12 tips on how to create effective advertisement on your web
site...
Everybody on the web hates pop-ups. I hate pop-ups, you hate
pop-ups, your visitor hates pop-ups. However, the pop-ups are
still coming and coming, why? The reason is very simple - until
recently pop-ups are considered to be the only alternative to
the banners, and give much higher click-through rate. I would
like to show you how to make an ad presentation even more
efficient. The following strategy is likely to improve your
click-through rate by at least 50-100% - not bad for a research
report that you are getting free of charge.
- The first question: you have pop-ups on your web site
already. The launch of a pop-up must be triggered by some event,
for example:
a) before the main page is loaded;
b) after the main page is loaded;
c) after the main page is closed.
Question: which one of the pop-ups is most efficient? Yeap, you
are right - popup c) upon the page unload has the click-through
rate higher than the two others. The reason is simple - if
somebody comes to your page, s/he wants to get something out of
it! The visitor does not want to leave your page without glancing
into it, just because he has been promised some "Buy one - get
one free", and this is a good news for you, actually. When he is
done with you page - it is a different story. He will be more
likely willing to shift his attention to some
entertainment/shopping - so fire the popup at the right moment!
Even better results can be achieved when the popup is fired at
the exit from your web site. The visitor is switching attention
from you to somebody else. Wish him/her good luck and give a
valuable advise.
And last but not the least - please, please, please - do not
be annoying! Configure your pop-up to appear only once per day or
so. Do not fire more than one pop-up per session. Respect your
visitor - try to keep your traffic steady and increase your
revenue by high click-through rate only.
- When dealing with pop-ups you are efficiently dealing with
small chunks of JavaScript or Jscript often referred to as DHTML
that is executed on the client's browser. Potentially, one can do
a lot with DHTML, so the number of places on the web potentially
dangerous for your computer would be large. To avoid such
misfortune, the DHTML in your browser has an elaborate security
model. Only few, absolutely safe actions are allowed. All other
actions, for example, opening a pop-up window with the size less
than 50 pixels (too small!) are considered to be dangerous are
require explicit user's permission. The request for permission is
handled by the browser and is formulated in such complicated and
alarming way, that nobody, including myself, would ever give such
permission. As a result, whatever cool stuff you wish to do with
the pop-ups, you should always stay within the DHTML functions
designated as "safe". For example, you cannot minimize your
popup, but you can "hide" the popup window behind all other
windows on the screen. One of the best known examples is the
"delayed pop-up", i.e. popup that appears not on load on unload
of the main page, but at some point later on. If you configured
the pop-up to appear five minutes after someone leaves your web
site, then your pop-up efficiently will appear on someone else's
website. You can populate with popups all websites your visitors
visit after visiting yours, and pay nothing to your "affiliates".
100% legal and clean, moreover, the delayed popups are even more
efficient than the regular ones, because of the "cross-promotion
effect" - "Gee, they are are big! Their ads are everywhere!
Shouldn't I just look into it!?"
- Unlike the content related web sites, ads are not about
content. Ads seldomly target the rational user, who makes web
research looking for some bargains. The ads are for the
spontaneous customer whose attention was traped by something
bright, intriguing and fresh. The designer's work is everything,
while particular details of the offer are secondary for
attracting attention. One of the simplest things that one can do
with a popup is to change its size and position on the screen.
For example, the "baseball popup" could appear in the upper left
corner, move to the upper right corner and then further by
perimeter back to the upper left, where it would come to rest.
The "drinker's popup" would make few arbitrary movements all over
the screen with sudden stops. The "cosmic popup" would appear in
one spot, move along the smooth curve to the center growing in
size, and move away along the same curve decreasing in size after
the user clicked on a clearly marked "Close" button. There is no
limit to what a creative designer can do with simple tools like
that, if only he is backed up by appropriate support of a
programmer.
- Depending on the web site attitude, you can be more
provocative and playful with your users. For example, you can
create popup with the large "Close" button and small "Visit
sponsor" button. First, the user will be puzzled - why do you
recommend to push "Close" rather than "visit sponsor"? No, you
cannot switch the meanings of the buttons - it is rude and
offensive. You cannot disable the "Close" button - it is plain
stupid. But you can move the whole popup away when the user is
trying to place his mouse on it, so he can never catch it. The
play should come to an end in 30-60 seconds by showing something
like: "You have tried to close me several times. I think you
don't like me and I am leaving. Yours sincerely, The Ad", and
close the popup a few seconds after that.
