Cats and Dogs. Apples and Oranges. Oil and Water. There are historical pairings that society has come to accept that inherently don’t mix.
For editors and publishers, the same can ring true when targeting audiences with specific headlines. You might assume a reader of a finance related article will be interested in browsing stocks, investments and business growth next—but you might be surprised to learn what interests them more.
Take cats and dogs, for example, our data showed that 43 percent of readers who regularly read articles about cats, also read articles about dogs. Sorry internet cat lovers, it turns out that you likely love dogs just as much.
In the case of finance, readers of stocks and investments spend more time reading about tennis and golf than any other sport.
We live in an ‘attention economy’ where publishers and content marketers alike have to think outside the box to keep readers engaged. One of the reasons content recommendation engines like Taboola are both successful and necessary is that they capitalize on the reader’s attention span to better predict what topics a user might be interested in consuming next. Publishers should take a page in “Discovery” when looking to keep their readers engaged by suggesting news items they may be interested in, but probably don’t know existed.
Spoiler alert: it’s not always more of the same!
So what are some of the most interesting reading consumption pairings? Data scientist, Philip Olenyk took a look at our network and we found a few correlations you wouldn’t have thought go together.
Travel and Hobbies
Traveling and hobbies might seem like an obvious correlation, but that’s not the case when you get more granular. Do certain dream vacation destinations hold significance to hobbies? Yes!
Folks who spend time reading articles about photography tend to also spend time reading about trips to the Caribbean and France. Meanwhile, people who are interested in getting published, gravitate towards trips to Australia, New Zealand, and Italy.
Women’s Fashion and Automobiles
When you think of reading about automobiles, chances are you think about the male demographic. So how could you better target a female audience? Well, looking at female fashion consumption, we actually noticed significant ties to types of cars.
For example, Women who are into shoes are most likely to be interested in Ford. Women who spend time reading about earrings are reading about Subaru and Hondas. While women who are looking for sunglasses skew towards Chrysler.
Science and Sports
Traditionally, you might not think readers of sports are interested in science, but upon closer inspection, the correlation isn’t far fetched. Readers of bodybuilding content show an interest in statistics and physics while readers of baseball tend to research the history of science and surgery.
What can publishers take away?
The more time you spend getting to know your readers, the better you can serve them articles they are going to find interesting and valuable. In today’s world, there is a wealth of data at our fingertips and it’s important that we tap into it to keep users engaged.
Taboola is the world’s leading content discovery platform, serving 360B recommendations to over 1B unique visitors each month on the web’s most innovative publisher sites. To learn more about how Taboola can help you, contact us or start your campaign today.