I saw an article about new relatively inexpensive alternative bands for the Apple Watch and I wanted to check them out. So I clicked on the link taking me to the website. Before the page had finished loading, I was confronted by a pop-over asking me if I wanted to sign up for their newsletter/email/whatever. I had only just arrived. I had not even yet seen what they had to offer or if I was even interested in their stuff.
Imagine if you were walking by a store and thought the window display was interesting so you stopped to look. Suddenly, a man with a clipboard runs out and stands in front of you asking if you want to be on their mailing list. Dude, I’m just looking at your window to see if I am even interested in walking into your store. Slow down.
I see pop-overs with greater frequency and they have to be the most irritating trend on the web today. Sure, pop-unders and pop-ups were annoying too but at least it’s easy to have a quick CMD/DNTRL-W ready to make them go away. This new trend requires me to figure out where the close button is (upper left? upper right? in the body of the ad?) And you can make a case that the intent is working: I have no choice but to look at the ad in order to just get rid of it.
But it’s not working. First off, I refuse to read them. When they pop up, I concentrate only on getting rid of it as fast as I can. If it takes me more than 1-2 seconds to figure that out, I will, more often than not, close the page and never return to that website.
Yeah, I know, these sites need ads to survive. But ads that are interesting, entertaining, informative, or in some way relevant to my life will get my attention. Those that are pushy, annoying, or irrelevant to me will get ignored.
And don’t get me started on Amazon’s piss-poor ads. I, like many people, use Amazon to research purchases. For example, I needed a cordless screw driver and I read reviews of various options on Amazon. I needed it that day so I then went and bought the winner at the local Home Depot. And then for the next few weeks, all I saw were ads for cordless drills. (Once, for a play I was in, I needed a prop deck of girlie playing cards. My ads for the next long while were… interesting to say the least.)
I do like that in Gmail, Google gives me some options to customize the ads I see and I do make use of that. Same with Facebook. I will turn off ads and provide Facebook with the whys of my decision. But the rest of the world needs to catch up. And everyone needs to stop using pop-overs. Seriously.
