Introduction

In this digital world, grabbing the attention of your customers to drive sales to your business is becoming more and more important. At the same time, doing so is becoming difficult as well, because of the decreasing attention span of the mass population. As a result, businesses try out many approaches to direct the attention of their potential customers. One such approach is using clickbait in advertisements.

What is clickbait?

Clickbait is a form of advertisement, the primary purpose being to attract the viewer's attention. These ads then entice the viewers to click on the ad or the link shown, thus driving traffic to the targeted content. Click baits usually come in the form of headlines and meta descriptions of the target content. Effective click baits drive organic traffic to your content while not causing a severe bounce rate. It can also drive sales if there is synergy between the clickbait and the content you are trying to push.

Important characteristics of effective clickbaits

There are several factors that ensure the success of your clickbait advertisements.

1. Keyword Synergy - If the clickbait content is relevant to your content keywords, then the chances of the clickbait being successful is higher.

2. Content Synergy - If the clickbait reflects the content you are trying to push to your target audience, then the chances of the clickbait being successful is significantly higher. It also increases the traffic driven to your content to a large extent.

Why does clickbait work?

Click baits work and are so popular because of these simple reasons: 

1. They appeal to our curiosity and our tendency to seek instant gratification from the content we engage with.

2. They capitalize on our fear of missing out on popular trends and information, i.e., anything we may find important to ourselves.

3. They create a sense of urgency in the viewers of the advertisements to engage with the content promoted.

4. They contain a human interest element that invokes familiarity from the target audience.

5. They sensationalize information to maintain interest and engagement from the viewers.

Marketers design click baits in a manner that tries to grab our attention instantly and get us engaged with the target content. As such, successful click baits drive significant traffic to the target content. Moreover, it also increases brand awareness and potentially increases sales to the business as well.

Clickbait Examples

Not all click baits work completely on the target audience, due to various reasons. Regardless, using clickbait can be effective in driving traffic and increasing brand awareness in the target audience. Here are some examples of effective click baits that work like a charm -

1. "You will never believe...."

Click baits like this invoke curiosity among the viewers to learn about something that may be unique or surprising.

2. "Top 10 techniques to....."

Click baits designed in this manner create interest in learning something new and unique.

3. "This is what happens when you....."

Click baits built like this tend to invoke uncertainty among the viewers, instantly grabbing attention from the target audience.

4. "Find out how you can......"

Click baits like this engage with the audience by creating expectations among them about something that applies to their life to a certain extent.

5. "5 things you should know......."

Click baits like this grab the attention of the audience by promising them to provide new information about a certain object or incident. 

5 Tips to make successful clickbaits

Here are 5 tips that you can use to design a successful clickbait that drives traffic to your website or content -

1. Add keywords that are relevant to your website or content.

If you want to rank your content high or increase engagement with your ads, use keywords in the clickbait that are relevant to your target content or website.

2. Do not lie to the viewers.

You should ensure that viewers get what they expect from the content when they see the clickbait. Lying to your viewers is an instant death for your advertisement campaign.

3. Use popular trends to capitalize on the attention they garner from your target audience.

Using popular trends to design your clickbait will increase familiarity with your target audience. It will also increase the likelihood of your advertisements getting clicks from your target viewers.

4. Use teasers from target content to build up attention.

Make use of information from your content in designing the clickbait to build up attention and anticipation from your target audience. This will grant credibility to your clickbait and increase the chances of getting clicks through your ads.

5. Stand out with your opinions and back them up with evidence.

If you have information in your content that runs counter to the prevalent trends or norms, use that information to build your clickbait. But, you need to ensure that you are able to back up that information with proper evidence.

Final thoughts

Clickbaits can be quite effective in driving traffic to your target website or content, as long as they are used properly. But it is necessary to ensure that click baits designed and utilized remain true to the content promoted by the clickbait. Otherwise, it will backfire as viewers reject the ads and consequently increase the bounce rate.

Also, check out this post for important advertising abbreviations that aspiring marketers must know.

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