Pop Ads: How Popunder Advertising Works for Crypto Campaigns (2027)

Pop ads are full-page ads that open in a new browser window or tab when a visitor clicks or navigates on a publisher site. A pop-up opens in front of the page the visitor is reading. A pop-under opens behind it and is seen when the visitor closes or minimizes their main window. Ad networks usually sell pop traffic on a CPM basis, and the only creative you need is a landing page.

For crypto teams, pop ads are a cheap way to buy a lot of page views quickly. They are also one of the easiest formats to waste money on, because a page view is not a reader, and a reader is not a wallet. This guide explains how pop ads work, where crypto advertisers buy them, what they are good and bad at, and how to test them against native ads so your budget follows real onchain results in 2027.

What Are Pop Ads?

A pop ad is a full-page ad unit that opens as its own browser window or tab instead of sitting inside the page layout. Bitmedia describes a pop ad as "a full-page or new-tab ad that opens in response to a user action, rather than sitting embedded in a page the way a banner does."

There are three names you will see on ad network dashboards:

1. Pop-up ads open a new window in front of the page the visitor is reading. They interrupt the session the moment they appear.
2. Pop-under ads open a new window or tab behind the active one. Coinzilla's format guide puts it plainly: "The pop-under format opens a window behind the content of the user's active window, containing the advertiser's landing page."
3. Clickunders are a pop-under triggered by a click anywhere on the page. Adsterra groups them together as "popunders, clickunders, or simply pops."

In practice, when crypto media buyers say "pop traffic" they almost always mean pop-unders. Pop-ups are the format browsers and users push back on hardest, so most networks sell the pop-under version.

One more distinction matters. The in-page "pop-up" overlays that cover an article with a newsletter box or a countdown are a different thing. The Coalition for Better Ads defines that pop-up as an ad that appears after page content starts to load and blocks the main content of the page. That is not what you are buying when you buy pop-under traffic, but both formats share the same problem: they are built to interrupt.

How Pop Ads Work

A pop campaign has fewer moving parts than a banner or native campaign. There is no ad slot, no headline and no image size to hit. Here is the sequence on a typical pop network:

1. A visitor lands on a publisher page. The publisher has installed the network's pop script.
2. The visitor triggers the pop. The trigger might be a click anywhere on the page, a button press or loading a new page. Bitmedia now lets advertisers choose which trigger fires the ad.
3. A new window or tab opens. For a pop-under, it loads behind the active window. For a pop-up, it opens on top.
4. Your landing page loads in full. The whole window is yours, so the landing page is the creative.
5. The visitor sees it later or closes it. With pop-unders, the visitor usually meets your page when they finish reading and close or switch windows.
6. You pay per thousand pops. Most networks bill pop traffic on CPM. Coinzilla lists a CPM payment model for its pop-under format, and PropellerAds offers automated CPM bidding through its SmartCPM option.

Frequency capping controls how often the same visitor sees your pop. This setting does more to change both cost and user experience than any creative tweak. Bitmedia's own advice for new pop campaigns is to "watch frequency and trigger settings closely in the first few days."

Pop-Up vs Pop-Under vs Native Ads

Crypto advertisers usually end up choosing between pop traffic and native placements, because both promise attention that banners struggle to earn. The formats behave very differently.

Pop-up ads

• How the visitor meets it: a new window opens on top of the page they chose to read.
• Attention: forced, immediate and often unwelcome.
• Main risk: blocked by default in most browsers, and the most likely format to annoy readers.

Pop-under ads

• How the visitor meets it: a full page waiting behind their main window.
• Attention: delayed. The visitor sees your page when they leave the content they actually came for.
• Main risk: high volume with weak intent. Many visitors close the window within seconds.

Native ads

• How the visitor meets it: a sponsored recommendation inside the publisher's own editorial feed.
• Attention: chosen. The reader clicks because the headline is relevant to what they are already reading.
• Main risk: lower raw volume per dollar than pops, so creative and headline quality matter more.

If you want the full breakdown of the native format, read our guide to native crypto ads. For static display, see our guide to crypto banner ads.

