What’s Up With Pop-Unders?

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People are calling it a stupid media buy,” says Tye Thompson, account executive with Traffic Marketplace, a pop-under ad network, “but it’s the smartest one we’ve seen yet.” People are calling it a stupid media buy,” says Tye Thompson, account executive with Traffic Marketplace, a pop-under ad network, “but it’s the smartest one we’ve seen yet.”

He’s referring to the ubiquitous and intrusive X10.com “hidden” camera ads that have peeked out from behind sites all over the Web, nearly doubling the site’s reach from 17.5 percent in April to 32.8 percent in May (according to Jupiter Media Metrix). “X10’s budget feeds off its revenue from the campaign. The only reason it’s grown like it has is because daily revenue numbers exceed what it costs to run the ads,” claims Thompson.

Perhaps.

But, as analysts from Jupiter Media Metrix point out, 73 percent of X10’s unique visitors left the site or window before 20 seconds. “Looking only at reach, it would appear that X10.com has deployed an incredibly successful campaign,” says Marissa Gluck, senior analyst with Jupiter. “But consumer behavior tells a different story.”

The debates that pop-unders have engendered have centered around X10.com, but other marketers are using them as well. Thompson says Traffic Marketplace has about a dozen pop-under clients. Insurance company Reliaquote, for instance, has used the pop-under to generate unique leads since May, increasing its media buy over time. When users click on the ad for quick life insurance quotes, they’re prompted to fill out a registration form.

Since last November, pop-unders have been part of the marketing mix for e-commerce site Half.com, an e-Bay company, which has tested two creatives, one with a coupon, one without, and, like X10.com, has seen a significant increase in unique visitors.

Other pop-under advertisers that have increased their unique visitor totals include Real.com and Colonize.com, says Jupiter, which predicts that, with online inventory cheap and plentiful, other advertisers will use similar methods to boost site traffic. However, Jupiter analysts caution that “mass, undifferentiated traffic should not be the end goal for most marketers.”

According to Thompson, more than 100 sites now accept the pop-under. “Whenever sites can be paid a decent amount for something that doesn’t use any ad inventory, it’s tempting for them to go with it,” he says.

A format that’s ‘offensive’
With the increase in site acceptance, Unicast’s chairman and CEO Richard Hopple has called for the Internet advertising industry to rethink the use of pop-unders. “It’s the equivalent of watching an entire television program without any advertising and then having to watch the ads, not only after the program ends, but after you’ve turned the TV set off,” he says. “Because they are so offensive to users, pop-under ads aren’t good for advertisers, and despite the temptation of short-term revenue, consequently not good for publishers.”

Thompson counters that Unicast, creator of the Superstitial, is just afraid of a little competition. “The effectiveness of pop-unders is scaring Unicast,” he says. “For superstitials, which have rich media capabilities and a lot of branding value attached to them, sites are going to charge a higher CPM. For pop-unders, we’re not pursuing advertisers that are looking to do a branding campaign, but rather those that want to sell a lot of products now, sign up a lot of people for insurance now or acquire a lot of new users. They’re only going to do it if it’s cost efficient.”

CPM’s for pop-unders, according to Thompson, range from $1 to $10.

Thompson equates pop-unders with the inserts in the Sunday paper. “It’s something that’s left behind rather than something that gets in front of what you’re doing and derails your train of thought,” he says. “People have already done what they came to the Internet to do when they’re presented with the message; it’s a lot less intrusive, and it works.”

But the leave-behind factor is a negative, argues Jim Nail, senior analyst with Forrester Research. “I’m a little skeptical of them, mainly because you won’t see them until you’re logging off,” he says.

“Logging off indicates that users have shifted their mindset away from surfing or searching, and they have mentally changed gears to picking up Johnny at the soccer game or going to a meeting, or whatever. For a marketer to expect someone to stop and order a product at that point is a long shot.”

With limited hard numbers — the company behind the X10 refuses to comment to anyone about the ads’ effectiveness — the debate over whether pop-unders work continues, and even sites like Half.com that have experienced significant traffic growth are proceeding with caution. “It’s an interesting new way to advertise our site on the Internet,” says company spokesperson Kristin Keyes. “But we’re looking at pop-unders as an ongoing test and evaluation.”