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We have a modal/popup advertisement that appears whenever the user logins to their account and currently I added a "Do not show again" checkbox next to the ad so that it won't appear every time the user logs in. Our sales team wishes to remove that checkbox so that every time a user logs in, they see the advertisement and must close out of it. I want to convince them that keeping this checkbox is better for the user since it will reduce user frustration and will not affect sales. Is there any research that I can use as evidence for this claim?

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    Instead of playing user's advocate you could just let them experience the user's fury. Sadly the marketroids have those alerts with no opt out everywhere these days. It's a modern plague. It's everywhere. Apple is also guilty of that.
    – Anton Tropashko
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 12:42
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    The amount of times I get pestered with some f***wads decision to use a pop-up which only has the option "maybe later" and "no thanks" with no option for "never show me this garbage again" is beyond infuriating. Please forward this comment word-for-word to the sales team.
    – MonkeyZeus
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 14:03
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    I don't think there's a point in a "do not show again" option, it's unnecessarily complicated to keep this setting. Either you make a case for your users not wanting to see ads, then you should remove the popup altogether - or there's a (business) reason to show the ad to every user, then case you just force it on them.
    – Bergi
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 20:34
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    Giving user "do not show again" for an ads is the same as you not giving any ads at all, because if the option is there, almost everyone will choose that.
    – justhalf
    Commented Jul 19, 2023 at 7:17
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    Why is this a modal ad?? That's going to directly interfere with your users' ability to use your service. It should at most be inline with the content of the page.
    – Nonny Moose
    Commented Jul 19, 2023 at 15:50

2 Answers 2

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It won't just not work, user's minds will be trained to ignore it or anything that looks like it. Boy who cried wolf style.

It's called Habituation and it can hurt your marketing efforts. You want every dialog box about an event to be rare or unique, the brain will be forced to try and pay attention rather than use your long term memory.

More reading on this topic:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/24/people-ignore-security-warnings-browsing-web

https://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/psychwarnings.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness

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    so what you are saying is that by showing the pop up everytime, the user will get used to ignoring it so even when there is a new advertisement they will just ignore it?
    – Gene
    Commented Jul 17, 2023 at 22:14
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    @GeneLee yes. And since it's memory based we can safely assume any other popups that look like whatever you showing now. Any similarity in wording, imagery, etc. It will potentially trigger the same effect
    – Kitanga Nday
    Commented Jul 17, 2023 at 22:19
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    Related even if not identical: banner blindness
    – Luke Sawczak
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 12:12
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    Not only habituation, but possibly also annoyance. Frustration with the brand. Negative opinion increasing.
    – Pablo H
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 19:24
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    I have been so well trained in NOT clicking the highlighted CTA button that it sometimes takes me several attempts to report a phishing mail in my email client. I keep clicking 'don't report', because it's the small white button.
    – Skrrp
    Commented Jul 19, 2023 at 9:01
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I guess this is also a matter of finding the right argument for the sales team to hear you out. Here's what you can add to what has been already pointed out:

  1. Customer frustration leads to churn, meaning customers will stop doing business with you.
  2. Research by Esteban Kolsky shows that unhappy customers are more likely to share their negative experiences with others (13% share with 15 or more people).
  3. Only 1 in 26 unhappy customers will actually complain, so a lack of negative feedback doesn't mean they are satisfied.
  4. Customer expectations are high, and companies must work hard to meet and exceed them.
  5. According to PwC, 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand after just one bad experience, and 92% would abandon a company after two or three negative interactions.

This is the customer experience article I am referring to: https://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-experience-statistics/

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    I'll note that the article you cite explains why customer frustration should be avoided, but doesn't really cover the topic of modal dialogs. A better source might be something like Nielsen's Modal & Nonmodal Dialogs article (especially the "disadvantages" section), which concludes that "modal dialogs become problematic when used for noncritical activities." Mind you, Nielsen's article doesn't provide citation (though perhaps Nielsen's name recognition is enough for it to be convincing).
    – Brian
    Commented Jul 19, 2023 at 15:31
  • Do unhappy customers actually lead to less sales? In today's economic environment, I'd demand proof of this.....
    – Criticizing Israel not allowed
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 11:38

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