delivering your message.
- This is not a long-term marketing solution. Pop-ups can be used for a short time campaign. Still, suppose you want to build the prominence of your brand. In that case, you may consider another sustainable solution that will continue delivering results over time (social media marketing, content-based campaigns, SEO, etc.).
Final Verdict
It’s impossible to deny the effectiveness of pop-up ads. They are loud and in your face. Moreover, they are impossible to ignore. They will potentially get the audience interested in finding out more when relevant.
At the same time, the pop-up ad is a bit of a dinosaur in the inbound marketing world. Today, advertising is about building relationships with the audience and getting people involved with your message. You cannot accomplish these goals through the use of old-school pop-ups.
Can you make pop-ups a practical part of your marketing mix?
The short answer is yes. If you have a short-term campaign (a survey you want people to fill out, a new product, or an ebook subscription option), you can get good results from strategic pop-up advertising. You will, however, have to go through a thorough research process and A/B testing to make the most of the campaign.
Landing page pop-ups can quickly go bad, so you must be careful. You may want to avoid this advertising approach if you’re a newbie and have just launched your first-ever website. Alternatively, opt for a bit of professional assistance. Pop-up advertising is somewhat tricky and somewhat difficult to execute correctly.
A final word of warning is to keep pop-up advertising sparse. If you overdo it, you risk harming the search engine positioning of your website. Hence, keep your efforts focused, measured, and segmented. If you do so, you could see good results from pop-up campaigns. I hope you did learn how to use landing page pop-ups and their pros and cons.
