It certainly seems that much attention is being paid to the omni-present, possibly irritating pop-up advertisements that seem to be everywhere you click on the Internet. Pop-up ads are the latest technology that website owners are using to make money. Many web users accept the fact that they will have to endure advertisements on their favorite websites in order to avoid paying a fee, and pop-up ads are a new way for those site owners to make money through advertisements.

     Pop-up ads are advertisements that open up in a new window and when clicked, just like a regular website ad, take you to the site. The annoyance factor comes about because the new window often opens up over the webpage you are accessing and can also delay the loading time of the webpage.

     The fact that pop-up ads annoy many web users calls into question the effectiveness of using them as an advertising method. There are, of course, two sides to the pop-up ad debate as to whether they are effective. The side in favor of using pop-up ads says that increased brand awareness is worth the possible negative view that people would have of a product that is being marketed through pop-up ads. Not surprisingly, the side against their use claimed that a negative view of the product is never acceptable.      

     While it may seem that pop-up ads are being talked about often the ads actually take up more mind-share then actual market share. Pop-up ads make up only about 3 percent of the Internet advertising market. But people have become so staunchly against pop-up ads that Google banned the ads from its site earlier this year.
     
     However, the outrage at pop-up ads might not be as strong and prevalent as some think. A survey last September from Dynamic Logic found that 72 percent of the people are okay with one or more pop-up ads per hour. In fact nearly half of the people, 47 percent, say okay to 2 to 6 pop-up ads per hour. With this information it should not be a surprise that many companies put much of their advertising into pop-up ads.
     
     One of the most famous or infamous companies to saturate the web with pop-up ads is X10 Wireless Technology Inc. The company sells surveillance cameras and their pop-up ads can be found on a number of sites. Just like the two sides of the pop-up ad arguments there are positives and negatives to X10's marketing strategy. Jupiter Media Metrix, a company that tracks Internet use estimated that last May that about a third of all web users for that month visited the X10 site. That is a staggering number. Last September the site ranked fifth with 34.7 million unique visitors behind AOL Time Warner sites, Microsoft sites, Yahoo and Terra Lycos.
     
     However, just because people visit the site does not meant that they are actually purchasing anything. In fact evidence leads to the contrary. Of the 32.8 percent of the Web's users that visited the X10 site last May, 73 percent left within 20 seconds. That is certainly not long enough to buy anything. While the pop-up ads built brand awareness they also build brand contempt. Many people were annoyed with the ads and while most Web users know X10 they also know they want nothing to do with the site or company.      
     
     That is the inherent risk with pop-up ads. There is great potential for growth of awareness of the brand name, but at the same time that awareness can quickly breed contempt. The verdict is still out on the effectiveness of pop-up ads, but chances are that they will stay around especially for companies trying to break into a very competitive market.

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