Join Kerry W. Kirby and Jimmy Lancaster, the masterminds behind the Multifamily Tech Gurus Podcast Series, as they deep dive into how website popups can interrupt the flow of navigation and content consumption, leading to frustration and a poor user experience.
In this episode, they delve into the excessive use of website popups by marketing managers in the multifamily housing space, which are potentially effective for capturing user attention, but often come with significant drawbacks that can negatively impact the user experience and overall website performance. Their discussion touches on how search engines like Google have penalized websites that use intrusive popups that obstruct content, and many users employ ad blockers, which render the popup ineffective.
Kerry and Jimmy's Words of Wisdom: "Popups can be problematic for users with disabilities, making it harder for them to navigate the site. This can violate accessibility standards and alienate a segment of your audience. We highly recommend implementing notification bars at the top of the screen that convey important messages without blocking content."
Resources: Utilize Apartment Marketing Websites Built to Reduce Risk
[00:00:05] Welcome to the Multifamily Tech Gurus podcast series. I'm Kerry Kirby, the founder and CEO of 3605 Connect along with my esteem co-host, Jimmy Lancaster, software engineer extraordinaire, and chief product officer here at 3605 Connect. Today we're talking website pop ups, you know, it's a little
[00:00:29] ad-like features at times distracting, certainly controversial, and in my humble opinion, totally unnecessary. Jimmy, pop ups, you love them, you hate them. Why do marketing managers think that they need these things? I would say I love them, just like I love telemarketers.
[00:00:52] I mean, they're there. I don't think anybody loves them, at least users that is, so I'm going to go on and then say the majority of people just don't like them at all. They're
[00:01:06] just, they're annoying. So why do you think? Because I see these things constantly. What do you think that marketing managers in our industry feel that they need pop ups to tell somebody,
[00:01:21] hey, this I'm running a floor plan special or you know, there's a three months around why do you think they want to pop up? I think there's there's a lot of data out there in the world saying that
[00:01:33] pop ups create better more conversion. And so there's there's things out there that say that and I wouldn't be surprised at that one point in time like they did more good than damage,
[00:01:48] but I think what has happened is we've become known to the pop ups, right? So like, sure, maybe five years ago pop ups was maybe longer, five ten years ago pop ups were a really
[00:02:00] viable thing to use. But I think people have become known to the to see in these pop ups. They get hit, I mean you can't go to a new site it feels like without being hit by a pop up. So if you're
[00:02:12] running a new site without pop ups you probably have much happier users, right? So I think what's happening is people have gone down the road of using pop ups. They get stuck in their old ways
[00:02:29] and they're not changing and meeting the what's currently happening and what the current demographic is there's sentiment to these things. Well let me give you some stats and I encourage you smartening managers to Google this conversion rates on pop ups run about 4% 4.1 the big
[00:02:52] exact is is the data. So that's a conversion rate. This is painting with a wide brush, right? This is beyond multi-fim. Beyond multi-fim, okay. Right. SEM brush reports and we know SEM brush, right?
[00:03:12] We use some of their tools. So they have a report out to publish fresh this year. 41 to 55% of website visitors exit a site immediately if they encounter a pop up. So that 4.1%
[00:03:31] just not only went out the window but you're at a negative now. I definitely know I fall into that 40 to 50% of that just leave a site whenever they hit that and I like to think of it especially,
[00:03:46] you know, I'm trying to I'm checking out multiple sites so like I'm the I'm that guy that opens Google and I I hope my control button and I click on the five things I want to look at
[00:03:58] and then I start tabbing through those sites, right? So imagine I'm looking at different properties. I start tabbing through the knowing ones I just hit close on and I go to the one that doesn't
[00:04:09] feel annoying where I don't have to go find that close button on that stupid pop up and so you know of those people that are looking to quickly get to what they're actually want to go look for
[00:04:22] yeah I could see where they're just weaving those sites right away. You know the the other side of it is you must browsers have pop up blockers built in. But mobile strongly hates pop ups. I've never gotten a pop up in my mobile but chrome so far
[00:04:43] a Firefox they all have pop up blockers now you can if you look at the top it'll usually say well we've blocked something do you want to allow it and you can you can click yes or that's the way like
[00:04:57] I'm a Firefox user so Firefox does that but all these things are turned on when you when you update them or you know it's it's it's turned block it automatically
[00:05:14] and then it asks if you want to let it in now you can you can go dig in a browser and and hit the setting and say hey allow pop ups or always allow it from this site but not these.
