Thoughts on pop-unders

[learningcurve]

I was wondering what the general consencus is in regards to this. Is it okay? Do you get penalized for having them on sites? I'm quite curious as to who runs them and what the consequences (if any) are.

 

[CCarter]

Google started cracking down on some of the torrent sites that employed this tactic. Chrome Blocks Major Torrent Sites Over "Harmful Programs" the biggest culprits were pops ups that asked you to download potentially harmful programs, so overall pop-unders have a extremely bad rep, it's also a horrible user experience for anyone that's visited a site that employees them.

 

[Sutra]

Until recently, pop-unders were my biggest money earner after Adsense. If you decide to go the interruption marketing route, then pop-unders are the best of the bunch, in my experience. They are the least annoying and one of the best earning. I was getting CPM's of $7 - $8.

But it's critical to use a network that does NOT allow stupid shit through AND the pop-unders must actually pop UNDER the current window.

I've tried over a dozen Popup networks...Propeller, AdSupply, PopAds, MobAds, RevenueHits, and on and on. Of them all ONLY AdSupply consistently delivers clean ads AND the window pops UNDER.

The rest of the networks all had ads that, as CCarter said, redirect the user or look like malware. Plus, their popunders would pop in FRONT of the current window, which is the opposite of what it's supposed to do and is super annoying.

When I used AdSupply I tested even having a pop-under on pageview 1 and pageview 2. After over 200,000 users I did not receive even one complaint. But as soon as I disabled it and tested any of the other networks I'd IMMEDIATELY get complaints. When I'd switch those off and go back to AdSupply, no complaints.

I think it's safe to say that it also depends on your audience viewing device. My audience is over 80% mobile. When a desktop user clicks the page and the popunder triggers, you can see something open and go behind the window. Slightly annoying and because you see the movement it compels you to see what it was. However, on mobile there is zero indication that a popunder triggered. A mobile user won't see it until they close out the window. So it doesn't interrupt their viewing of the site. Thus, the least annoying of all options.

If you go the popunder route, I recommend AdSupply. I don't remember their traffic requirement though. If they don't accept you then I'd say go for Propeller but instruct their support team to block the redirect and malware ads AND make the ad pop UNDER the window.