Your Ultimate Marketing Glossary

What is Clickbait?

Picture yourself scrolling through your phone, and suddenly, you come across a bold, intriguing headline that captures your attention. Your curiosity builds up and forces you to click on it, but when the page loads, all you see are ads and fluff language. The striking headline leads to either ads or exaggerated content. Almost like a friend who says, “I have shocking news!" only to reveal that they met an old friend. Mildly interesting, but does not meet your expectations. Click-baits work just like that. They rush your adrenaline, build curiosity or fear, and make sure you click, or you'll feel like you're missing out. 

Imagine reading this, “This one shocking discovery will change your life forever,”  you will instantly be driven to click, only to meet with disappointment. Click-baits may seem misleading, but they are designed to make users click every time. 

Why is Clickbait Effective?

A clickbait will make you feel like you're missing out if you don't click and read what's inside. So it clearly works with human psychology, as our curiosity increases, the click becomes necessary. Let's see how it works: 

1. Curiosity Gap: The technique clickbait uses is the build-up of curiosity in people and uses that curiosity to make people click on a piece of content. It makes you feel like you'll miss something special if you don't click and read. So It creates a mystery of something you don't know, but want to know. 
2. Emotionally Charged: Clickbaits are presented in such a way that they trigger deep emotional responses from the audience. They may create suspense, horror, shock or even extreme curiosity
3. Instant Gratification: In a fast-paced world of today, people's attention span is getting shorter and shorter. They want to engage with the content that promises instant dopamine with fast answers and quick entertainment. 
4. Social Sharing: Imagine seeing a sensational headline, you send it to a friend. And your friend ends up sending to others, before we know it, that content is everywhere. So clickbaits are extremely easy to share, and they end up getting viral.  

Why Do Companies Use Clickbait?

We know that clickbait generates traffic to a website or digital content, so companies will definitely use this strategy to gain more visitors and make their content rank on top in the digital world. Let's look at some of these following reasons: 

1. Driving Traffic: Businesses put up catchy and bold headlines to attract traffic to their websites and ads. They turn this short moment of people's curiosity into solid clicks. 
2. Increasing Ad Revenue: Mainly publishers have to rely on ads for making income. The more clicks they get, the higher the revenue. Clickbaits succeeds easily in getting these clicks from people.  
3. Building Brand Awareness: Many businesses got noticed  because of these clickbaits. Even if people don't stay on the page for long, this short click interaction improves a business’s visibility and its ability to be remembered. 
4. Growing Social Media Engagement: The catchy headlines and bold claims make it easier for people to keep sharing that content. And then, people end up making it viral as it's quite easy to share as well. 
5. Encouraging Curiosity: These companies use human psychology wrapped in a clickbait to draw out curiosity. Now this curiosity factor forces their customers to engage with their services or products. They do succeed by using these attention-grabbing clickbaits. 

Pros and Cons of Clickbait

Pros:

1. High Click Rates: We know that click rates are accelerated when clickbaits are used. Attention is grabbed, curiosity is built, and this results in people clicking frequently. 
2. Virality Potential: You can easily share clickbait content over and over again, this is the reason why it goes viral in such a short period of time. 
3. Boosts Brand Visibility: When people click on these clickbait headlines, they automatically make a business appear on the front. As more people come through these bold clickbait headlines, they get the benefit of visibility. 
4. Generates Engagement:  Since these clickbaits are catchy and bold, they make us want to read more. So, as we click and read more, we increase content engagement. 

Cons:

1. Loss of Trust: But clickbaits are often misleading because they're not giving us what is promised on the main headline. 
2. High Bounce Rates: One major con is the high bounce rate. People often click to read more, but they're met with misleading information, so they don't bother staying any longer and leave quickly out of frustration. So this damages things like session time. 
3. Negative Perception: Balance is key to a successful approach, but businesses sometimes end up putting too many clickbaits. So this hurts their prospects to present themselves as a trustworthy company. 
4. Algorithm Penalties: Sometimes businesses try to outsmart the system by putting too many misleading clickbaits. So platforms like Facebook stop showing that content to their audience. Sadly, this ends up hurting the business. 

The Right Way to Use Clickbait

There's always a right way to use everything. When it comes to clickbaits, you don't have to mislead your audience. You can simply use it to your advantage as it's a powerful tool to attract traffic: 

1. Be Honest: Honesty is always the best policy, go for it. Don't trick your users by not giving them the content promised on the headline. Try not to damage their trust just for clicks. 
2. Add Value: Fulfil your claim, give them what was written on the headline. When you meet their expectations, users then engage fully, without leaving in complete frustration.
3. Use Sensationalism Wisely: We are sentient beings, and emotions do get to us. But try to use these emotional or sensational headings carefully. Make sure that they speak for your brand. 
4. Focus on Quality: Try not to compromise on the quality of your content. You need to make sure that your content is of high quality so that your customers remain loyal and engaged. It's also a great way to reduce the bounce rate. 
5. Test Headlines: You can test out your headings to see which one performs better. Use the trustworthy A/B testing method to check. But make sure you're testing while keeping their trust entact. 
6. Avoid Overuse: There's no need to use this clickbait technique too much. Try to use it to grab their attention, without going too far. 

Clickbait Examples

To understand clickbait more clearly, we can look at some of these examples and the context surrounding them: 

Example 1: "Doctors Are Shocked by This One Simple Trick to Lose Weight!"

Context: If you're someone who is looking to lose some weight or remain fit, their headline is yours to click. You will want to know whether this trick works or not. 

Example 2: "You Won’t Believe What Happened to This Celebrity Yesterday!"

Context: If you're someone who reads celebrity entertainment news or gossip, this headline  will feel just right to you. This headline brings out this curiosity for us to want to know who this mystery celebrity is. 

Example 3: "This Product Will Change the Way You Work Forever."

Context: This is a type of an ad headline that makes you want to explore which product they're talking about. It might be a miracle product that can help you out. 

Example 4: "10 Secrets Travel Agencies Don’t Want You to Know."

Context: Now when you read this heading, it will only excite you if you're a travel enthusiast. It's aimed at travel lovers who will love to benefit from these hacks. This heading makes it seem like using these secrets will make their next trips unforgettable.