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They do it because it works. Many people on the internet are not tech savvy and they just assume that in order to view the content they must input their email.

They do it because it works. Many people on the internet are not tech savvy and they just assume that in order to view the content they must input their email. It doesn't help that the close button is sometimes barely visible.

criddell 3y ago
I would think the MIT Tech Review readers wouldn’t be total tech noobs…
- gumballindie 3y ago
  In this case MIT TR product managers are.
CM30 3y ago
What's the conversion rate though? How many of those people continue to read the emails sent out by said site? Feels like you'd get a lot of dead subscribers and opt outs (and spam reports), not an active community or follower base.
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  If it is higher than zero somebody somewhere can justify it.
  - zeroego 3y ago
    As someone who used to work in marketing, this. Anecdotal, but in my experience working in marketing it was often funny to me how little we had to validate the numbers we presented. My boss didn't care how many people actually clicked on the link in our newsletter, as long as we had a lot of subscribers we were good.
    - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
      This is why there's so many subscription services (e.g. streaming, apps, etc) as well; they don't care about viewers or happiness, they (and the stock holders) care about subscribers, because subscribers = fixed and predictable monthly revenue, as well as loyalty (if they don't unsubscribe) and inertia (forgetting to cancel).
      - zeroego 3y ago
        I've often wondered about that. Spotify has never failed to have the music I wanted to listen to. Though their app interface has always been a little painful for me to use.
        olyjohn 3y ago
        All the streaming services have shitty interfaces. How many times do these fuckers need to poorly re-invent the music player?
    - jabroni_salad 3y ago
      to be fair to your boss, you can't actually make me click on your link or read your newsletter. Delivering it is the only thing that you actually have control over, and you're probably delivering to one of those gmail purgatory folders anyways.
      - zeroego 3y ago
        I definitely couldn't "make" anyone click on anything. But delivering it wasn't the only thing we had control over. The format and content of the email we had complete control over. This was years ago, but at the time I suggested trying to record and study which emails lead subscribers to actually click the link so that we could learn to produce content/offers that more people wanted to see. The idea was mostly shrugged off but I did it anyways. When the numbers of people actually following the links went up my boss never wanted to show anybody. My somewhat cynical guess is that he didn't want to introduce real accountability (proof that we were having an effect) into some of the data he was presenting to other departments.
- nscalf 3y ago
  In my experience, conversation rates were ~6% from a pop up timed to land when you were nearly done with the article (though on short articles, it was similar to what is described—I don’t have data on those two broken out). Subscribers stuck pretty well, something like 40% kept opening emails. For my relatively small newsletter, churn was extremely low. They’re basically warm leads if they make it to the end of an article, and email is extremely sticky. Email pop ups are a very effective short term newsletter growth tool.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  They don't read the emails. The scan the subject and maybe the body for value...really quick.
user00012-ab 3y ago
I've gotten to the point where if a site displays a popup, I just close the page. If I had the ability to remove that source from all future searches I would.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  I've got addons (ublock) and a Javascript bookmarklet that removes all fixed elements, it's fairly effective.
  - metadat 3y ago
    This sounds great! Can you share the code?
    - jabroni_salad 3y ago
      NTHNer but here is the one I use. It's old but it still works a treat: https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/ https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/ (function () { var i, elements = document.querySelectorAll('body *'); for (i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) { if (getComputedStyle(elements[i]).position === 'fixed') { elements[i].parentNode.removeChild(elements[i]); } } })();
      - err4nt 3y ago
        I rewrote this to be a little more succinct: document.querySelectorAll('body *').forEach(tag => getComputedStyle(tag).position === 'fixed' && tag.remove() ); - you can use `forEach()` on the NodeList that `querySelectorAll()` returns - you can use `remove()` directly on the DOM node you want to remove
        Xeanort 3y ago
        Here for an improved version: https://github.com/t-mart/kill-sticky https://github.com/t-mart/kill-sticky
cryptonym 3y ago
