|
 First Generation - The
Popup
Popups, if you’re somehow, strangely, not familiar
with the term, are those little windows that open
when you visit certain sites.
Popups are secondary browser windows that are opened
up using JavaScript code. The properties of this new
browser window are set in such a fashion that the
new window does not have an address bar, status bar
or the menu.
Until about a few years ago, the popup was
considered to be the biggest breakthrough in
advertising on the web.
When they were first introduced they were a great
success and click-through rates went through the
roof.
Exit the banner ad - enter the popup.
Web marketers could interrupt whatever a visitor was
viewing, by launching a secondary window on top of
the first to draw attention to their advertisement
or opt-in list or any other item that they wished to
get the attention to.
After a while, like most good marketing tools,
popups started getting abused. Popups would open
secondary popups and eventually by just visiting
page that has a single popup in it, you would end up
with a barrage of say about 15-20 popups. This was
exploited by unscrupulous marketers to the fullest,
especially those hawking porn sites.
Of course, webmasters who were in tune with the
sentiment of visitors, soon began to use cookies to
track if the popup was already shown and ensure it
was not shown more than once per visitor.
But, frustrated visitors soon began complaining
about popups.
Popups are your problem? - Get a popup blocker.
Looking at the need of website visitors, software
companies soon came up with popup blocking software.
These applications read all the code that's going to
the browser and if they find any JavaScript in the
page code that's trying to open a window, BAM, it
deletes that part of code. So Bye Bye popup!
Generation Two - The PopUnder
Not to be left behind, web marketers came up with
another version, the popunder, which still launched
a secondary window but placed it below the primary
window. In most cases, the visitor didn’t even
notice this popunder until they closed the primary
window.
Of course this was less intrusive, but a pain
nonetheless and you don't get an award for guessing
what happened next.
Yes you guessed right, the popup blockers soon
started blocking popunders as well.
Generation Next - Enter Hover Ads
What the beejeezus are Hover Ads? They are floating
ads that popup blockers can't stop.
The technology that creates Hover Ads is not new. In
fact, it’s been available to web designers for at
least 2 years now as DHTML (that's Dynamic HTML to
those who don't know).
These ads cannot be seen by older browsers like
Internet Explorer 3.0. But since most netizens are
using browsers (IE 4.0 and above) that are capable
of displaying this code this type of advertising has
started enjoying a rise in usage.
Hover Ads are DHTML layers which can be selectively
moved and displayed over the primary page that's
being displayed. The basic code is still JavaScript,
but since a new window is not being opened, the
popup blockers can't figure out that an
advertisement is being displayed.
These layers can be animated, moved around, made to
appear once per session, shown after a delay, etc.
So that makes you ask "Why should I switch from
regular popups to Hover Ads?"
The one and only compelling reason. Popups can be
blocked! Hover Ads can't.
So the bottom line is, if you use popups as a part
of your online marketing strategy you’re losing
out on a lot of potential revenue, coz what they
can't cant see they can't buy!
Some statistics that make Hover Ads a compelling
technology to use:
- The Alexa Toolbar can now block pop ups
(10,000,000 users not seeing your AD).
- The Netscape 7.0 Browser has a built in popup
blocker (almost 52 million users never seeing your
popup ad).
- Earthlink provides its users with a popup blocker
(Prospects who cant see your ad: 5,000,000).
- AOL released version 8.0 with Popup Blocking
capabilities. (Total Subscribers: 35,000,000).
- Bottom line: 40 million customers never see your
advertisement!
Hover Ads, on the other hand, cannot be stopped by
blocking software. Their technology is regular
JavaScript that runs well in all modern
environments, so they are relatively safe to deploy
on your site.
"So how can I add Hover Ads On my
Website?"
If you are looking for a free way of doing this then
there are freely available JavaScript snippets that
you can put to use on your site today without buying
any fancy software.
A sample of code can be obtained from CodeLifter.com
The drawback here is that you would need in depth
knowledge of JavaScript coding, which not many
people know about.
Another approach is to use high end HTML editors
like Dreamweaver which have DHTML scripts included
under the "Layers" menu. Then again,
Dreamweaver is an expensive software.
Any other easier option you ask?
One software that quickly automates the creation of
Hover Ads, using a simple 3 step interface is the
Hover Ad generator (http://www.novasoft-inc.net/hover-ad-generator)
The Hover Ads created using this software can be
fully customized and are very professional looking.
I especially like the opt-in style Hover Ads which
lets your prospects sign up for your opt-in list by
simply clicking a button. You subsequently receive a
mail with their name and email-id.
I'll let you look up the other four styles on your
own.
(http://www.novasoft-inc.net/hover-ad-generator)
Summary:
If you use popups on your website, chances are
pretty good that they are being screened away by
some software or another. Perhaps even by your
visitor's ISP - without any active attempts on your
visitor's part to block them. You’ll need to do
something about this situation and soon.
"So, what choices do I have?"
1. Do nothing. Pray that your content is good enough
to attract visitors.
2. Visit CodeLifter to get your FREE layer generator
script. You will be stuck with one style, though, if
you just cut paste. If you know JavaScript you can
modify it as per your liking.
3. Use Dreamweaver or your HTML editor, if it has
layers support.
4. Check out Hover Ad Generator at http://www.novasoft-inc.net/hover-ad-generator.
You can grab a FREE trial.
|