Where Crypto Advertisers Buy Pop and Native Traffic

Here are the ad networks crypto teams most often compare when they are deciding between pop traffic and native placements:

1. Mintfunnel - A crypto-native ad network for native placements, not pops. Mintfunnel ads appear as sponsored recommended content inside editorial feeds on crypto media sites. You pay per click from $0.25 or per 1,000 viewable impressions from $1.00, start with $50, and measure wallet connects, token swaps, token purchases and NFT purchases with built-in onchain attribution. It is the option to pick when you want readers who chose to click rather than windows that opened on their own.
2. Cointraffic - A crypto ad network with a dedicated pop-under product alongside display and native formats. It describes pop-unders as "full-page advertisements that open in new browser windows behind your active tab."
3. Coinzilla - A crypto ad network that sells pop-under inventory on a CPM model, next to banner and native formats.
4. Bitmedia - A crypto ad network that added pop ads to its dashboard in 2026, with trigger selection so the pop matches the flow of the publisher site.
5. PropellerAds - A general ad network with large popunder inventory and SmartCPM bidding. It accepts a wider range of verticals, so check its crypto policy and audience mix before you buy.
6. Adsterra - A general ad network that sells popunder traffic on CPM and CPA models. Like PropellerAds, its audience is not crypto-specific.

Crypto-specific networks matter here for the same reason they matter in display: a pop on a general entertainment site reaches far fewer people who own a wallet. For a wider list of networks and formats, see our roundup of top blockchain ad networks.

What Pop Ads Are Good For

Pop ads earn a place in some crypto media plans. They work best when:

• You need volume fast. Pop inventory is large, and a campaign can deliver a lot of page loads in a short window.
• Your landing page does all the selling. Because the full page is the ad, a strong, fast landing page with one clear action is the whole creative brief.
• You are testing geos. Bitmedia notes that pop traffic performs differently across regions and recommends segmenting by vertical and geo before scaling.
• The offer is simple and immediate. A clear, time-bound call to action, such as an event date or a new feature going live, is easier to act on from a pop than a complex protocol pitch.

Even Bitmedia, which sells the format, is careful about how far to push it. Its guidance is to launch "a small test budget parallel to an existing banner campaign, using the same offer, so results are directly comparable."

Where Pop Ads Fall Short for Crypto Projects

The weaknesses are just as real, and they hit crypto brands harder than most.

Browsers block them by default

Google Chrome blocks pop-ups by default and marks the address bar "Pop-up blocked" when it stops one. Users can also block pop-ups and redirects site by site. Before you buy, ask each network how it counts a pop that the browser stopped.

Users rank interruptive ads as the worst experience

The Better Ads Standards identify the ad experiences that fall below consumers' threshold of acceptability and are most likely to push people to install ad blockers. More than 150,000 consumers have taken part in the research. Pop-up ads appear on both the desktop and mobile lists.

Trust is the scarcest thing a crypto project has

Crypto readers are trained to be suspicious of anything that opens on its own and asks them to connect a wallet. A sudden new window promoting a token sale looks exactly like the scam pages they have learned to avoid. Even when your project is legitimate, the format borrows the reputation of every bad actor that used it first.

A page load is not a visitor

Pop networks typically count a pop when the window opens, not when someone reads it. Some visitors close the window without ever looking at it. That is why cheap pop CPMs can still produce an expensive cost per real action.

Low intent leaks into your metrics

Pop traffic can inflate sessions and pageviews while doing little for wallet connects or swaps. If your team reports traffic instead of onchain outcomes, pops will look better than they are. Our guide to crypto marketing metrics covers which numbers deserve a place in your weekly report.

How to Measure Pop Traffic Honestly

The only fair way to judge pop ads is on the same outcome you would use for any other channel: what happened onchain after the visit. Set up your measurement before the first impression runs.

• Tag every network and format separately. Use distinct UTM parameters for pop-unders, native and display so you can compare them line by line.
• Track onchain events, not just sessions. Wallet connects, token swaps, token purchases and NFT mints are the actions that matter. Onchain attribution ties those events back to the campaign that drove them.
• Watch time on page and bounce together. A pop campaign with a very short average session is telling you most windows were closed unseen.
• Compare cost per onchain action, not CPM. A cheaper CPM means nothing if the cost per wallet connect is five times higher.
• Check traffic quality. Pop inventory can carry invalid traffic like any other format. Ask every network how it filters bots and whether invalid impressions are credited back.

On Mintfunnel, every click passes through a six-layer verification pipeline covering IP reputation scoring, device fingerprinting, behavioral biometrics, click frequency analysis, referrer validation and post-click quality scoring. Invalid traffic is never billed, and impressions found invalid within 72 hours of billing are credited back, as described on the Mintfunnel ad network page.

Pop Ads vs Native Ads: Which Should a Crypto Project Buy?

The honest answer depends on the job you need the budget to do.

Choose pop-unders when you want raw volume, your landing page converts cold traffic well, and you are willing to treat the campaign as a short, tightly capped test.

Choose native ads when you need readers who chose to click, you care about how your brand looks next to editorial content, and you want to measure results in wallets and onchain value. Native placements meet crypto readers inside the content they came for, which is why the format suits token launches, DeFi protocols, exchanges and wallets that need trust before action.

Mintfunnel's native ads are built for that second job. You can choose per click from $0.25 for traffic and direct response, or per 1,000 viewable impressions from $1.00 for reach and awareness, with clicks free on CPM campaigns. An impression only counts as viewable when at least 50% of the ad's pixels are on screen in an active browser tab for at least one continuous second. That is a much stricter standard than counting a window that loaded behind the one the visitor is reading. If you are unsure which billing model fits, our help article on CPC vs CPM walks through the tradeoffs, and our guide to CPM advertising explains how to calculate it.

A Simple Pop vs Native Test Plan for 2027

If you want to know whether pop traffic deserves a line in your budget, run it head to head with native instead of on its own. Here is a seven-step plan your team can reuse:

1. Pick one offer and one landing page. Use the same page for both formats so the only variable is the traffic source.
2. Set one primary onchain event. Choose a single action, such as a wallet connect or a token swap, as the success metric.
3. Split a small budget evenly. Run a pop-under campaign on one network and a native campaign on Mintfunnel with similar spend. Mintfunnel campaigns can start at $50.
4. Cap pop frequency tightly. Start with a low cap so you measure fresh reach rather than repeat pops to the same people.
5. Segment by geo from day one. Keep regions in separate campaigns or ad sets so a weak geo does not hide a strong one.
6. Run long enough to judge. Give each campaign enough traffic to produce a meaningful number of onchain events before you compare.
7. Move budget to the lower cost per onchain action. Judge on cost per wallet connect or swap and onchain value, not on clicks, sessions or CPM.

This is the same approach Mintfunnel recommends for choosing between CPC and CPM: run both side by side with similar budgets, then put more money behind the one that wins on conversions. For the bigger picture on planning a paid crypto campaign across channels, see our guide to web3 advertising.

Frequently Asked Questions About Pop Ads

What are pop ads?

Pop ads are full-page ads that open in a new browser window or tab when a visitor clicks or navigates on a publisher site. A pop-up opens in front of the current page, and a pop-under opens behind it. Most networks sell pop traffic on a CPM basis, and the landing page is the creative.

What is the difference between pop-up and pop-under ads?

A pop-up opens a new window on top of the page the visitor is reading, so it interrupts them immediately. A pop-under opens behind the active window, so the visitor sees it when they close or minimize their main window. Pop-unders are the more common format in crypto ad networks.

Do pop ads work for crypto projects?

They can deliver a lot of page views at a low CPM, which makes them useful for quick tests and simple offers. They tend to struggle on trust and intent, both of which matter for wallet connects and token purchases. Judge them on cost per onchain action, not on CPM.

How are pop ads priced?

Pop traffic is usually sold per thousand pops on a CPM model, and some networks also offer CPA bidding. Because a pop is typically counted when the window opens, a low CPM can still hide a high cost per real visitor.

Does Mintfunnel sell pop ads?

No. Mintfunnel runs native ads that appear as sponsored recommended content inside editorial feeds on crypto media sites. You can pay per click from $0.25 or per 1,000 viewable impressions from $1.00, start with $50, and track onchain results in the same dashboard.

Are pop-under ads blocked by browsers?

Many are. Google Chrome blocks pop-ups by default and lets users block pop-ups and redirects site by site. Ask any pop network how it counts delivery so you only pay for windows that actually loaded.

Bottom Line

Pop ads are a volume tool. They can put your landing page in front of a lot of browsers quickly and cheaply, but crypto projects pay for that reach in trust and intent. If you test them, keep the budget small, cap frequency tightly and judge the result on onchain actions. When you want readers who chose to click and results you can measure in wallets, launch a native campaign on Mintfunnel with a $50 budget and see the onchain outcome for yourself.