Marketing thinks "OMG, people subscribing the newsletter are returning to the website way more often than regular ones". Then by showing this newsletter pop-up down everyone throat, they successfully get X% more subscribers. Much engagement, much success, poor UX, annoying for everyone. Maybe people subscribing to that newsletter are the most interested and you shouldn't bother everyone with it for the sake of few subscriptions.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
It focuses far too much on numbers; in the case of newsletter signups, it's conversion rates. If interactions with newsletters is > 0, it's worth having a newsletter; if conversion for these popups is > 0, then it's worth having a newsletter pop-up. It's like an often quoted thing; Linus Tech Tips was criticized for having "reaction faces" in their thumbnails, and they said that while they don't like it, they had the numbers to back up that it was effective... to boost numbers and therefore revenue, I guess. In the case of my current employer, they focus on NPS, Net Promoter Score, a wooly abbreviation [0] indicating how good they are doing based on the question "how likely are you to recommend X to a friend". Number goes down in case of outages, number goes up in case of good service. That's the main thing they focus on, not individual stories, users, whatever, but NPS. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  At work, I deal with enterprise software, and I agree that the focus on numbers (and NPS) can drive things the wrong way. In my personal time, I own an ecommerce company, and there it absolutely makes sense to be purely numbers-focused. The thing that matters is getting someone to buy, and getting an email address is almost universally the second most important thing, because it's the best road to getting someone to buy.
- tyfon 3y ago
  I stopped watching and blocked the linus channel (and may others) due to the faces. But I guess I am only one and the many likes these faces for some reason. It is also probably a failure of optimization where one started doing it and made a tiny bit more money than the other. Then the others had to do it to keep up, now all have the sucky faces and they all make the same amount as before while doing something they don't really like.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    What they don't take into account is the secondary and tertiary effects of doing things like this. I stopped visiting channels that did the faces, LTT among them, and I also (usually) insta-close any video where the presenter is making a completely fake 'why don't you tell me about it in the comments' calls to action. The things is that your numbers might go up and your audience might grow, but these tactics work because you are appealing to the trend at the time. People see stupid face and click and the trending metric goes up and you get more hits -- same thing with user interactions on comments. However, two months later when someone is trying to find a video about how to hook up their AMD CPU De-hot-an-izer to a radiator and they see Linus making a Macauly Culkin Home Alone face they pass, and you lose a potential actual long-term subscriber. Also, people with standards tend to be really happy when those standards are at least partially met, and tell other people about it. On the flip side, people looking for their youtube 'stupid faces video fix' tend to forget what they saw 10 minutes later.
dazc 3y ago
Adding people to your email list surreptitiously, via frustration or because of some incentive (like 10% off) is a great way of building a high number of subscribers but I doubt this does anything to your bottom line. In the case of discounts for sign-up it's almost certainly negative.
Groxx 3y ago
They do it because they have been sold a story that it works. It's easy to show short-term gains, and hard to show long-term damage... and nobody gets paid today for showing damage months later. Short-term marketing incentives are horrifyingly destructive. Does it work? In some areas, yeah, I believe it does. But most are cargo-culting a dark pattern that loses them what might otherwise be excellent customers, sold by people trying to justify their marketing position, and companies whose business incentives are perfectly aligned with selling snake oil.
kitsunesoba 3y ago
> It doesn't help that the close button is sometimes barely visible. This particular dark pattern is nasty and unfortunately common across more than just newsletter popups. It doesn’t trip me up but I could see how others could fall victim to it. If opting out is so strongly preferred by users that you have to try to hide the opt-out button for users to do anything else, maybe you shouldn’t be trying to do the thing they’re so adamantly opting out of.
m463 3y ago
I'm reminded of Feynman's book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" We went into the bar, and before I sat down, I said, "Listen, before I buy you a drink, I want to know one thing: Will you sleep with me tonight?" "Yes."
jrochkind1 3y ago
If they are relying on fooling people into thinking you have to enter your email address to read the article... why don't they actually try to require you to enter your email address to read the article (perhaps after reading the first few screens), instead of just implying it to those who can be fooled? They could do this, right?

criddell 3y ago

I would think the MIT Tech Review readers wouldn’t be total tech noobs…

gumballindie 3y ago
In this case MIT TR product managers are.

