Pop-ups, if you're somehow, strangely, not familiar with
the term, are those little windows that open when you visit
certain sites.

** Generation One - The Pop-Up

Until a few years ago, the pop-up was considered 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.

Imagine being able to interrupt whatever your visitor was
viewing, by launching a secondary window on top of the
browser window and drawing attention to your advertisement
or subscription box.

But after a while - like most effective marketing tools -
pop-ups started being abused.

A primary popup would open secondary pop-ups till
eventually just visiting a page that has a single popup in
it, could land you with a barrage of about 15 to 20
pop-ups.

Unscrupulous marketers exploited this to the fullest,
especially those hawking porn sites.

Frustrated visitors soon began complaining about pop-ups,
and more considerate webmasters began to use cookies to
ensure a pop-up was not shown more than once per visitor.

Pop-ups became such a nuisance that developers created
popup blocking software.

These applications delete the code that's trying to open a
window - and BAM - it's bye bye popup.

** Generation Two - The Pop-Under

Not to be left behind, web marketers came up with another
version, the pop-under, which launched a secondary window
under the primary window.

In most cases, the visitor didn't even notice this
pop-under until they closed the primary window.

Although less intrusive, these were still a nuisance, and
you don't get an award for guessing what happened next.

Right, the pop-up blockers soon started blocking pop-unders
as well.

** Generation Next - The Hover Ad

What the beejeezus is a Hover Ad?

Well, it's a floating window 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 (Dynamic HTML).

Hover Ad are DHTML layers which can be selectively moved and displayed over the primary page that's being displayed.

Although they use JavaScript coding, they don't require the
opening of a new window. Pop-up blocking software are
fooled into thinking they are part of the same window, so
they are unable to block them.

Hover Ad can be animated, moved around, made to appear
once per session, shown after a delay, and more.

These ads don't work with older versions of Internet
Explorer. But since most netizens use browsers with IE 4.0
and above, that are capable of displaying this code, this
sort of advertising is being used more often.

So, you may ask "Why should I switch from regular pop-ups
to Hover Ad?"

The most compelling reason is that your pop-ups can be, and
are being blocked! Hover Ads can't.

Anyone who uses the Google and Alexa (ten million users)
toolbars is most probably NOT seeing your popup right now.

The Netscape 7.0 Browser (almost 52 million users) has a
built in popup blocker.

Earthlink (five million users) provides its users with a
popup blocker.

AOL (35 million subscribers) has released version 8.0 with
Popup Blocking capabilities.

At least 40 million internet users will never see your
advertisement!

You could be losing out on a lot of new subscribers and
potential revenue right now.

"So how do I add Hover Ads[TM] to my website?"

For the do-it-yourself-er 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 need in-depth knowledge of JavaScript coding.

Another approach is to use high end HTML editors like
Dreamweaver, which have DHTML scripts included under the
"Layers" menu. But again, Dreamweaver is an expensive
software.

If pop-ups are a big part of your online marketing strategy
- and if you have noticed a recent drop in your
subscriptions, sales and profits, you can be pretty sure
that your visitors are not seeing your pop-ups anymore.

But now at least, you know you can do something about it -
and soon.



About the Author
About The Author
Satyajeet Hattangadi is the Owner of Novasoft Inc( http://www.novasoft-inc.com), a software solutions provider, makers of Hover Ad Generator -that creates popup blocker proof, rich media animated ads in under a minute