[00:05:26] Yeah but now that that is a slightly different pop up than what we've been referring to and what the as you run. I know not all pop ups are created. Well the the pop ups that the
[00:05:40] browser's able to actually block are the ones that open up in a new window opposed to the ones that are just embedded into the website I'll call it and yeah and so the the reason those of work is be and how those work are they prevent
[00:06:00] pop ups from happening because people don't like them right but like the whole reason that they stop opening in a new window is because people just dislike the experience and so on what the
[00:06:13] browser's actually do is they will allow you to open something in a new window if you're developing a site but it has to be based on action right so basically if you click a button
[00:06:26] that in that button causes a pop up to happen then that's a user interaction in the browser says yeah I think that that was something that this pop up is something that the user was looking
[00:06:40] but things that pop up randomly on their own that's where it's going to block every time and it just comes back to that idea that like people don't want this and so the uh these other
[00:06:51] pop ups are just ones that exist in the site that people use CSS to pretty much an overlay but it's doing the same exact thing but let's just call it a let's just call it a software developer
[00:07:05] trick on how to get how to get them to come through without going around the blocker right so if I have my blocker set and I do because I don't we all they right I don't like these things including the
[00:07:18] people putting them on the websites have that in right exactly right so it's just basically a trick not have this thing right and then I came here to go look at something else and you're like oh look
[00:07:29] I got to throw this in your face here here's you know a month free rent or whatever mean can you tell me that as I go down the path and I'm you know can't can't you let me like look
[00:07:43] around first it's it's almost you know it reminds me of Jimmy I'm going to use an in person experience I go to go walking a lot of a car dealership I just want to go look at this car know what it is
[00:07:57] a research it online I want to look at it and in a salesman comes out and almost football tackles you oh why are you here today what can I do let me show you this car it's not the car I want to say you know
[00:08:12] so I think that there's a disconnect between multi-family marketing managers and the way the rest of us usually internet I think it comes back to you know people you saw that at one time that was an effective thing there's articles out there saying to do that and you
[00:08:39] just grab it and you say okay well then that's what I'm supposed to be doing but yeah I think at some point you got to bring a little bit of common sense into your marketing efforts right and that
[00:08:50] that statement goes well beyond pop ups but it's like what's the common sense stuff here do I really want to do this thing that I don't like that I know everybody doesn't like I know for sure carry
[00:09:01] doesn't like it right so it's like why am I going to put that there in my is it really helping you know Jimmy it's almost like you know hey it worked at one time so let's keep doing it you know
[00:09:14] it's like it's like telling your dad look quit wearing bell bottoms the seventies are over and he says but look they're making a comeback people starting to wear them again but but not really but look I got
[00:09:26] this article it actually reminds me we were I was cleaning out uh uh my grandma's garage with my uncle and he's like he pulls out this book from home deep about remodeling the kitchen he's like
[00:09:38] look and he tells his wife looks any week we got a modern kitchen and it's like this book was from 2001 right it's like yeah you found this old resource he he was joking he obviously knew it wasn't but
[00:09:49] it's like you have these old resources these articles uh and you might have some new ones but it's written by people that were reading the old articles right um and so yeah at some point yeah
[00:10:02] and there's always somebody on the internet going against the grain but I think you know trusted sources hard stats I think the fact that Google builds it in their browser is everybody has
[00:10:15] is a clear sign that the internet has spoken and then they don't want these things so let's I think we got our point across it we hate pop ups and you shouldn't use them but let's talk
[00:10:28] about what do you do I got a spell and I do need to tell the world right what am I alternative so announcement bar which if you go look let's forget about multi-family I know we're doing them but
[00:10:40] I know retailers use them other sites use them you know it's it's basically a nice thin bar it's not yelling at you but it's the very top of the site you're going to see it walking through the door
[00:10:55] you can click it maybe slide it open if you got more information so let's talk about alternatives to pop ups like announcement bars now what's an announcement bar we see these you know out retail
[00:11:10] sites corporate sites it's that the little thin piece across the top it's built into the site it's very attractive in my opinion if you want an announcement bar you can turn them colors
[00:11:25] you can click them and slide them open but for example an iron industry you could put something like leasing special right and if you wanted to say something more you could slide that open um