CM30 3y ago

What's the conversion rate though? How many of those people continue to read the emails sent out by said site? Feels like you'd get a lot of dead subscribers and opt outs (and spam reports), not an active community or follower base.

jabroni_salad 3y ago
If it is higher than zero somebody somewhere can justify it.
- zeroego 3y ago
  As someone who used to work in marketing, this. Anecdotal, but in my experience working in marketing it was often funny to me how little we had to validate the numbers we presented. My boss didn't care how many people actually clicked on the link in our newsletter, as long as we had a lot of subscribers we were good.
  - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    This is why there's so many subscription services (e.g. streaming, apps, etc) as well; they don't care about viewers or happiness, they (and the stock holders) care about subscribers, because subscribers = fixed and predictable monthly revenue, as well as loyalty (if they don't unsubscribe) and inertia (forgetting to cancel).
    - zeroego 3y ago
      I've often wondered about that. Spotify has never failed to have the music I wanted to listen to. Though their app interface has always been a little painful for me to use.
      - olyjohn 3y ago
        All the streaming services have shitty interfaces. How many times do these fuckers need to poorly re-invent the music player?
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    to be fair to your boss, you can't actually make me click on your link or read your newsletter. Delivering it is the only thing that you actually have control over, and you're probably delivering to one of those gmail purgatory folders anyways.
    - zeroego 3y ago
      I definitely couldn't "make" anyone click on anything. But delivering it wasn't the only thing we had control over. The format and content of the email we had complete control over. This was years ago, but at the time I suggested trying to record and study which emails lead subscribers to actually click the link so that we could learn to produce content/offers that more people wanted to see. The idea was mostly shrugged off but I did it anyways. When the numbers of people actually following the links went up my boss never wanted to show anybody. My somewhat cynical guess is that he didn't want to introduce real accountability (proof that we were having an effect) into some of the data he was presenting to other departments.
nscalf 3y ago
In my experience, conversation rates were ~6% from a pop up timed to land when you were nearly done with the article (though on short articles, it was similar to what is described—I don’t have data on those two broken out). Subscribers stuck pretty well, something like 40% kept opening emails. For my relatively small newsletter, churn was extremely low. They’re basically warm leads if they make it to the end of an article, and email is extremely sticky. Email pop ups are a very effective short term newsletter growth tool.
datavirtue 3y ago
They don't read the emails. The scan the subject and maybe the body for value...really quick.

user00012-ab 3y ago

I've gotten to the point where if a site displays a popup, I just close the page. If I had the ability to remove that source from all future searches I would.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I've got addons (ublock) and a Javascript bookmarklet that removes all fixed elements, it's fairly effective.
- metadat 3y ago
  This sounds great! Can you share the code?
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    NTHNer but here is the one I use. It's old but it still works a treat: https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/ https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/ (function () { var i, elements = document.querySelectorAll('body *'); for (i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) { if (getComputedStyle(elements[i]).position === 'fixed') { elements[i].parentNode.removeChild(elements[i]); } } })();
    - err4nt 3y ago
      I rewrote this to be a little more succinct: document.querySelectorAll('body *').forEach(tag => getComputedStyle(tag).position === 'fixed' && tag.remove() ); - you can use `forEach()` on the NodeList that `querySelectorAll()` returns - you can use `remove()` directly on the DOM node you want to remove
      - Xeanort 3y ago
        Here for an improved version: https://github.com/t-mart/kill-sticky https://github.com/t-mart/kill-sticky

cryptonym 3y ago

Marketing thinks "OMG, people subscribing the newsletter are returning to the website way more often than regular ones". Then by showing this newsletter pop-up down everyone throat, they successfully get X% more subscribers. Much engagement, much success, poor UX, annoying for everyone. Maybe people subscribing to that newsletter are the most interested and you shouldn't bother everyone with it for the sake of few subscriptions.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