- Technically speaking, the popup is called a "daughter
window", because it opens a new browser window linked to the main
"parent" window. Such arrangement was created purely for
continuity reasons, so that the old types of browsers would be
able to add new layers of presentation through an additional
window only. Modern browser can do the same job without opening a
new window, by simply adding an additional top layer inside the
same main window.
It gives several advantages - for example, you don't have to show
any bars on the top of the frame. Moreover, you don't have to
show the rectangle frame at all, your ad can be round, oval or of
any shape you can imagine, thanks to the transparent gif
technology. It can move, resize and do all sorts of tricks that
can be done with the regular popups, plus many more. Just do not
forget to pop a small "close" button...
- Speaking about the banners, why not put the hybrid of a
banner and a popup on your web site? How? It is very simple -
just ad to the banner a small script that expands the regular
banner to the regular size popup upon mouse over. Upon mouse out
the popup should go back to the original size. This simple trick
is surprisingly efficient.
- Only few companies explored the "screen-saver" version of the
ad promotion. "Screen-saver" is actually a popup that will appear
on your visitor's screen after ten-fifteen minutes of inactivity.
"Screen-savers" are large, full-screen popups, similar to
?interstitial? ads. Screen savers should mimic the regular
windows screen savers and be "snoozeable" very easily, say, by
pressing any key. In general, the full-screen popups are a very
powerful tool.
- There are many problems with populating chat rooms with the
marketing materials. On one hand, people spend long time in the
chat rooms. According to the web standards, each minute on the
web page where you "do something" can be considered as a separate
"pageview". At the same time people are very reluctant to leave
the page while chating - no one wants to "visit sponsor" instead
of talking. Effectively it results in the high traffic figures
with very low click through rates. What to do in such
situations?
The answer is as old as the commercial broadcasting. You have to
interrupt your service for a "commercial break". During the break
you can either replace the entire window with the commercial, or
show a "daughter window" popup. You can either remove the
chat-frame completely or just make in unavailable for user's own
input, so that he/she could only see everybody else chating,
while watching the commercial instead. Once again, the way of
doing commercial brakes should be borrowed from the regular
models - web producers could implement more or less all or
them.
- One of the interesting ideas, not implemented so far by
anyone, is a "commercial break" popup that requires more than
simply "close" attention. For example, the popup could announce
that now the user has to click through ten different links on the
sponsor's site before returning control to the chart window. This
way the users will effectively create their own commercial
presentation of the sponsor's web site, and will pay a great deal
of attention, because they will have to identify the links to be
clicked. However, this project requires not ten lines of
Javascript code, but something like one hundred and was not
implemented so far.
- Web sites with some development power can create the
"intellectual agents" that "interact" with the user in a
"personal" manner. For example, in a romantic chat room, Jack
keaps speaking with Mary for 40 minutes straight. We can show him
a popup saying something like "Jack, it would be a really good
idea to send flowers to Mary. Please call 1-800-flowers or order
online with this link". One can even create a "chating robot"
intellectual enough to make appropriate marketing suggestions and
not offend the real chatters.
- Small and efficient type of the banner-popup hybrid. The
expanding part may be adjusted along with the banner position and
expand outside of the main page body. If done neatly, it will
greatly amuse the user, and get a warm response, too, because it
does not interrupt page viewing.
- This last advice is only good for entertainment related web
sites. Whether we want it or not, we are all affected by modern
music and its rhythm. The music rhythm often affects the lowest
levels of our conciousness. Web advertisement could re-use the
already existing rhythmic traditions of our society. Dynamic
effects on the web sites should fall under artist's control. The
younger, more energetic audience would appreciate the faster,
modern rhythms of commercial material, while older audience would
prefer something slower. The more the main page material moves
towards the erotic subjects, the more clear and erotic oriented
the ads should be, including the rhythm. The editorial and
marketing teams should work together to maintain a consistent
image of the web site.
