As you already know, advertising and promotion on the Internet can take on a myriad of different formats and some of these may be more effective than others under different circumstances. For a great number of years, pop-up ads worked remarkably well for many industries, especially as the prevalence of so-called “ad blindness” continued to rise. It became easier to ignore traditional banner ads, but pop-ups (and pop-unders) are far more difficult for users to ignore and this meant that publishers and advertisers could see better engagement rates.

And as mobile use continues to rise, even surpassing traditional desktop and laptop use by some measures, it only makes sense that Google wants to prioritize the mobile experience. Websites with responsive or mobile-friendly designs are given preferential treatment in the search engine rankings. When Google announced that it would be cracking down on mobile pop-ups, Internet marketers from clear across the globe let out a collective gasp.

What would this mean for their marketing efforts? Does this mean that the age of the mobile pop-up ad is already dead?

The short answer is no. It just means you need to approach the ad format in a slightly different way.

Keep in mind here that Google’s objective is to provide the best possible user experience. As a result, the main types of mobile ads that it is starting to penalize are ones that make for a poorer user experience. If a pop-up is intrusive, particularly as a standalone interstitial or one that blocks the main content as soon as the user arrives on the webpage, that’s not good in Google’s eyes. This is just one of the signals Google will use for SEO purposes, and if you are strong in other areas it may overlook it, but this is still something to keep in mind.

Given this, what are some general guidelines and tips you should be following if you wish to continue using mobile pop-ups as part of your overall marketing mix?

1. Use pop-up banner ads that do not occupy the entirety of the screen on a mobile device. This is perhaps the most important tip in the context of mobile ads. There is no hard and fast rule here, but Google has indicated that if a banner “uses a reasonable amount of screen space,” the website and webpage will not be penalized. A good example of this would be an ad that pops up to occupy the top quarter or the bottom quarter of the screen. This still allows the main content of the webpage to be easily visible and scrolled through, all while providing good visibility to the ad too.

2. Never use mobile pop-up ads upon page load. Pop-up ads can be triggered by a number of different types of events and one of the most common used to be upon page load. As soon as the user arrives on the site, the pop-up appears. This is now highly discouraged, both from a user experience standpoint and in the eyes of Google’s algorithm. Indeed, over two-thirds of users are much more inclined to simply leave the site if they find that it has too many ads.

Instead, have the pop-up load either after some period of time has passed (at least 30 seconds) indicating that the user is indeed interested in the content you have or have it load after the user has scrolled through at least half the article, also indicating an elevated level of interest and engagement. Better still, implement the ad such that it only loads when the user has reached the end of a blog post, for example. The user is very interested in your material and likely is interested in more. Hit them when they are at their most receptive.

3. Utilize the pop-up ad as an intermediary. The initial inclination for many affiliates is to use a pop-up ad to promote an affiliate offer directly. Perhaps a more fruitful strategy is to use the pop-up ad to promote an internal offering first. This could be to encourage a visitor to subscribe to your email list or to download premium content, like an ebook. Then, inside the email newsletter or premium content, you can promote one or more affiliate products. Pop-ups are very effective for increasing email subscriptions, boosting the opt-in rate for Entrepreneur.com by 86 percent and even converting up to 1375% better than static forms, according to an experiment by Aweber. This has the added advantage of keeping the user within your sales funnel, making it easier for you to promote additional offers over the long-term.

4. Never use pop-up ads to promote purchase links. While the click-thru rate on mobile pop-up ads can be quite good, the actual conversion rate can be more of a challenge. This is especially true in the context of e-commerce where conversion rates are among the lowest. Users are far less likely to complete an “add-to-cart” type click from a pop-up on a smartphone. This relates back to tip #3 above. Use the pop-up to pull the user deeper down your sales funnel and complete the conversion in the next step instead, whether that’s through premium content or an email subscription.

5. Advertise in mobile apps instead. A big part of the whole concern over the state of mobile pop-up ads has to do with Google search engine rankings. It does not affect advertising in mobile apps, since they are not at the mercy of the same algorithm. Whether you are monetizing your own app or you are buying advertising through a marketplace (or directly through an app publisher), the latter of which can provide remarkably cheap CPMs and CPCs, full page interstitial pop-ups are still very much the norm here.

Again, it is likely in your best interest to avoid a direct “add-to-cart” type ecommerce link for your mobile pop-up inside of an app. Use the interstitial to promote a sale on your mobile e-commerce site, your own mobile app, or some other possible intermediary. Some of the bigger mobile ad networks in this space include AdMob, mMedia, Adfonic, and Tapjoy. Some ads are designed to reward users with virtual currency in exchange for an action, which could be perfect for pay-per-install type CPA offers, for example.

