The Top Nine Things About Lists that Marketing Scientists don’t want you to know about

9. They know that any mention of a list is total baiting. People love lists. You’re here now, aren’t you?

8. They deliberately use an odd sounding number for the length of a list. Round numbers like 10 sound engineered.

7. They know that there’s a high reading completion rate on such a list. That is to say, the probability of a person clicking through to another page, right below the list, is high, thereby increasing overall ad impressions on a single visit.

6. They know that some of the most effective list titles contain a promise of insider information.

5. They know that a small percentage of the population creates lists, but a large percentage of the population cares about them.

4. They know that some people love to be ranked by other people. More specifically, the adulation that goes with being top ranked.

3. They know that at least 200,000 US People (Quantcast definition) visited one of the top five sites dedicated entirely to top 10 lists. It’s an industry unto itself.

2. They know they are an effective layout to embed ad units.

1. They know that lists are an effective, engineered, design pattern designed to evoke a very specific reaction.

And they really don’t care if you know it.

And there’s your jolt below: