The psychology
The mechanism is older than the label. Psychologist George Loewenstein described it in his 1994 review of curiosity research as the information gap: a feeling of deprivation that arrives when attention lands on something a person knows they are missing. Awareness of the gap creates the want.
The gap has to be the right size. One too wide feels out of reach, and one already closed feels boring. The pull happens in the narrow band where someone knows enough to see what is missing.
How it differs from interruption marketing
| Interruption | Curiosity |
|---|---|
| Buys a moment of attention | Earns a return visit |
| States the conclusion up front | Opens a question worth following |
| Fades when spend stops | Compounds as the body of work grows |
| Measured in impressions and reach | Measured in branded search and direct visits |
| Fails by being ignored | Fails by being disagreed with |
Why it suits long, considered purchases
Business purchases run for months and involve a group. 6sense put the average B2B buying cycle at 10.1 months in 2025, with 5.1 vendors evaluated. Considered consumer purchases, such as insurance or a renovation, also stretch over weeks of research.
Across a window that long, the mechanism that keeps attention coming back beats the one that rents it. A brand someone keeps checking stays present through the whole evaluation.
How to open a gap someone wants to close
Be specific where your category is vague
In a category full of adjectives, a number feels like news. Publish the figure, the timeline, the price, the failure rate. Precision reads as confidence and invites the obvious next question: how?
Take a position with an edge
A claim any competitor could sign leaves the reader where it found them. A claim someone could argue with shows where you stand, and gives them a reason to see whether you can defend it.
Show the working
Laying out a method in public invites the question of whether it would work for the reader, which is the question that starts a conversation.
Leave a deliberate gap, then close it in full
A fair gap holds attention. What separates this from clickbait is delivery: the question gets answered somewhere the reader can reach, at the standard the question promised.
Where it goes wrong
- Intrigue with an empty room behind it. The headline earns the click and the substance falls short, which trains people to skip the next one.
- Mystery for its own sake. A gap pulls only when people can see the shape of what is missing.
- Curiosity aimed at the wrong people. One campaign offering free platform credits to startup founders looked brilliant: $16 per click, 19.6% conversion, $80 per lead, against $1,445 per lead for the enterprise campaigns. Those founders sat outside the enterprise buying group entirely. Cheap curiosity and useful curiosity look identical on a dashboard.
How to measure it
Curiosity leaves a specific trace: people go looking.
- Branded search volume. Someone typing your name chose to.
- Direct traffic. Visitors who arrive by memory.
- Returning visitor share. Whether the first visit earned a second.
- Enquiries that mention a specific piece. The point where curiosity becomes revenue.
Reach and impressions describe distribution. These four describe pull.