Detailed Review of Pay Popup Advertising Service

Pay Popup is a popunder network which pays publishers for popunders as well as slide-in and standard banner ads. Pay Popup's service is unique in that it claims to pay for raw traffic--each impression counts as a hit, not each visitor. Like most popup services, Pay Popup has a 5 level referral service. Publishers are paid bi-weekly when their accounts reach a $50 minimum. Paypopup pays for international traffic from a variety of countries, though their CPM rates vary by country.

We have been using the Paypop services for quite some time on a test page which receives high levels of traffic. Over the course of our time with Pay Popup, we earned enough for the $50 minimum payout. However, this experiment will focus on a more limited 2 month test period. During this period, code provided by Pay Popup was placed on the test page, and stats were logged using an independent tracker. These stats were then compared with the stats from Paypop to determine accuracy of reporting and payment.

The results of the experiment appear below. Whenever possible, we have made efforts to document our data with screenshots. Some shots have been cropped to remove identifying information about the testpage, but none of the numbers have been altered in any way. We have also tried to be thorough in our reporting; not all sections of this review will be relevant to everyone, so feel free to skip around.

While Paypopup provides its users with a good deal of information, the interface is fairly difficult to navigate at first. There are two sections which provide the bulk of important information: "View Stats" and "Payment History". Clicking on "View Stats" followed by "Popunder Daily Report" provides figures for earnings and impressions, both aggregate and sorted by country:

While the "View Stats" panel is useful for daily information, "Payment History" provides information about total ad earnings, as well as referral earnings and past payouts:

The "Payment History" page also provides a calculated CPM. As mentioned earlier, Pay Popup pays for traffic from a large list of countries, though their CPM varies by country. If your site gets hits from different countries, your effective CPM will vary as a result of those hits. Here on the "Payment History" page, your effective CPM is displayed.

Our page receives international traffic, and as you can see, this is reflected by our $1.69 effective CPM. Although this CPM is lower than the $1.80 advertised by Pay Popup, most popunder services don't even pay for international traffic, and many won't display your effective CPM--the fact that Pay Popup does both is a bonus.

Overall, the Pay Popup interface is a bit confusing, but it provides all the necessary information once you figure out how to use it. The only thing the interface really lacks is good referral information. While total referral earnings are displayed, there is not way to see how many referrals you have, where they came from, what level of the 5-level pyramid they're on, etc.

Pay Popup gives you the information you need to manage your ads, but if they want to take their referral service seriously, they need to include more detailed referral information.

The Paypopup ads themselves are fairly dynamic--you can set a frequency cap, have the ad load after the visitor has viewed your page for a set amount of time, and decide whether the ad will load when the visitor enters the page or exits it. Within these categories there are many options--frequency caps range from 0 seconds to 30 days, and popup delays range from 1 second to 8 minutes.

Pay Popup also has an optional feature that it claims will disable popup blockers, thus increasing your earnings. However, when we tested it with a popular popup blocker it did not appear to have any effect.

Here is the data from Paypopup for our 2 month experiment period (July + August 2006):

So, according to Paypopup, our test page received 1,957 + 4,855 = 6,812 total hits over the test period. Looking at the data from our independent tracker:

The number of hits recorded is higher by a significant margin--54%. This discrepancy was large enough that we felt we should confirm it by looking at our server logs (this image was made by combining two monthly reports):

As you can see, the server logs corroborate the independent tracker, showing a total of around 13,000 hits during the test period.

Based on this data, it appears that Paypopup is under-reporting impressions by more than half, especially since they claim to pay for raw impressions. Although some of this can be explained by search engine spiders (who aren't served ads), people with popup blockers, and people who spend less than 5 second on the page, an error of 54% is still unsettling.

Although their traffic reporting leaves a bit to be desired, Pay Popup's CPM rate is competitive and fair. Unlike most advertising services, they pay for international traffic, and they disclose your effective CPM on your payment page. During our experiment, Pay Popup delivered $1.69 CPM--a rate which is consistent with the rates they advertise.

This is the biggy--many online services look professional and credible, but you never really know until they actually send you a check. Although our 2 month period was not long enough to earn the $50 required for payout, we had previously used Pay Popup for long enough to receive a check.

The Paypopup pay schedule is great for large sites--they pay out biweekly, so if you're earning more than $25/week, you'll get paid very frequently. Pay Popup offers three different payout methods: Paypal, check, and wire transfer (with a $3000 minimum for wire transfer).

Once we accrued enough money for a payout, Paypopup's parent company sent the check in about 15 days (some information has been concealed to protect both parties):

During our experiment, we had a few opportunities to deal with Paypopup customer service. Paypopup's support can be reached in two ways--there is a Live Help button on the site, and those with registered accounts can submit a support ticket through email. In all of our dealings with their customer service, Pay Popup responded with useful information, usually within 24 hours.

In terms of the design of the service itself, Paypopup's interface needs a bit of work, especially when it comes to the presentation of referral information.

In operation, Paypopup severely underreported impressions. Although a variety of factors affect popunder reporting, their percent error of 54% is high.

The Paypopup user interface is a bit confusing, but it provides a lot of information once you figure it out
Pay Popup gives you a lot of control over your ads, allowing you to set detailed caps and delays
With a percent error of 54%, Paypopup's reporting of impressions has some significant problems
With a $1.80 CPM and payouts for international traffic, Paypopup delivers a good return on the impressions it does report
Pay Popup's payouts are fast and reliable
Pay Popup's customer service is helpful and responds quickly

Although they have issues with reporting impressions, Paypopup offers very competitive CPMs, and they will actually pay you. While better services may exist, Paypopup's reliability and competitive rates make the service worth consideration despite the reporting issues.

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