Introduction
This is an introduction to the topic of Pop-Up Advertisements Online, here we shall discuss previous research and relate these stuides to the current one. [ view references ]
Human computer interaction and usability studies have attempted to improve a users experience with technology, however the results of these studies and subsequent guidelines that are published tend to be overlooked by some web designers who would rather compromise their design in an attempt to gain additional revenue, with disregard for their users’ online experience. Forms of advertising that are misleading or perceived to be annoying, such as pop-up advertisements, are used online, and statistical information with regards to these forms of advertising are both conflicting and disingenuous.
There is a general consensus that intrusive forms of advertising, like pop-ups, are ignored by users. Statements such as “Many users have learned to ignore these ads” (Lee & Benbasat, 2003) have been included in studies that investigate the Internet or online advertising (Kahng 2001; Lee & Benbasat, 2003; Moe, 2003) and have appeared in technology news articles (Kane, 2003; Goldhaber 1997). However, these declarations are based on common knowledge rather than from studies with scientific credibility. This study attempts to produce empirical evidence to back up or discredit these statements.
If a person’s attitude to online advertising can change with experience (Previte & Forrest, 1998) it is reasonable to assume that not only do people learn to have negative attitudes towards pop-ups, but also learn to ignore them. This study is mainly interested in the effectiveness of pop-ups on users with long term Internet experience.
Online Adverising
Advertising online has seen a positive growth in the last 2 years, so much so that spending on online advertising has exceeded the figures reported at the height of the dot-com boom. $8.1 billion was spent on advertising online, after the dot-com bust this dropped significantly (eMarketer, 2004) but figures show that in 2004 expenditure on advertising online was $9.6 billion and this has increased to an estimated $12 billion in 2005 (Olsen, 2005). It is predicted that these billion dollar figures will increase in 2006 and 2007 (eMarketer, 2004), indicating that the Internet has recovered from the dot-com bust of 2000 and that online advertising is once again a profitable business.
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Pop-Up Advertisements
Pop-up advertisements are a form of advertising on the Internet. Generally their purpose is to increase web traffic, directing users to a website where a product can be purchased or a commercial website viewed. These advertisements work when a website opens a new web browser window (without user input) to display a solitary advertisement; they are small windows that appear on top of the website being viewed. Pop-ups can be timed to occur or can be initiated when a user clicks on a link to another page. Usually a pop-up can be removed by clicking the x in the top right hand corner. Pop-up advertisements cause a change in the visual field which leads to a higher degree of visual stimulation when compared to other forms of online advertising (Diao & Sundar, 2004). Viewing some websites will cause numerous pop-up advertisements to appear.
Pop-ups are sold as being successful online advertising tools, and are claimed to be more effective than static banner advertisements (an image embedded into a web page). Numerous online sources claim that pop-ups have a much higher click rate (when a user clicks on the advertisement) than other forms of online advertising such as web banner advertisements. Brian Morrissey of Clickz.com wrote in 2003 “According to an Advertising.com analysis, pop-up advertisements generate a click-through 13 times that of the standard 468 x 60 pixels banner”. Yet “some researchers estimate that they garner three to six times greater click-through rates than standard banners or display ads on the Web” (Olsen, 2002).
The most popular websites online do not use pop-ups. Based on Alexa.com's Global Top 500 list of most visited websites (as of January 2006) the top 5 websites (Yahoo!, MSN, Google, Yahoo! Japan and Baidu.com) do not contain pop-up advertisements. However, 4 out of the top 20 websites online use either pop-ups (excessive pop-ups appear after immediately opening these websites) or pop-unders. Pop-unders are a variation on the pop-up window, which also open in a new browser window, but behind the active window rather than on top.
According to figures from researcher Nielsen/NetRatings in 2002 less than 10% of Internet Advertisers used pop-up advertisements despite their seemingly ubiquitous presence. 11.3 billion pop-up advertisements were launched in the first seven months of 2002 – this is just 2% of the online advertising market (Bumatay, 2002). However, figures from Nielsen/NetRatings show that pop-up and pop-under advertising comprised 6 percent of the total online ad impressions in September 2004 (Olsen, 2004), indicating that the presence of pop-up advertisements online are on the increase.
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Pop-Up Blockers
Pop-ups may have had a higher click-rate than other forms of online advertising in the past, however, more recently trends are developing where traditional pop-ups are being “blocked” (the new browser window does not open) by software an Internet user can install. Pop-ups have spawned an entire market of products intended to block them. Entering the search term “pop ups” into Google.com will display thousands of hits for pop-up blocking software. The Google Toolbar when installed will “block annoying pop-ups” (Google, 2005) and The Yahoo! Toolbar will “eliminate annoying pop-ups” (Yahoo, 2005). Even Microsoft has attempted to eliminate pop-ups, in Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 2 (an update for Windows XP) “Windows XP Service Pack 2 enhances your Web browsing and e-mail experience with new security technologies designed to reduce unwanted content and downloads” (Microsoft, 2005) some of the unwanted content being referred to are pop-ups. Consequently, an Internet user now has the option to view these pop-ups or not.
