Should We Wait to Promote?: The Effect of Timing on Response to Pop-Up Promotions

This paper highlights a large scale field experiment conducted at an informational website where the timing of pop-up promotions being offered were varied. Specifically, I examine the effect of these promotions during the course of a web user’s online experience. Often, these promotions are viewed by the web user as a nuisance that interrupts his or her online experience. Other times, these offers are perceived as providing useful information, thereby enriching their website experience. This paper proposes that the internet user’s response to the pop-up promotion will vary depending not only on his or her own information seeking objectives at a particular online site but also on the timing of the promotion itself, in terms of when during the online session it is offered. Models of the web user’s reaction to the promotion in terms of (1) a direct response to the promotion (i.e., click-through on the pop-up) and (2) any indirect response in terms of changes in the user’s probability of exiting the site (i.e., exiting either earlier or later than expected) are developed and estimated.