How to Use Pop-Up Windows Effectively and Responsibly

For years I've asked my seminar audiences, "How many of you like pop-up windows?" Never is a hand raised. My inbox is filled with spam screaming, "Kill pop-ups forever!"

But still pop-ups pester us. Pesky windows that get in the way of what we are reading. Or multiple pop-under ads that appear under the webpages we open. Swat! Swat!

Why?

Simple. Pop-ups are effective marketing tools. When I started using a automatic pop-up window to get new subscribers it increased my subscription rate a whopping 40% -- and got me lots of complaints and some bad press until I learned how not to annoy my customers.

I think it's possible for you to use pop-up windows responsibly and effectively, while still respecting your customers. Let me explain how.

Let me distinguish between two types of pop-up windows:

1. Small windows that open in response to the customer clicking on a hyperlink, and
2. Small windows that open automatically when a visitor arrives at a webpage.

Each of these techniques represents a vital web marketing tool. Let's start with the first one.

Links that Pop Up Small Windows

There are times when you don't want to take your visitor away from the webpage by introducing hyperlinks. For example, when your potential customer has clicked on an ad and is looking at your landing page, you want to conclude her visit with a completed transaction, not a lost customer. This is the time to open a small window when she has a question, not send her away to an entirely new webpage.

On the landing pages for my Internet Marketing Web Seminar and my new Selling Online Web Seminar, I provide links that open up small windows to view information about:

• The bonus e-books I'm offering,
• The free headset I send registrants,
• How a Web seminar works,
• What previous participants have said about the seminar, and
• The current schedule of Web seminars.

My goal is to make a sale. To do that I must answer questions and point out benefits without taking prospects away from the landing page.

JavaScript to the Rescue

To open these small windows I use JavaScript. In the webpage header I include the actual JavaScript program. Then, at the hyperlink, I call that program with five settings which define this particular window:

• Pop-up window URL
• Window height in pixels
• Window width in pixels
• Message that displays when the customer's mouse hovers over the hyperlink
• URL of an alternate destination if the customer has disabled JavaScript or pop-up windows

To understand how this works, see the first entry on "Resources for Pop-Up Windows" in this issue (www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/popups_resources.htm). You can also study the source code on this webpage. I don't consider myself a JavaScript expert by any means, so please don't ask me to help you. :-) To learn more about JavaScript, I suggest you purchase a good book, such as Beginning JavaScript by Paul Wilson (Wrox, 2003; ISBN 0764544055) or the JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook by Danny Goodman (O'Reilly, 2003; ISBN 0596004672).

Headers and footers for pop-ups

My pop-up windows are intended to be small, so I don't put my usual masthead graphics or navigation system on them. However, I include some JavaScript in the header and the footer to enable visitors to easily print out the contents and close the window. (See the programs I use in "Resources for Pop-Up Windows" in this issue.) I use a meta-robots tag to keep search engines from indexing my pop-ups, since they appear without an appropriate navigation system:

Pop-Ups for Landing Pages

If you're not yet using small windows that pop up when your customer clicks a hyperlink, you really need to -- especially on landing pages. To work well, landing pages must anticipate each question that your prospect has in her mind and answer them one by one -- benefits, features, shipping policies, guarantees, etc. But you don't want to take space answering questions that don't interest your prospect. I've learned to answer questions with hyperlinks that open small windows. That way I keep the customer on the landing page, moving in a linear fashion down to the order button. If some hyperlinked text interests my prospect, she'll click to open a small window. If not, she continues toward -- I hope -- the purchase. (More on the art and science of landing pages in my brief e-book, How to Develop a Landing Page that Close the Sale.)

Now let's turn to some much more controversial cousins, a second type of pop-up window -- automatic pop-ups.

Automatic pop-ups

In spite of all the people who dislike them, automatic pop-ups work. They increase subscriptions and click-throughs dramatically.

Why don't people like them? Because they're like flies -- you're always trying to bat them away, since they open more and more browser windows.

But if you could limit pop-ups -- tame them, teach them manners -- people might even like them. Like dogs. Nice doggie. Don't jump up on me, please.

Taming over-aggressive pop-ups

Unfortuantely, most of the automatic pop-up windows mentioned in this article can be blocked by various pop-up blockers. The best code I've found so far is Michael Hopkins' Dynamic Popup Generator. I use it on my site to get subscriptions to my newsletter.

Automatic pop-ups work because they are in your face. They distract you and force you to either take an action or close them. But if the action is one your customer finds she is actually interested in taking, then pop-ups aren't so bad after all.

Pop-ups should serve your customer, just like the rest of your site. Succeeding in business is all about serving your customers well!

If pop-ups are in your face once, what's the big deal? If now they lie down quietly and don't jump on you again, they're okay.

When I first tried an automatic pop-up window it worked very well in skyrocketing my subscription rate. But the windows kept popping up anytime the visitor opened another page on my site.

I discovered that it's possible to put a cookie on the visitor's web browser telling the webpage that he has already seen the pop-up, thank you -- don't bother him again. That helped a lot. Now people would see the pop-up only on the first page of my site they came to, but never again (unless they purged all their cookies -- I mean, deleted them).

But the script I found on the Web didn't quite work quite right. It seemed like some people's web browsers just couldn't keep their cookies down. Maybe they were gluten intolerant, I don't know. But I got numerous complaints. Someone wrote a brief review about my site and complained about my pop-ups in print. I was embarrassed. Hang my head. I had to tame my dog.

So my programmer used this strategy: write a cookie to the visitor's web browser and then try to read it. Only after testing both writing and reading, would the program pop up the Subscribe Now window. If the visitor's web browser didn't cooperate with the cookie thing, then he wouldn't see a pop-up window at all. Ever since reprogramming the pop-up code I've had no complaints. Not one.

Doggie is well-behaved now. Nice doggie. Want a cookie?

Timing the pop-up

It's my belief that you shouldn't just throw a pop-up at a person the moment he lands on your webpage. He's arrived at your webpage looking for something in particular. Don't distract him now with something else. I let people stay on my pages for 5 seconds before the Subscribe Now pop-up appears. By that time I think the visitor is more likely to see my newsletters as a valuable resource containing important information. Delaying a pop-up is easy with JavaScript.

Pop-unders and Pop-abouts

Finally, let me mention pop-unders -- windows that appear under your current browser window, or only appear when you leave to go to another website entirely. I haven't tested these, but I assume they are effective, since I see them everywhere. You'll find a couple of scripts listed in our "Resources for Pop-Up Windows".

There you have it -- the marketing importance of pop-up windows. I know I'll get some nasty e-mail concerning this article, but I think learning how to use pop-ups is a vital tool in your web marketing kit.

Learning to tame them is just as important.

When we first got our two black Labrador dogs, they were big and energetic. They would chase cars that ventured up our driveway, barking furiously. They succeeded admirably as watchdogs, but they also made our friends think twice before visiting us. We had to teach our dogs their manners. Restrain them. Train them. Teach them to respect our friends. Now we have more friends dropping by. Arf!