In an attempt to counteract these new trends, some advertisers online have began designing websites that force their pop-up advertisements to appear on the users screen and due to the difficulty involved when deploying a pop-up upon a user that has a pop-up blocker, advertising companies have also increased the cost per impression (how many users see the advertisement) by as much as 30 percent (Olsen, 2004). Other advertisers have recreated the traditional pop-up using Flash animation technology, turning them into media-heavy advertisements (animations and sound) that float across a website instead.
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Studies show that the perceived intrusiveness of pop-ups lead the user to associate negative feelings with this form of advertising and negative feelings towards the company that uses them. A survey of Internet users conducted in the U.K, in 2004 by Bunnyfoot Universality, aimed to research the role of pop-ups in advertising, attitudes and opinions and the perception of the website and advertiser. Results of testing 36 individuals from the United Kingdom conducting tasks on two comparable websites indicated a strong and intense dislike for pop-up advertisements, resulting in negative attitude towards the website and the brand owner. 50% of advertisements were closed before the advertisement finished loading. 35% of pop-up advertisements were ignored completely. The average time from a pop-up advertisement frame appearing and the clicking of the close button was 2.5 seconds. The survey found that as many as 9 out of 10 users who clicked on a popular pop-up advertisement were really just trying to get rid of them and clicked through by accident "because the close button was so difficult to find." (Chan, Dodd, & Stevens, 2004).
A study that measured general consumer attitudes towards online advertising and perceptions of the different forms of online advertising found that only 6% of respondents had positive feelings towards intrusive advertising formats like pop-ups (Safran, 2001). However, 72% felt some pop-ups are appropriate. Consumers will accept a limited number of pop-ups (approximately 3 per hour) to access preferred/free online content (Safran, 2001). Similar advice is outlined in the 2002 study by Edwards, Li and Lee, however, this advice is not taken into account where some users are still bombarded by pop-ups and forced to view cluttered websites. Users are still overwhelmed with pop-ups due to the perception that higher click-through rates equate to advertising success.
Based on click-through rates alone it could be claimed that pop-ups are a successful medium in which to advertise online, however, in a study conducted by researchers from technology analysts Gartner, 78% of participants said they found pop-ups “very annoying”, in comparison to 49% of participants that found banner advertisements “very annoying” (Kane, 2003). Although participants claimed to have negative attitude towards pop-ups, this study also found that the click-through rate for pop-ups was almost twice that of banner advertisements. Gartner analyst Denise Garcia (Kane, 2003) believes that the high response rate is due to Internet users being unaware of how to close pop-up windows and predicted that once users learned how to close the windows that the response rate would decrease. Surveys such as this highlight consumer attitudes to pop-ups but also discredit claims that click-through rates alone are a good indicator of the effectiveness of an online advertisement.
In 1998 Previte and Forrest conducted a study that focused on Internet users’ belief and attitudes about Internet advertising. The study found that Internet users with “one year or less” experience have a less negative attitude to advertising on the Internet than users with four or more years experience. Differences are apparent between new and experienced users on issues concerning advertising’s function and role in providing product information, social role and image of advertising, and like or dislike of Internet advertising.
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Psychological Effects of Pop-Ups
Even if an Internet user wishes to eradicate these pop-ups from their surfing experience, some online advertisers continue to force their pop-up advertisements on the user. This makes the user feel imposed as there is no choice but to act in order to remove the advertisement (Benitez, 2002). Users become frustrated with advertisements like pop-ups which obstruct information, and are an unwanted interruption (Chan et al., 2004). Internet users are goal-oriented and perceive advertisements to be even more intrusive than when they are viewed in other media (Edwards et al., 2002).
A study investigated Internet surfers' reactions when they are forced to view advertising (Edwards et al., 2002). This causes a perception of intrusiveness (an interruption), the result of which is a retreat away from the source of irritation, or “ad avoidance” (Edwards et al., 2002). The aim of the study was to further understand how users come to define advertisements as irritating and decide to avoid them. Irritation can result from exposure to more stimuli that do not contribute to the task (McCoy, Galletta, Everard, & Polak 2004), when consumers are irritated by advertisements, they are more likely to avoid them (Li, Edwards, & Lee, 2002). The study by Edwards et al. (2002) found that the variables found to limit perceptions of intrusiveness involve: targeting viewers when their cognitive effort is low, increasing the relevancy of the advertising, and providing value to viewers. Strategies that seek to minimise the interruption of viewers' current activities are likely to meet with less resistance. The study concluded that users should be exposed to pop-up advertisements only at breaks in content (Edwards et al., 2002), but with regards to pop-ups, this is not currently a trend online.
“Banner blindness” research supports the idea that people do ignore online advertisements; however similar research has not been conducted with regards to pop-up advertisements. Jan Benway and David Lane coined the phrase “banner blindness”, the term, does not apply only to advertising banners. The term “banner” is broadly defined to mean anything that is intended to stand out from other items on a webpage and attract attention (Benway, 1998). However, as pop-up advertisements are independent windows that are not embedded within a webpage “banner blindness” research does not apply to this form of advertising.
