With the arrival of the Internet and the urgent need to position content within search engines to generate organic traffic, clickbait began to be overused and slowly lost its effectiveness.
Beyond the negative connotations it has acquired due to its employment database overuse, the essence of clickbait is to use a provocative description and a catchy title to provoke reactions, emotions, and controversy in users; in this way, it is possible to motivate them to take a desired action.
It's now fully proven that clickbait is effective: the reasons these headlines powerfully arouse viewers' curiosity are related to the human brain and the reward system.
In line with what we said earlier about the need for information, when a person performs a positive action, the brain releases dopamine as a reward. Clickbait works on this logic: by sparking a user's curiosity through a headline, they will grow more inclined to answer their questions, and they will click the link to receive that reward.
It's common to find sites that use this technique with ambiguous links that don't lead to relevant content, but rather to websites with excessive images, videos, or other elements that don't address the user's needs.
Below, we present some of the most commonly used persuasion techniques for creating impact with clickbaits:
Suspenseful language. "Mary tried a new beauty product: you won't believe what happened next." Narrations like this are effective because they generate curiosity about how the story continues.