Clickbait Subject Lines: You Won’t Believe the Results

“Email on the Move” by rawpixel on Unsplash

Clickbait is a pejorative term for a headline-writing technique that online publishers have been using for years to drive traffic to websites, more often than not featuring paper-thin content, in the hope of driving advertising impressions and revenues.

You only need to click on a clickbait-type headline a couple of times to realize you’ve been duped — like a fish finding itself on a hook after biting down on a juicy worm.

The thing about clickbait is that it nearly always leaves a bad taste in your mouth. The content is rarely as sensational, awe-inspiring or informative as the headline promises, and quite often, it simply wastes your time.

Note: As an ex-newspaperman, I’m constantly perplexed as to why any editor would allow their “quality” content to be sullied by clickbait-style advertising partnerships (see below). In an age when ad-blocking software robs publishers of much-needed revenue, I guess many are just desperate for the cash they generate, although I cannot help but feel it’s a rather short-term plan for a very uncertain future.

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The basic premise of clickbait is that all traffic is good traffic. This doesn’t work in the world of email marketing, where long-term relationships are far…