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A study by McCoy, Galletta, Everard, and Polak (2004) found that retention of both site content and advertisement content was higher when pop-up advertisements were not used, McCoy et al. found that pop-up advertisements reduce a person’s retention of both site and advertisement content more severely than in-line advertisements (banner advertisements). The study also found that a users intention to return to a website was higher when the website had no (or a perceived minimum of) advertisements. This study found that pop-ups distracted the users from the content the user was attempting to view.
Although pop-ups are distracting to the user, a study found that there was no significant difference between the memory recall of pop-ups and the recall of banner advertisements when both forms of advertising are viewed by the user (Diao & Sundar, 2002). The study was interested in the direct and combined effects of animation and pop-ups on online users' attention to online advertisements, as indicated by orienting response (or) and memory. The term “orienting response” was coined by Ivan Pavlov, it is the reflex that causes an organism to respond immediately to a change in its environment (Pavlov, 1927). The study found that participants exhibited stronger orienting responses with the sudden onset of pop-up windows than with the onset of banner advertisements; however, as mentioned there was no significant difference in memory recall (Diao & Sundar, 2002). Although the participants reacted more strongly to the pop-up advertisements, these were not remembered more than the banner advertisements.
On the Internet, at any moment in time, a user is surrounded by far more than can be attended to. When a user tries to focus on just one of the surrounding stimuli or events, the remaining ones are distractions that have to be eliminated or ignored. If a user is viewing a web-page and a pop-up appears, the user will be focused on the content of the web-page, and consequently will ignore the content of the distraction. The mental process of eliminating those distractions is called filtering or selecting (Broadbent, 1957). The Filter Model suggests that human senses have a limited “channel capacity” and that people easily become “overwhelmed” by too much information. The filter model states that attention determines what information reaches the pattern recognition stage, the ability to correctly understand obscure sensory information (Broadbent, 1957). Even if advertisers force their pop-ups on a user, some users may simply continue to eliminate these distractions, but cognitively, rather than technologically.
Broadbent's theory was challenged by Neisser in 1967. Neisser argued for a constructive view of cognition in which perception is shaped by existing knowledge and that attention is influenced by experience. He proposed that people could learn to cope with more than one form of stimulus, and argued that attention was a skill, which could be learned. An Internet user could therefore learn to focus attention on desired information rather than the distractions appearing on the screen. A user that has been exposed repeatedly to distracting stimuli will learn to attend to which information is most important.
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If both online advertising spending and the use of pop-ups continue to increase, Internet users will be exposed to more pop-up advertisements online despite how unpopular pop-ups are perceived to be, and how they affect both the user and the brand.
Pop-ups cause too much stimuli online, thus causing the user stress (Berlyne, 1960). Pop-ups are irritating (McCoy et al., 2004; Edwards et al., 2002), annoying (Kane, 2003), distracting (McCoy et al., 2004) and create negative attitudes (Chan et al., 2004; Safran, 2001; Previte & Forrest, 1998). For new users of the Internet or persons that are not experienced online, the online environment is likely to be more stressful compared to an experienced user. If it takes time for a user to learn to ignore pop-ups, some users (such as older users) may not reach this stage of experience (due to sporadic usage), thus making the Internet a less than hospitable environment for inexperienced users. With the rise in popularity of the Internet, it is important that it be as accessible to as many people as possible. Removing or reducing negative stimuli, such as pop-up advertisements, that have been shown to be cognitively damaging (McCoy et al., 2004) and psychologically damaging (Benitez, 2002; Chan et al., 2004; Edwards et al., 2002) will increase the accessibility and amiableness of the Internet for everyone.
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The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of long term experience online, on the memory recall of pop-up advertisements. The primary hypothesis suggests as a user becomes more experienced, they learn to focus their attention online, thus learning to filter out the distraction of pop-up advertisements, based on the research by Broadbent (1957) and Neisser (1967).
Primary Hypothesis: The memory recall of pop-up advertisements is higher in inexperienced Internet users when compared to experienced Internet users.
The existence of pop-up blocking software and the support that industry leaders have for this type of software suggests that a large number of Internet users use pop-up blocking software (Google Toolbar, 2005; Yahoo! Toolbar, 2005; Internet Explorer Home, 2005). The secondary hypotheses suggests that the more experienced a user is online (and thus the more exposed they have been to pop-up advertisements) the more likely they are to use pop-up blocking software.
Secondary Hypothesis: Experienced Internet users are more likely to use pop-up blocking software.
Studies have found that an Internet users' belief and attitudes about Internet advertising changes with experience (Previte & Forrest, 1998). The following hypothesis suggests that the reason these attitudes change is due to negative experiences with pop-up advertisements.
Tertiary Hypothesis: Experienced Internet users are more likely to have had negative past experiences with pop-ups.
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