It focuses far too much on numbers; in the case of newsletter signups, it's conversion rates. If interactions with newsletters is > 0, it's worth having a newsletter; if conversion for these popups is > 0, then it's worth having a newsletter pop-up. It's like an often quoted thing; Linus Tech Tips was criticized for having "reaction faces" in their thumbnails, and they said that while they don't like it, they had the numbers to back up that it was effective... to boost numbers and therefore revenue, I guess. In the case of my current employer, they focus on NPS, Net Promoter Score, a wooly abbreviation [0] indicating how good they are doing based on the question "how likely are you to recommend X to a friend". Number goes down in case of outages, number goes up in case of good service. That's the main thing they focus on, not individual stories, users, whatever, but NPS. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score

idopmstuff 3y ago
At work, I deal with enterprise software, and I agree that the focus on numbers (and NPS) can drive things the wrong way. In my personal time, I own an ecommerce company, and there it absolutely makes sense to be purely numbers-focused. The thing that matters is getting someone to buy, and getting an email address is almost universally the second most important thing, because it's the best road to getting someone to buy.
tyfon 3y ago
I stopped watching and blocked the linus channel (and may others) due to the faces. But I guess I am only one and the many likes these faces for some reason. It is also probably a failure of optimization where one started doing it and made a tiny bit more money than the other. Then the others had to do it to keep up, now all have the sucky faces and they all make the same amount as before while doing something they don't really like.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  What they don't take into account is the secondary and tertiary effects of doing things like this. I stopped visiting channels that did the faces, LTT among them, and I also (usually) insta-close any video where the presenter is making a completely fake 'why don't you tell me about it in the comments' calls to action. The things is that your numbers might go up and your audience might grow, but these tactics work because you are appealing to the trend at the time. People see stupid face and click and the trending metric goes up and you get more hits -- same thing with user interactions on comments. However, two months later when someone is trying to find a video about how to hook up their AMD CPU De-hot-an-izer to a radiator and they see Linus making a Macauly Culkin Home Alone face they pass, and you lose a potential actual long-term subscriber. Also, people with standards tend to be really happy when those standards are at least partially met, and tell other people about it. On the flip side, people looking for their youtube 'stupid faces video fix' tend to forget what they saw 10 minutes later.

dazc 3y ago

Adding people to your email list surreptitiously, via frustration or because of some incentive (like 10% off) is a great way of building a high number of subscribers but I doubt this does anything to your bottom line. In the case of discounts for sign-up it's almost certainly negative.

Groxx 3y ago

They do it because they have been sold a story that it works. It's easy to show short-term gains, and hard to show long-term damage... and nobody gets paid today for showing damage months later. Short-term marketing incentives are horrifyingly destructive. Does it work? In some areas, yeah, I believe it does. But most are cargo-culting a dark pattern that loses them what might otherwise be excellent customers, sold by people trying to justify their marketing position, and companies whose business incentives are perfectly aligned with selling snake oil.

kitsunesoba 3y ago

> It doesn't help that the close button is sometimes barely visible. This particular dark pattern is nasty and unfortunately common across more than just newsletter popups. It doesn’t trip me up but I could see how others could fall victim to it. If opting out is so strongly preferred by users that you have to try to hide the opt-out button for users to do anything else, maybe you shouldn’t be trying to do the thing they’re so adamantly opting out of.

m463 3y ago

I'm reminded of Feynman's book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" We went into the bar, and before I sat down, I said, "Listen, before I buy you a drink, I want to know one thing: Will you sleep with me tonight?" "Yes."

jrochkind1 3y ago

If they are relying on fooling people into thinking you have to enter your email address to read the article... why don't they actually try to require you to enter your email address to read the article (perhaps after reading the first few screens), instead of just implying it to those who can be fooled? They could do this, right?