Give related articles a better spot and a thumbnail

Jan 13, 2026

One experiment that shows how improving the design and placement of a single component can meaningfully change what visitors click on next.

  • WHO: Digital & CRO teams  
  • INDUSTRY: Media & Entertainment  
  • IMPACTED PAGES: Homepage 

Experiment 1: Improving the design and placement of article recommendations 

Hypothesis: Improving the design and placement of the "More On" article recommendations component will increase clickthrough rate to those articles, also reducing bounce rate. 

Demo form testImage source: Optimizely

Results:

  • +33% Increase in article clicks  
  • -0.46% Decrease in Bounce Rate 

Takeaways: 

  1. Thumbnail imagery is an effective tactic for driving engagement with article content, even when the number of articles has decreased. 
  2. Different winners for mobile and desktop reinforce the need for optimization for different device experiences. 
  3. Articles viewed via "More On" are a small percentage of overall views, impact on heuristic metrics is limited. 

An article that goes unclicked is a placement problem

The story was good enough. The position was not. The Experimentation Ideation Agent surfaces test ideas for recommendation placement, thumbnail design, and content hierarchy, so more visitors find what they want to read, watch, or listen to next. 

 

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