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"I realize the price to pay for this is mildly annoying the other 98%." To me this does not make sense, and is exactly the reason I avoid annoying users in my
by alyx 11y ago
"I realize the price to pay for this is mildly annoying the other 98%."
To me this does not make sense, and is exactly the reason I avoid annoying users in my applications (advertising or otherwise).
Because you definitely have numbers to back up the effectiveness of the popup (although I would argue it is not effective).
What you don't have is of the 98% you annoyed, how many will not return because of the annoyance (by choice anyway).
Or to put in another way,
Would you implement a feature in your software that only benefitted 2% and annoyed the 98%?
Seems like this kind of approach hints at a deeper issue here and that's effective targeting.
- notdanariely 11y agoMy other comment in this thread addressed this, but basically, I think it's a filter for removing those site visitors unlikely to become customers, allowing a company to focus on people who are receptive to the medium (popup) as well as the message. These people are going to be easier to advertise to, because they don't get pissed off when you put an ad in front of them. The software analogy is invalid, because those people are already your users or customers. In the case of reading the article, think of a popup as a criterion filter in much the same way as 419 scammers use poor english.
- wernercd 11y agoPeople have been mildy annoyed by adverts for decades: TV Commercials. Just because it's mildly annoying, doesn't make them any less effective either. There wouldn't be millions spent on Super Bowl slots if they weren't effective (although the SB is an outlier with regards to adverts). Except for really bad popups, I can find an x, click it and move on - or ever so occasionally actually sign up for something... It hasn't been until recently that you could timeshift or torrent TV shows consistently to not see the commercials. They do show that mildly annoying can still be effective and profitable.
- gk1 11y agoYour software and your blog have _very_ different audiences. I wouldn't risk annoying 98% of paying customers. People who randomly stumbled onto my blog from some Tweet, are not likely to be prospective customers, and are not likely to ever return again? Yeah, I'll take that chance.
- emodendroket 11y agoIf people don't want to see any solicitations at all then I guess they ought to pay for Web content, which they have pretty consistently proven unwilling to do.