[00:11:36] you know they're a couple of pieces on announcement bars you know they're perfect for displaying what I call site wide announcement so if you're like hey I'm given a month free rent on everything
[00:11:52] then that's a great way to do it but um I think if you want to get more detailed if and you want to come down you could do a site wide but you could also run specials in our industry
[00:12:07] like on a floor plan on a unit so you could you could break these down even further somewhat like maybe an Amazon does yeah well I think the the nice thing about the the slide downs that are
[00:12:21] at the top they're not invasive right so they look good they they mesh with the style of the website generally they they start off kind of small and then if you're interested you can click it and
[00:12:36] you can expand it but you don't you don't feel like you've been attacked you know so I love the I love that little minimal bar at the top that slides down I love that pop down option just because of
[00:12:48] the experience of it all and generally they're visually appealing as well um you can incorporate your brain colors or whatever you want to do with it right but yeah but you know if we look at Amazon
[00:13:03] I like I like looking at them I like looking at things that that operate outside of our industry because Amazon has a billion times more traffic than we're gonna get on any one website right so they
[00:13:19] they have probably a team of people analyzing behavior and how people use their site and how people look for things like special deals and whatnot and obviously they don't have pop-ups anywhere on their website you know so what they've obviously learned something that that we haven't learned yet
[00:13:41] so so what do they do they they incorporate these specials they do coupons or they show you that it's currently discounted 40% or whatever it is they show you those type of things
[00:13:55] and it's generally right next to the price so it's you know it's a cool thing that we can use and compare when trying to figure out what to do here yeah so so bringing that in over
[00:14:08] entire industry it's like okay you have the site wide thing but you should bring it down also because those are what I call decision-making tools right so I'm there I'm looking for a one
[00:14:20] bad room and I should be able to you know let's say I just have too many ones and I want to run a special just on the ones right because I'm fine I has no reason to run you know free run on the whole place
[00:14:35] right I just got to get rid of these ones so I should have the ability to also put a special down on a floor plan and and then I think going even deeper I should have the ability to put a special
[00:14:51] one a unit because again I could I could have a unit it's in the back yeah it's near the dumpster nobody wants to live there right so I might have got murdered in any of the deal you know so
[00:15:06] so it's it's it's a little weird I'm having trouble moving it so let me let me just pop a hundred box of mouth off this baby and see if I can move it right because it just doesn't show well for
[00:15:16] some reason yeah so so why not put bring that down a notch and it's another way in this world and we talked about this I think on our last podcast optimizing revenue right so if we're just
[00:15:33] gonna give away the farm up front with with all these specials and we're gonna we're gonna shower and we pop ups and all this stuff what we look at what we got trouble moving and and work it
[00:15:46] down that way that that's the way I personally like I want somebody to get into it and be what I call a little bit invested so if we just look at the stats I'm I'm driving half of my users
[00:16:00] off the site right when they come to it according to SEM Russ report because they got hit with a and in that pop up is for a special right so it's like well let's figure out if they actually
[00:16:14] want to live here before we start attacking on with the specials right they might they might take one look at this community say you know what this just isn't where I want to be let me
[00:16:23] should see where this is at on the map or let me see are there you know are their price ranges even in the neighborhood of what I want to pay right so before you start attacking them with
[00:16:36] with those specials let's get them interested in the community let's get them looking at the floor plans and maybe specifically the units and then offer them it is better Amazon theory
[00:16:48] guys here for garden hose and hey look they're just happens to be a garden hose and you know Amazon's pretty good at you know well I know what he's looking for now let me you know let me
[00:17:03] let me add you him along here look here here's an alternate you know and try to get you to buy something and like you said this guy's have more traffic than anybody in the world so they they know
[00:17:14] how users interact on the internet they they probably have a team Jimmy that just studies how people interact with that site that's right that team is probably bigger than you know a lot of companies
[00:17:28] that one team so so at the end of the road are those not our better alternatives do we need in my humble opinion we need not just a pop up thing right we need three things we need it
[00:17:43] well we need four things number one we need to get rid of pop ups so that's number one on the list number two an announcement bar nice clean but but you can see it you can see it's a special
[00:17:58] I think most people look for these now it's part of the site it's not gonna get you know made laid Bob browser if you want a special you know where to look for them exactly yeah so
