Why You Should Ignore Most Studies, Briefs, and White Papers
If your inbox looks anything like mine then you constantly see a new study, brief or white paper about online marketing.
"70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from the ad"
"Four of five american consumers ignore online ads most frequently"
"Study: 55% of mobile-search driven conversions happen in one hour or less"
Those are just a few of the recent ones I have seen and they are all false in one way or another.
Studies, Briefs and White Papers Are Designed To Be Biased
Think about your own business. Would you publish or promote a study that wasn't beneficial to your reputation? Of course not!
Most of these studies, briefs and white papers are created by an extremely biased source. This could be anything from a business trying to gain more market share, a person trying to build their brand and even a "so-called" independent source that is actually funded by a company in that space.
Studies Are NOT The Gospel
Occasionally, there is some truth in these studies but most of the time you should ignore 90% of the content.
Let's take one of the examples from above:
"Four of five american consumers ignore online ads most frequently"
This study is claiming that people are ignoring ads frequently and gives you some hints on how to fix this. Now the numbers seem believable and the hints aren't bad but there was one major problem. The title suggests that this is a sweeping statement across the board and the article speaks in definite terms. As an online marketer I HATE this. I know, from experience, that statistics like this change dramatically based on differences in industry, location, language, demographics and many other factors.
The only valuable piece of information I took away from this study is to make sure your ads are engaging, funny and interactive to mitigate the possibility of them being ignored.
That being said, you may take away something completely different because no two situations are identical.
Keep Reading, But Stay Skeptical!
I want to make a point that this article isn't meant to discourage you from learning new information through these sources. On the contrary, you should read as many as possible while realizing that, generally, a small portion of the content is applicable and useful in your specific case.
