Discover How To Instantly Increase Your Sales, Conversions and Email Lists by Adding New Hover Ad Technology to Your Websites
by Satyajeet Hattangadi
Popups, if you’re somehow, strangely, not familiar with the term, are those little windows that open when you visit certain sites.
Popups are secondary browser windows that are opened up using JavaScript code. The properties of this new browser window are set in such a fashion that the new window does not have a address bar, status bar or the menu.
Until about a few years ago – the popup was considered to be the biggest breakthrough in advertising on the web.
When they were first introduced they were a great success and click-through rates went through the roof.
Exit the banner ad - enter the popup.
Web marketers could interrupt whatever a visitor was viewing, by launching a secondary window on top of the first – to draw attention to his advertisement or opt-in list or any other item that he wished to get the attention to.
After a while like most good marketing tools, popups started getting abused. Popups would open secondary popups and eventually by just visiting page that has a single popup in it, you would end up with a barrage of say about 15-20 popups. This was exploited by unscrupulous marketers to the fullest, especially those hawking porn sites.
Of course, webmasters who were in tune with the sentiment of visitors, soon began to use cookies to track if the popup was already shown and ensure it was not shown more than once per visitor.
Frustrated visitors soon began complaining about popups.
Popups are your problem? - Get a popup blocker.
Looking at the need of website visitors, software companies soon came up with popup blocking software. These applications read all the code that's going to the browser and if they find any JavaScript in the page code that's trying to open a window, BAM, it deletes that part of code. So Bye Bye popup!
Generation Two - The PopUnder
Not to be left behind, web marketers came up with another version, the popunder, which still launched a secondary window but placed it below the primary window. In most cases, the visitor didn’t even notice this popunder until they closed the primary window.
Of course this was less intrusive, but a pain nonetheless and you don't get an award for guessing what happened next.
Yes you guessed right, the popup blockers soon started blocking popunders as well.
Generation Next - Enter Hover Ads
What the beejeezus are Hover Ads? They are floating ads that popup blockers can't stop.
The technology that creates Hover Ads is not new. In fact, it’s been available to web designers for at least 2 years now as DHTML (that's Dynamic HTML to those who don't know).
These ads cannot be seen by older browsers like Internet Explorer 3.0. But since most netizens are using browsers (IE 4.0 and above) that are capable of displaying this code this type of advertising has started enjoying a rise in usage.
Hover Ads are DHTML layers which can be selectively moved and displayed over the primary page that's being displayed. The basic code is still JavaScript, but since a new window is not being opened, the popup blockers can't figure out that an advertisement is being displayed.
These layers can be animated, moved around, made to appear once per session, shown after a delay, etc.
So that makes you ask "Why should I switch from regular popups to Hover Ads?"
The one and only compelling reason. Popups can be blocked! Hover Ads can't.
So the bottom line is, if you use popups as a part of your online marketing strategy you’re losing out on a lot of potential revenue, coz what they can't cant see they can't buy!
Some statistics that make Hover Ads a compelling technology to use:
- The Alexa Toolbar can now block pop ups (10,000,000 Users not seeing your AD).
- The Netscape 7.0 Browser has a built in popup blocker( almost 52 million users never seeing your popup ad).
- Earthlink provides its users with a popup blocker( prospects who cant see your ad:5,000,000.
- AOL released version 8.0 with Popup Blocking capabilities. (Total Subscribers: 35,000,000).
Bottom line: 40 million customers never see your advertisement!
Hover Ads, on the other hand cannot be stopped by blocking software. Their technology is regular JavaScript that runs well in all modern environments, so they are relatively safe to deploy on your site.
"So how can I add Hover Ads On my Website?"
If you are looking for a free way of doing this then there are freely available JavaScript snippets that you can put to use on your site today without buying any fancy software.
A sample of code can be obtained from CodeLifter.com
The drawback here is that you would need in depth knowledge of JavaScript coding, which not many people know about.
Another approach is to use high end HTML editors like Dreamweaver which have DHTML scripts included under the "Layers" menu. Then again, Dreamweaver is an expensive software.
Any other easier option you ask?
One software that quickly automates the creation of Hover Ads, using a simple 3 step interface is the Hover Ad generator.
The Hover Ads created using this software can be fully customized and are very professional looking.