Advertising will always continue to evolve on the Internet. Adapting to the smaller screen of a mobile device and keeping up with changes to Google’s algorithms are only one part of the equation, but you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot by starting at a disadvantage either. Avoid full-screen, intrusive pop-ups, especially for mobile traffic, and always keep the end user experience in mind.

A good thing about e-commerce is having everything whitehat. I mean, you sell whatever you want, you control prices, products, ads, shipping and so on. It is believed that doing e-commerce grant you all the freedom of money making on the internet. They say that e-commerce is much more like a real business, and that’s the main advantage of it.
Now let us look and compare if a whitehat e-commerce is really better than COD or other Affiliate practice. Let us see.
The truth is the advantages of the e-commerce are the point of argue.

1. E-Commerce is absolutely whitehat.
But whitehat product never guarantees that you will not be banned. It is abuses what makes your account flagged. So if you try to sell some stuff from AliExpress that has a real price of $2.00 or $4.00 with your own price $19.99 – it seems that people will be abusing such shops on Facebook and one day you will be banned.
The second thing is that whitehat schemes usually do not give a 3 digit ROI. Having 40-50% is luck in E-Commerce, so it definitely loses in this very way.

2. You can run any product you like.
It gives you not only the choice but also troubles. So, AliExpress has millions of products you may try to promote. But you never know which one will do well. So you need to run it at your own risk.
As for the affiliate products (especially COD ones) – you always deal with the offers that have been tested by the affiliate network. COD-products are tested at first, then added to the interface.
If the product is not competitive enough – the network will stop it or will not be running at all. Of course, they can never guarantee that a product will be suitable for you personally, but at least they give you a tested product.

3. E-Commerce is a stable income.

It isn’t, in fact, because your income depends on a product you are trading. If purchases depend on seasons or other conditions – your total volumes will not be stable at all. By the way, you can never say “stable” about business.
They also say that if your online shop is a success – you can sell it for reasonable money and that will be additional income. Well, creating business for a future sale has nothing similar with media buying. I suppose it’s quite a different niche of business, so I can’t comment it.

4. You are creating a real business.
But in most ways, people hate doing “real business”. Affiliate Marketing is the way to make money without having all the troubles of real business. When doing E-commerce you have to work with supplies, shipping, finances, taxes, salaries, hiring employees and so on. This, in fact, is the coin of two sides. From the first sight, such skills are useful for the marketers. But most people deal with the affiliate marketing because it is easy to start. Having your own e-commerce product means to have LOTS of things under control while doing Affiliate Marketing is just an easier version of online business.
What is more, when you start doing E-commerce – you can’t give in. You cannot stop the process immediately. Otherwise, your loss will be high. As for the affiliate marketing – you may switch your traffic between the networks, split test, try more offers or just give it up in a moment. And you will not be losing money.

5. E-commerce is a marketing freedom.

Running an e-commerce project allows you to play your own game. So you set the price, create a landing page, pre-lander have everything under a total control. This is quite a good thing when you are well-experienced and your plan works. Of course, you may use an e-commerce platform to build your online shop for free, but there is no platform that will be creating angles for you. You will have to create angles on your own. You will have to compose pre-landers at your side and so on. The total responsibility about the traffic is yours. As for the affiliate marketing especially COD niche, you are given the most effective landers and creative materials, well-converting ones. At the same time, you are allowed to create any new angle at your side.

As for the products and prices you’re going to use: the price is economically tested by a network and the advertiser. I mean, you are given the terms which are the most suitable to meet both the demands of a network/advertiser and the affiliate’s. You do not need to test it on your own. Either you are provided with the effective creative materials and landers. The only thing you are in fact to do is just media-buying. And that’s it.
To sum it up, I just want to specify that e-commerce is a hardcore level of CPA-marketing. It is quite a good way to do your business, but there is plenty of stuff you need to have under control beside media-buying. Running e-commerce cannot guarantee you any success. To be honest, running COD does not guarantee any success as well, but at least you will be using a proven method.

The market of Internet marketing is growing faster than we can imagine. There are tools for spying, advanced tracking tools, tools that construct landers and pre-landers. There are also services that combine everything within a single interface. Very soon the market will change and e-commerce niche will become even more popular and effective. But nevertheless, COD model for affiliate networks will remain effective just because of the advantages mentioned in this text.