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F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

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Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#111

Post by ivraatiems »

rspeer wrote: post #34
steveridout wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or just add ?share=1 to the URL

As the parent poster is complaining about "completing" an account, I think he's in the state where he once said "fine, I'll log in with Google to make this popup go away", at which point it asks for pages of additional personal information and will not let you back out . Not even if you leave the site and come back. Not even with share=1. You have to ban it from using your Google account to regain control.

Yes -- this is what happened to me. I will try deauthorizing it from Google to see if that fixes my problem, actually.

Edit: So I revoked access through my Google Account, and it's still doing it. Emailed privay@quora.com to see if they can help.

Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#112

Post by mikeash »

emodendroket wrote: post #105
mikeash wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not care about spamming them afterwards (and I sympathize with that view... there's only so much you can do) but if it skews your numbers to the point where you can't determine whether your popups are actually effective, surely you care about that?

So the OP shouldn't use pop-ups because they'll skew numbers in such a way that he can't tell if pop-ups are effective?

It's a little more indirect, but yes.

Any time you prompt the user without their asking and they put up nothing of value, the false positive rate will probably be relatively high. If only a small proportion of people sign up, then a small false positive rate (compared to the total number of visitors) can dominate. Thus I don't think the numbers given demonstrate effectiveness, and you shouldn't use something that doesn't demonstrate effectiveness.

I'm a little surprised this opinion has turned out to be so controversial.

Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#113

Post by emodendroket »

mikeash wrote: post #112
emodendroket wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the OP shouldn't use pop-ups because they'll skew numbers in such a way that he can't tell if pop-ups are effective?

It's a little more indirect, but yes. Any time you prompt the user without their asking and they put up nothing of value, the false positive rate will probably be relatively high. If only a small proportion of people sign up, then a small false positive rate (compared to the total number of visitors) can dominate. Thus I don't think the numbers given demonstrate effectiveness, and you shouldn't use something that doe…

If the costs of doing it are close to nothing and there's a pretty reasonable chance it is effective there is no reason not to do it. I also find your analysis less likely than the OP's.

Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#114

Post by Turing_Machine »

glaberficken wrote: post #12

The worst type is the: "We would love to have your feedback" popup overlay upon entering a site. I've just landed on your site! How am I supposed to have an opinion of it already? Well I do now, the first 3 seconds sucked big time!

Yes! The feedback/install our app/sign up for our newsletter popovers would be far less annoying (and, I suspect, considerably more effective) if they came at the end of the article rather than before.

With me, at least, there'd be some chance that I'd sign up in that situation, rather than no chance whatsoever.

I really wonder who these people are who will sign up before even seeing the site, and whether that group actually represents real customers. Maybe if your product is aimed at the terminally clueless?

Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#115

Post by mikeash »

emodendroket wrote: post #113
mikeash wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little more indirect, but yes. Any time you prompt the user without their asking and they put up nothing of value, the false positive rate will probably be relatively high. If only a small proportion of people sign up, then a small false positive rate (compared to the total number of visitors) can dominate. Thus I don't think the numbers given demonstrate effectiveness, and you shouldn't use something that doe…

If the costs of doing it are close to nothing and there's a pretty reasonable chance it is effective there is no reason not to do it. I also find your analysis less likely than the OP's.

The cost is in potentially scaring other people away because you annoy them too much. I think the potential there is fairly high.

Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#116

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Alupis wrote: post #109
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most of the Internet" is Netflix (by bandwidth). They charge for their services, and have zero popups or ads. The rest of the Internet is pay-to-play like Steam. At least for me.

> At least for me. You are not the average internet user. Your biases do not apply to 99% of internet users. The things on websites that annoy you do not annoy 99% of internet users. The marketing antics that work for 99% of internet users do not work on you.

Wrong. Netflix is the larger part of the internet. That has nothing to do with me.

Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#117

Post by mplscoder »

emodendroket wrote: post #85
mplscoder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they scroll all the way to the bottom then have a bottom bar that appears.

Excellent; now 98% of users will never see it.

If they didn't read to the bottom, they probably aren't interested in the product enough to sign up for an email.

Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#118

Post by jbob2000 »

rfrey wrote: post #23

I'm struggling with this now and I could use some insight. I absolutely share OP's loathing of these pop-ups. On the other hand, I'm just starting to try to drive traffic to my physical-product website (through PPC ads, facebook marketing, etc). I KNOW I need to try to collect some contact information. But I cannot find a way to do it that isn't appalling. - Collect on landing page? How do they know if they want to s…

Track their facebook cookies like the real players do.

Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#119

Post by astazangasta »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #18
astazangasta wrote: post #8

I've never understood this design. Someone came to your website to do something. Why is the first thing you do is give them a bad experience?

Because it works. I had a small deals aggregator site which got most of its traffic from Google. When users landed I knew they were interested in the content, and I showed it through a semi-transparent background and forced them to enter their emails before being able to click through. I remember conversions going from 10-20 new emails per day to over 100 emails per day.

This mentality has to go. "Because it works" is not a reason to punch your users in the dick. We all agree this is awful and hateful; we should stop doing it for that reason alone, regardless of its purported efficacy. "Because it works" yields the Duggars on TLC and other heinous abuses.

Re: F*** those popups – signing up those who deserve it

#120

Post by Nadya »

I was just thinking about these annoying popups - funny I ran into this thread!

I manage a host file that redirects any site I run across that gives me a popup back to my home page. I refuse to visit these sites - even if the popup is a one-time-only thing (which it isn't for those of us who clear cookies)

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