Comments on: No-Permission Pop-up Subscriptions Are A Bad Idea

By: Stephan Miller

Stephan Miller — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:39:59 +0000

Yes, it increases subscribers. How many people know what a feed it? What percentage of your visitors? I think this has already been discussed a lot before. Not a big percentage will know what to do with a feed. So the popup just pisses these people off. An come on, building numbers. You know it’s fluff. A lot who subscribe will never open their feed reader again. But hey, with more subscribers, you can charge more for ads. I just think priorities are a bit skewed. I may have been a black hat at one time, but I do have a conscience.

By: Velvet Blues

Velvet Blues — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 23:38:01 +0000

Yeh, I totally agree, but good luck getting people to stop. The reason inconsiderate webmasters and marketing gurus still use popups is because they work. They get results. So unfortunately, the few visitors that they lose are not worth the benefits that they gain. :-(

… just another thing that won’t change …

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:53:38 +0000

Checkout Shoemaker and John Chow for examples on pop-ups to make you subscribe to emails. I am not sure if they work, but I feel like they would not have them turned on unless they converted well.

I agree with YOU though in that there is no place for them.

By: Adam Singer

Adam Singer — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:29:27 +0000

@Jim – yes they boost your subscriber rates, that’s the only positive. The cost is too high though, the negatives outweigh it…

By: Jim Kukral

Jim Kukral — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:24:31 +0000

I hear you, although it’s hard to argue that they dramatically boost subscriber rates. That’s not even debatable.

As I’ve said before, we’re no longer bloggers, we’re all publishers. Things have changed.