We recently dug through three years of client campaigns and asked: What factors increase content's ability to earn links? Here's what we found.

3. 1.
Highly
emotional
2.
Broad
appeal
3.
Comparison
4.
Pop culture
themed

4. Our
Women in Video Games
campaign had all four
characteristics.
This single campaign
amassed nearly
900 placements
(e.g., BuzzFeed, Huffington
Post, MTV, and Vice).

5. It paired a highly emotional topic
(body image issues) with a strong visual
contrast. It also included a pop culture
theme that appealed to a niche
audience (video game fans) while also
resonating with a broader audience.

6. Content that evokes a strong
emotional response is extremely
effective at earning links.
HIGHLY EMOTIONAL1.

7. In fact, our campaigns that
earned 100+ placements were
3 times more likely to feature
a strong emotional hook than
less successful campaigns.
HIGHLY EMOTIONAL1.

8. Our Truth About Hotel
Hygiene campaign earned
over 700 placements thanks
to a high “ick” factor, which
gave it emotional resonance
paired with universal
interest (most people use
hotels).
HIGHLY EMOTIONAL1.

9. Now let’s take a look at
one of our most successful
campaigns of all time.
HIGHLY EMOTIONAL1.

10. How would you alter this
woman’s body to make it
what you think is “ideal”?
HIGHLY EMOTIONAL1.

11. HIGHLY EMOTIONAL1.
Here’s how
graphic designers
from different
countries did it.

12. HIGHLY EMOTIONAL1.
Here’s how the
internet reacted.

13. HIGHLY EMOTIONAL1.
High-Arousal Content Marketing Example
•Perceptions of
Perfection blew up –
with over 3.5 million
views on BuzzFeed
alone!
• Our client Superdrug
received 700K
pageviews within 5
days.

14. HIGHLY EMOTIONAL1.
Audiences were surprised to see how drastically
designers altered a woman’s photo to fit their
country’s standards of beauty.
The surprise factor added an additional layer of
emotionality to the already emotional topic of
women’s body image issues.

15. Want high-quality links?
We found a correlation between high average domain
authority and content topics with mass appeal.
Campaigns in the travel, entertainment, and retail
verticals did especially well with top-tier publishers
since they naturally lend themselves to content ideas
with broad appeal.
BROAD APPEAL2.

16. More than half
of our highest
performing
campaigns
centered around
a ranking or
comparison.
COMPARISON3.

17. POP CULTURE THEMED4.
Our campaigns with more
than 100 media stories were
nearly 2x as likely to
incorporate a pop culture
theme than our campaigns
with fewer than 20 pickups.

18. GET MORE INSIGHTS
ON OUR ANALYSIS OF
345 content marketing campaigns.