You ever ask the question why they would want to be a clickbait factory?
Because it pays the bills, unfortunately. Google has sucked up all the advertising dollars that used to pay for media and the rest of the world is now doing card tricks to earn scraps to pay the bills.
I disagree. You could A/B test two good, accurate, well-written headlines and stay clear of clickbait altogether. Sure, you're still optimising for the most popular, but "clickbait" doesn't just mean "well performing", there's also an implication of duplicity.
I have a modicum of experience here. I write for another online media company and, although we produce our own headlines, we are 'strongly encouraged' to write clickbait headlines, to the extent where we are asked to remove instances of specific product names (etc.) in order to be mysterious and not give the game away too early. (Yes, in case it wasn't clear, I hate this!)
I didn't argue that it isn't?
I was agreeing; anyone who admits to using A/B headline testing is just admitting to be a clickbait factory.
You ever ask the question why they would want to be a clickbait factory?
Because it pays the bills, unfortunately. Google has sucked up all the advertising dollars that used to pay for media and the rest of the world is now doing card tricks to earn scraps to pay the bills.
I disagree. You could A/B test two good, accurate, well-written headlines and stay clear of clickbait altogether. Sure, you're still optimising for the most popular, but "clickbait" doesn't just mean "well performing", there's also an implication of duplicity.
I have a modicum of experience here. I write for another online media company and, although we produce our own headlines, we are 'strongly encouraged' to write clickbait headlines, to the extent where we are asked to remove instances of specific product names (etc.) in order to be mysterious and not give the game away too early. (Yes, in case it wasn't clear, I hate this!)