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7 rules for the sponsor talk

Experiment #107 · closed · published 4/19/2026, 11:48:00 AM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypenumber_list
  • lengthBucket20m_plus
  • thumbnailArchetypetext_dominant
  • publishSlotweekend_am
  • formatinterview
  • topicCluster5

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish19,370
  • Days since previous post1.1
  • Channel age at publish (days)149
  • Local publish time4/19/2026, 11:48:00 AM

The residual reward

Raw views mostly measure how big the channel already was. The baseline predicts what this channel “should” have earned given the confounds above; the residual is how the post actually landed relative to that prediction — measured in standard deviations.

Observed (168h)

168

Baseline expected

122

Residual reward

+0.53σ

raw 0.53σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)16888,200180
24h9248,510050
72h13470,560170

What changed in the posterior

  • Post beat its baseline by 0.53σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_5 +0.032, publish_slot:weekend_am +0.021, hook_type:number_list +0.017.

    • topic_5-0.061-0.028 Δ+0.032±0.31
    • weekend_am0.1020.123 Δ+0.021±0.30
    • number_list-0.269-0.252 Δ+0.017±0.28
    • 20m_plus0.0840.100 Δ+0.016±0.29
    • interview0.1500.164 Δ+0.014±0.27
    • text_dominant0.0970.107 Δ+0.010±0.26
    • topic_1-0.029-0.036 Δ-0.007±0.28
    • topic_40.2310.225 Δ-0.006±0.28
    • topic_6-0.503-0.508 Δ-0.005±0.33
    • vlog-0.162-0.167 Δ-0.005±0.28
    • 10_20m-0.037-0.042 Δ-0.005±0.27
    • weekday_pm-0.106-0.111 Δ-0.005±0.26
    • topic_2-0.153-0.158 Δ-0.004±0.28
    • weekday_late-0.268-0.272 Δ-0.004±0.29
    • claim-0.069-0.073 Δ-0.004±0.29
    • object_hero-0.396-0.400 Δ-0.004±0.28
    • contrarian-0.006-0.010 Δ-0.004±0.29
    • none0.0410.045 Δ+0.003±0.29
    • weekend_pm0.3540.351 Δ-0.003±0.29
    • question0.1260.123 Δ-0.003±0.28
    • weekday_am-0.113-0.116 Δ-0.003±0.28
    • 1_4m0.0030.001 Δ-0.002±0.27
    • face_reaction0.1200.118 Δ-0.002±0.27
    • under_60s0.2060.204 Δ-0.002±0.29
    • topic_70.2040.202 Δ-0.002±0.33
    • shorts0.1250.124 Δ-0.001±0.29
    • before_after0.1070.106 Δ-0.001±0.31
    • topic_30.3810.380 Δ-0.001±0.30
    • story_cold_open0.2790.280 Δ+0.001±0.29
    • list-0.040-0.041 Δ-0.001±0.31
    • topic_0-0.101-0.101 Δ-0.001±0.28
    • tutorial0.0320.032 Δ+0.000±0.27
    • commentary-0.136-0.136 Δ-0.000±0.29
    • demo_first-0.091-0.091 Δ+0.000±0.27
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