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BACKGROUND
For the sake of better understanding the pop-up myth and the reasoning
involved in the discussion sections, we would like to offer you some background
information regarding terminology, financial drive behind pop-up ads and another
section on how to create pop-up ads showing how easy it is. We hope this section
collectively will give insight to why pop-up ads are so ubiquitous in today's
world and answer some questions you might face in following the rest of this
website.
1. IMPORTANT TERMS
2. FINANCIAL CONCERNS
3. CREATING POP-UPS
1. IMPORTANT TERMS
The terminology you will encounter might be consisting of what you may have
or not heard before and things which seem to carry the same meaning but do not.
Therefore in this section, we define different types of what one might
collectively call pop-up ads.
Banner ad: The most common type of Internet advertising. A banner ad is
typically a 728x90 pixel advertisement that appears at the top of a web page.
Pop-up ads: This usually refers to a type of advertising that opens a new
browser window on top of the current browser window. This obstructs the view of
the chosen website, and forces the user to either move the pop-up window or
close it.
Pop-under ad: Identical to a pop-up ad, except that the new advertisement window
opens behind the current browser window. Often, this means that the viewer is
unaware of the pop-under ad until the current browser window is closed.
Floating ad: Like pop-up ads, except that they do not open a new window. Often,
these ads appear to “float” over the screen for a short period of time, and
incorporate animation or video. A button to close the ad is often included,
though its efficacy is questionable.
Adware: Software that tracks a user’s Internet activity and accordingly displays
advertisements. Sometimes this is referred to as contextual advertising.
Spyware: Software that gathers information about a user’s activity without their
consent.
The terms “spyware” and “adware” are often used interchangeably, because the
main difference between them - the consent of a user - is a difficult issue to
nail down. For instance, a user may consent to adware on their computer that
tracks their Internet activity. If someone else uses that computer the adware
technically becomes spyware, as it tracks their activity without their consent.
Furthermore, users often give their consent when downloading software, such as
in End User Licensing Agreements, without knowing exactly what they are
consenting to.
In our discussion, we will try not to be bogged down in semantics. Choosing
pop-up ads as our focal point helps us in this regard. Both adware and spyware
often trigger intrusive and unwanted pop-up ads, and thus create important
ethical questions. While the focus is pop-up ads, our resulting discussion
applies much more broadly to Internet advertising in general.
2. FINANCIAL
CONCERNS
A quick look at the financial facts reveals the impetus behind the ever
changing internet marketing strategies. This sections explains this growth with
figures and shows the potential profit from the eye of the advertiser.
Internet advertising is big business: According to a report by the
Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, online advertising
revenues hit $4.9 billion in the first quarter of 2007. This represents a 26
percent increase compared to the same period last year. (IAB: US online
advertising shoots up 26 per cent)
That Internet advertising is growing should come as no surprise. Advertising is
how many websites support themselves, and allow access to their data without
charging individual users. As more and more websites come online, more and more
advertising naturally follows.
The website
HowStuffWorks provides a useful history of Internet advertising.
When web commerce first emerged in 1997, the most popular form of web
advertising was the banner ad. The most popular sites at the time could charge
as much as $30, $50, or $100 per thousand impressions, or appearances on
accessed web pages. Some quick math reveals how lucrative this advertising can
be: A website generating 100 million page impressions per month would make $3
million per month with banner ad rates at $30 per thousand impressions.
These advertisement prices were based on typical rates for full-page ads in
magazines. However, after the initial rush, banner ads became less lucrative.
Advertisers discovered that banner ads were not as effective as advertisements
in magazines because they are small and easily overlooked. At the same time, the
massive growth in the number of websites created a larger supply of Internet
advertising space than demand. Today, a common payout for banner ads is around
50 cents per thousand impressions. (How Web Advertising Works)
Of utmost concern to Internet advertisers is the click-through ratio: The number
of times a user clicks on an advertisement per number of viewers who see the
website with the advertisement on it. In order for websites to charge more
than 50 percents per thousand impressions, websites have developed forms of
advertising that develop a much higher click-through ratio than banner ads.
This is how pop-up ads came to be. Pop-up ads often appear on top of the content
the user is trying to view, forcing the user to either close the ad, move it out
of the way, or click on it. These ads take time to deal with and can quickly
clutter a desktop. As annoying as they are, they work: While a banner ad may
generate two to five clicks per thousand impressions, a pop-up ad will typically
generate 30 clicks. For this reason, a pop-up ad will pay the website four to
ten times more for a pop-up ad than a banner ad. (How Web Advertising Works)
Pop-up ads are effective, but like banner ads before them, their popularity may
have already peaked. According to data from Nielsen/Net Ratings’ AdRelevance
service, the prevalence of pop-up ads grew from 1.4 percent of all Web ads
December 2001 to a peak of 8.7 percent in July 2003, and then fell to 6.3
percent in December 2003. Part of the reason behind this may be that the ongoing
battle between pop-up perpetrators and pop-up blockers has prompted advertisers
to look for other solutions. An
article in PC World uses this trend to draw a
larger conclusion: New styles of ads that include videos and rich media may soon
come to dominate Internet advertising. One variety of this new type of
advertisement is the floating ad. As they are layered over a website‘s content,
and not in their own window, they are impossible to ignore. For this reason,
advertisers pay anywhere from $5 to $30 per thousand impressions for a floating
ad. (How Web Advertising Works)
As we’ve seen in the progression from banner ads to pop-up ads and now to
floating ads, websites are always looking for new ways to increase the
click-through ratio of their advertisements. A
paper on marketing on the
Internet describes some of the tactics used to create an effect online ad:
Feature a call to action, create a sense of urgency, use the word “free,” and,
as always, sex sells. But all too often, this desire to compel users to click on
an advertisement motivates advertising practices that raise ethical questions,
such as displaying a pop-up advertisement that looks like an operating system
message.
The trend has been that with each new form of advertising, Internet users are at
first annoyed, and then grow complacent and accept the ads as necessary evils to
free access. As advertisements fight harder and harder for a viewer’s attention,
we are forced to ask, how far can it go? The balance between keeping what we
want - free access to the web’s vast resources of content - and what we have to
put up with to get it - dealing with ever more aggressive and intrusive forms of
advertising - is something that all Internet users must keep in mind.
For a walk through of some of the financial calculations that help explain why
websites today use so many advertisements, see
How Web Advertising Works.
3. CREATING
POP-UPS
We have decided to include links to sites where it is described how to create
pop-ups. More than what the content is, for us it is important to note how easy
it is to create pop-up windows. This in turn makes them a very attractive way of
advertising in addition to the financial profitability as explained in Section
2, "Financial Concerns."
Pop-up ads can be generated in any number of ways. A website will often
generate a pop-up ad paid for by an advertiser. Other methods are less obvious.
For instance, there have been cases when loopholes in operating systems have
been exploited for companies to force pop-up ads on the screen (link: see
discussion of D Squared in the legal section).
Adware tracks a user’s Internet activity, and uses this information to display
pop-up ads. For instance, adware may contract with a particular company, such as
Amazon, and display a pop-up ad for that company when an Internet user visits a
competitor’s site, such as Barnes & Noble. In this hypothetical scenario, Amazon
would pay the adware company for providing this pop-up ad.
Here are some of the links:
http://www.webreference.com/js/tutorial1/popup.htmll
http://www.smartwebby.com/web_site_design/pop_up_windows.asp#
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