I especially like the opt-in style Hover Ads which lets your prospects sign up for your opt-in list by simply clicking a button. You subsequently receive a mail with their name and email-id.
I'll let you look up the other four styles on your own.
Summary…
If you use popups on your website, chances are pretty good that they are being screened away by some software or another. Perhaps even by your visitor’s ISP - without any active attempts on your visitor's part to block them. You’ll need to do something about this situation – and soon.
"So, what choices do I have?"
1. Do nothing. Pray that your content is good enough to attract visitors.
2. Visit CodeLifter to get your FREE layer generator script. You will be stuck with one style, though, if you just cut paste. If you know JavaScript you can modify it as per your liking.
3. Use Dreamweaver or your HTML editor, if it has layers support.
4. Check out Hover Ad Generator . They offer a FREE trial.
About The Author
Satyajeet Hattangadi is the Owner of Novasoft Inc, a software solutions provider, who specialize is affordable customized software solutions.
This article may be reprinted as long as this resource box is kept intact
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
More Website Advertising Articles
More By Developer Shed
 developerWorks - FREE Tools!
|
Join this webcast, to learn how the Rational Process Library can help with compliance issues, drive process improvement, and assist in service-oriented architecture (SOA) or Agile development. We will take a peek into the Rational Process Library with content around software and systems engineering (including RUP), operations and systems management, program and portfolio management, and asset and SOA governance.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Attend this launch webcast with Scott Hebner, Vice President of IBM Rational Marketing and Strategy, for an overview of Rational’s new software offerings and resources to help modernize and accelerate software innovation on i on Power Systems – while ensuring past application investments are protected and continue to grow. Learn how these solutions are helping customers extend their core i5/OS solutions toward modern architectures such as SOA and web technologies to deliver business improvements that stand the test of time.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Poor Requirements Management capabilities in an Enterprise have been linked to excessive project failures, escalating IT costs, and failure to deliver competitive advantage into the marketplace. Join Brianna M Smith from IBM Rational and learn about how successful organizations align IT and Business stakeholders through collaborative processes and tools for effective requirements management, and how an integrated approach across the IT lifecycle can provide unparalleled visibility and traceability to ensure that project teams are delivering on the business vision by "doing the right things" and "doing things right."
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Learn to enable users to both rate existing animations and to combine existing animations into new snippets. This is the third in a series of three tutorials that chronicle the building of a site that enables collaborative discussion and animation building using Domino and OpenLaszlo.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
WebSphere Process Server delivers a unique integration framework that simplifies existing IT resources. Often, as IT assets grow to support business demand, so too does their complexity and manageability. In this webcast, we’ll discuss how WebSphere Process Server helps deliver an SOA infrastructure that provides a common model to orchestrate, mediate, connect, map, and execute the underlying IT functions. Discover how WebSphere Process Server simplifies integration of business processes by leveraging existing IT assets as reusable services without the complexities of traditional integration methodologies.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
IBM Enterprise Modernization solutions help organizations evolve core IT systems towards modern architectures and technologies—reducing the burden of maintenance and freeing up resources to develop new business requirements and capabilities. With the IBM Enterprise Modernization Sandbox for System z you can evaluate IBM Enterprise Modernization solutions focused on five key areas: Assets, Architectures, Skills, Processes and Infrastructures, and Investment. Each solution is based upon real customer experiences and offers a proven path to get you started with your modernization projects.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Join this Rational Talks to You teleconference on December 11 at 1:00 pm ET to get tips on building your own plugins with Rational Method Composer. Get your questions answered!
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Regression testing -- in which code is thoroughly tested to ensure that changes have not produced unexpected results -- is an important part of any development process. But many testing environments neglect the terminal-based applications that still form the backbone of many industries. In this tutorial, you'll learn how the Rational Functional Tester Extension for Terminal-Based Applications works with other Rational Functional Tester to help test terminal-based applications quickly and easily.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
In this webcast, IBM Rational will discuss the importance of Web application security and will share techniques and best practices to introduce application security testing into current QA processes including: understanding common security vulnerabilities and techniques to integrate security testing with defect tracking and remediation systems in an effort to safeguard sensitive online information.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
The Eclipse community is constantly working to extend Eclipse's functionality. In this webcast, learn about some of the most important and feature-rich projects under development. From multi-language support to plug-in development, tune in to see what Eclipse is capable of now.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
All FREE IBM® developerWorks Tools!
|
