Recently, I made the case that people trust people more than they trust brands.

We put this to the test by comparing Props content promoted through a person against the same Props content promoted through a brand. Everything else remained constant. We measured click-through-rate (CTR), the rate at which people clicked on the promotion to read more of the content.

Props content promoted though the author achieved an 8.38% CTR (compared to a 0.31% for an ad, 27x better.) When we promoted the same content through the brand's handle, rather than the author's handle, the CTR was about half.

Furthermore, women and younger people responded more favorably to content promoted by the author versus a brand. According to our test:

Women are more skeptical of brands than men:

• Cost per click (CPC) among women was 21% more efficient for content promoted by the author
• But CPC among men was only 10% more efficient for content promoted by the author

Younger people are more skeptical of brands than older people:

• CPC among people 35-44 was 33% more efficient from content promoted by the author
• CPC among people 45-54 was 35% more efficient from content promoted by the author
• However, CPC among people 54 and older was only 12% more efficient from content promoted by the author​

The takeaway? If you want to unlock new and younger audiences to your website, you'd better be in the legitimate content business and avoid ads and ads disguised as content.

I hope this helps you make better decisions. If you'd like to know how Props accomplishes all of this, please e-mail me at joseph@props.us. I look forward to hearing from you.