[00:18:10] so there's that my other tier is I'm looking to rent units right so what's a unit type to a floor plan so if I need to move a floor plan or all the floor plans or whatever I should be able to bring
[00:18:25] that special on to the floor plan and then and then coming down another notch I should actually be able to put that special on a unit if I need to if I if I have a problem unit and I'm like you know
[00:18:37] what I don't want to discount all my one bedrooms but I got this one that's just a problem child I'm gonna go ahead and dump a hundred bucks off of that one and see if I can get somebody in it
[00:18:50] so I think there needs to be three tiers of specials I know we do some of this stuff and then let me throw one more thing at you also if somebody's ready to apply there should be some
[00:19:06] things you can do in there right if you need to nudge someone over the fence and I know that we've done some of this for some customers in the applications is I want to give you a one time discount code for you to go apply
[00:19:21] right now maybe the app fee you know because that that's to me that's the first line of defense right if I can move prices is hey look half off your app fee oh man in one time code you
[00:19:34] use it and it's no more good they can't give it away so you get to have that set up or you could say look I'm gonna run a special with a code and it's good for 30 days and being able to set that special
[00:19:47] and then it then it goes away oh man you know I work the little bit on e-commerce sites and we used to do things where if somebody spent more than x number of minutes and it wasn't a lot but it was
[00:20:01] enough right they spent more than say five minutes on the website generate them a coupon code you know five percent off or something like that and then give it to them you know in a variety
[00:20:15] of different ways sometimes it was through retargeting ads on Facebook or whatnot but that would be a cool thing is like hey they're here they're looking and they spent more than a few minutes like
[00:20:26] and they need that nudging at that point yeah give them just a small discount to apply get them in the door once they once they gave you their their information and you ran their credit
[00:20:38] then they're pretty invested at that point I probably can have and that and that's what's the code towards it check out on an application because any of your discount codes are what when you buy something
[00:20:49] yeah so I think that's another layer in the arsenal that you can use if you feel hey you know I got too many units I gotta start coming up with some ways to give people incentives
[00:21:06] to live here and I think far too often not only is it the knee-jerk reaction with a pop up but it's also a knee-jerk reaction with let me run this massive concession because I gotta get rid of some units
[00:21:20] well you know the pop ups I mean the pop ups must work that's why all the IOSs have pop ups right wrong none of them have pop ups and you're not putting them there so yeah I'm with the other
[00:21:33] pop ups you know I honestly I don't see pop ups at much anymore I think there's a media side I go to but they're trying to get you to subscribe the pay for right to read articles
[00:21:45] so something comes up like oh you can't read this you know you you have to subscribe so I think there's some of that out there but other than that I don't really encounter these things yeah I would say
[00:21:57] then majority of people have figured it out the big guys have figured it out yeah so Jimmy to put a pin in this one here's my final thoughts I think multi-family marketers need to rethink pop ups I'm assuming that's where they're originating from
[00:22:19] just based on what we know they push users off the site and increase bounce rates and with all the blockers that we're talking about and I know you saw four engineers have
[00:22:32] created a hack what we did but you know people of obviously the built-in to the browser's for reason and I'm sure they're working on a hack for your hack a lot of these pop ups you know again
[00:22:49] the pin on how they built them that might not even see the light a day so with that said especially the bounce rate thing your final thoughts are we are we flirting with an ESEO here oh man
[00:23:04] yeah we didn't even touch on the SEO so I'll touch on that real quick you touch on the SEO and your final thought okay so and I've done some research on this and so there's actually a lot of
[00:23:16] people out there that that in proof that pop ups actually hurt your SEO and I can promise you they there are no in no way does it help right so yeah based on what I've seen it does it can
[00:23:31] hurt your SEO some people say it doesn't but we know for sure it's not helping so you know if you are concerned with your SEO at all I would steer clearable but that being said if you
[00:23:44] would coordinate the support if you're scared and off let's just say they're half wrong you know I got up 41 to 55% let's just throw out an abacement say 20% of people leave it is you can have
[00:23:58] all the SEO in the world if you're running people away from your site because they're encountering a distraction they don't want to deal with then it doesn't do you any good anyway that's not
[00:24:13] all right so Jimmy on this one I want to thank everyone for joining us you can find us streaming everywhere and be sure to visit sunline at multifamilytechgooros.com until next time I'm Kerry Kirby along with Jimmy Lancaster and we are the multi-family techgooros