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iVillage Renounces Pop-up Advertising

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the and-there-was-great-rejoicing dept.

ceejayoz writes "iVillage.com, a popular women's portal, announced today that it is getting rid of pop-up advertising on its site after a survey of their users found 95% considered it the most annoying part of the Internet. Lets hope they can prove there are other, less annoying advertising models that work!"

11 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Pop ups by MattCohn.com · · Score: 1, Informative

    In the article, they didn't say they were getting rid of ALL pop up adds. Not only will they continue some regular pop ups, but also the pop up unders. While I find these to be slightly less annoying, because they don't steal focas, I consider them to be a pain in the butt also.

  2. No Pop-Ups, but Pop-Under?! by yorick · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the article:

    "Instead, the company will focus on alternative ad formats, including variably sized standard ad units and pop-under ads, as well as ad placements in newsletters and member mailings."

    So instead they're sending you physical junk-mail or having pop-unders. That's a big improvement.

  3. popups are annoying by Vicegrip · · Score: 5, Informative

    In fact, managing windows in general is annoying. Popups are also a bad idea because users now have (at least for people using mozilla) the ability to block them easily.

    I personally think the best compromise is the large box at the beginning of the story approach: you have to look at it, but since the article wraps around it, the feel is akin to reading a magazine page.

    A well targetted add like that gets my attention and often a click-through.

    --
    Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
    1. Re:popups are annoying by KuRL · · Score: 4, Informative

      Television advertising companies have known about things like this forever -- that's why many commercials employ the same devices as the shows they interrupt and why some stations (read: MTV) make there programming look a lot like commercials (fast cuts; bright colors; constant, catchy background music; etc.).

      --

      Mark Prindle, the most underappreciated genius on the web.

  4. Mozilla! by -tji · · Score: 5, Informative

    This used to be the most annoying aspect of Internet browsing for me. But, since converting to Mozilla, it's a non-factor. No more popups!

    To disable popups & other annoyances:

    Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Scripts & Windows

    de-select: Open Unrequested Windows, Move or Resize Windows, & Raise or Lower Windows

    This feature, along with Tabbed browsing, are the web browser killer features.

  5. Re:Better Advertising method.... by rmohr02 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Have such a good product that word of mouth spreads and people buy it
    Like Google. AFAIK, they've never done advertisements.
  6. Pop-up and pop-under ads will endure... by ke4roh · · Score: 3, Informative
    just as they do in the magazine industry. Blow-in cards (those pesky things that invariably litter your lap as you read) must work or advertisers wouldn't pay for them. The same goes for their online equivalents. At least many sites employ pop-under ads to spare us the immediate interruption.

    Kim Brooks identifies the problem well in the article "Advertising: A Cry for Usability." Brooks points out that advertisers are trying too hard to get their message in front of the consumers, and in so doing, they turn off the consumers. She continues suggesting the best advertisements are those designed to help the consumer, enumerating targeted search results, e-mail list sponsorship, and sponsored default web bookmark lists as laudible forms of advertising. If only the advertisers would pay attention!

    [BTW: You can get rid of those pesky X-10 ads for 30 days at a time by visiting their opt-out page which I found in their customer service FAQ.]

    --
    I hate call waitin`~+~~~
    NO CARRIER
  7. A way to get rid of most popups... by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 2, Informative

    ... has been around for some time now.

    --
    Hate me!
  8. No physical mail by ancarett · · Score: 2, Informative

    So instead they're sending you physical junk-mail or having pop-unders. That's a big improvement.

    Fifty percent correct. As a former iVillage consultant, I can tell you that the newsletters and member mailings to which they refer are online-only. It isn't perfect, but it's a nice step forward.

    --
    ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
  9. use mozilla by ragnar · · Score: 4, Informative

    In reality, there aren't that many javascript exploits occuring these days. There are many very useful features of JavaScript. Sure, I could live without it, but my solution is to use Mozilla. By doing this I prevent sites from opening windows and doing other nasty things.

    --
    -- Solaris Central - http://w
  10. Re:I guess this proves it by XorNand · · Score: 2, Informative


    Just my two cents... I do a lot of ecommerce related things for a living. Among them is managing online advertising for clients. Google AdWords typically gives me an average 4-5% click-through rate (CTR). On the more specific keywords, the rate can be around 20%. The industry average CTR for banner ads is less than 1%. Granted, banner ads aren't as targeted as search term specific phrases, but that's one heck of a discrepancy.

    It's also worth noting that my AdWords programs even pull in slightly more traffic than comparable Overture campaigns (on average). Overture is the company that serves up those "sponsored links" on Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, Lycos, WebCrawler and AltaVista, among others. My experience are purely antidotal, but it seems that people respond better to targeted, relevant advertising (even if they know it's paid advertising) versus the heavy-handed or shady tactics used by most 'net marketers.

    --
    Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"