There are a staggering 1.12 billion websites in the world, but about 50% of the content of even the most popular websites goes unread
Release Date – 12:30 AM, Wed – 21 June 23
Balgav Reddy P
This is something we are all too familiar with. You log into your favorite website – like Instagram or a news site. You scroll through some posts or read some articles. Then, almost instantly, you see a steady stream of content that you just can’t ignore. When you realize that you’re spending more time on the site than you expected, you’ll walk down a carefully laid path interspersed with links that pique your interest. All of this is by design.
Most websites today track your interests and serve you content that allows them to keep you on their platform for hours. There are a staggering 1.12 billion websites in the world. But even on the most popular sites, about 50% of their content goes unread. Forget humans, managing and ingesting all this content is straining the resources of the biggest tech companies. Faced with such an overwhelming amount of content, websites need to prioritize what they show their users to maximize engagement and revenue.
Tech entrepreneur Jeff Hammerbacher once lamented that “the smartest people of our generation are thinking about how to get people to click on ads.” However, most sites are free and advertising is their only source of income. So showing people what they like in order to increase the odds of them clicking on an ad is an existential challenge. Ads themselves are targeted. This personalization is table stakes in today’s world, which is why every platform has armies of engineers and data scientists whose responsibility it is to make the most of our scarce attention spans. They do this by curating content experiences that resonate with our interests, ultimately leaving us wanting to come back for more.
If you’re wondering how they did it, here’s a glimpse of the magic behind the scenes.
Service Content
For any platform, the major problem of our time is to provide the most relevant information to users with diverse interests. As a result, digital platforms employ sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to analyze vast amounts of data about our preferences, behaviors and interactions. By tracking our clicks, likes, shares, and even the time we spend on different types of content, they can gain insight into our interests. Armed with this knowledge, they employ powerful recommendation systems to deliver personalized content that grabs our attention and keeps us hooked. These platforms do this by focusing on three key areas:
* Personalization: Provide personalized content tailored to user preferences by leveraging user data, including browsing history, demographics and engagement patterns.
* User Experience: Create a delightful user experience with intuitive navigation and mobile optimization to ensure users can easily access their favorite content across devices.
* Content Quality: Invest in well-researched articles, informative videos, engaging images, engaging stories – and regularly update content based on user engagement.
To support this agility, companies rely on products equipped with this capability. Adobe Experience Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud are two popular products. For businesses on a tight budget, Google Marketing Platform offers most of these features in a generous free tier.
In my experience as a Customer Experience Architect at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, I’ve seen how quickly these tools can improve engagement. The company wanted to convert more visitors into buyers. Recognizing the importance of delivering custom content, we partnered with Adobe’s content personalization tools. We analyzed user data to generate personalized recommendations based on engagement patterns. The impact is significant. Users who receive such referrals report higher satisfaction, spend more time on our site, and show higher click-through rates, longer session durations, and more social media shares.
interactive influence
Our interactions determine not only what is shown to us, but what is created in the first place. Savvy content creators use data from our collective engagement to drive sales. A new generation of content creators is adapting to user preferences at breakneck speed. Have you ever wondered why a certain web series went off the air? Poor user reception is probably the most likely prospect. The company’s ability to mine user data and incentivize producers to create content that finds an interested audience eliminates much of the waste. In that sense, it’s a win-win for everyone.
As a first-time home buyer in California a few years ago, I have been the beneficiary of data-driven recommendations on real estate platforms. Since my offline efforts to zero property are not going well, I wanted to check out some platforms. Over a long weekend, I scoured the platforms, tweaking my search by adding variables one by one—price point, location, government incentives, etc. Over time, I saw that the platform recommended properties outside of the area I was looking for. Ultimately, we decided to buy one of the recommended places. The process is non-intrusive, convenient, and over time we can see how the platform better understands our needs.
Creating and distributing content is relatively easy these days. The real challenge lies in prioritizing and creating custom experiences that resonate with audiences. Fortunately, with the advent of sophisticated tools, this process is accessible from any platform. So next time you log onto your favorite website, take a moment to appreciate the magic behind it.
