What is PeopleAnalyst?

PeopleAnalyst is the front door for people-analytics research: 205+ works indexed and profiled, 40+ citation-grade findings extracted, and peer-reviewed behavioral science translated from academic to actionable — the missing manual for the people analytics you always meant to do.

What is people analytics?

People analytics is not a dashboard. It is behavioral science and statistical inference applied to workforce decisions — a discipline with its own methodology, spanning measurement, organizational design, talent, leadership, and analytics craft.

Why does AI in HR need measurement science?

AI is being deployed in high-stakes people decisions — hiring, performance, attrition — without the measurement science to evaluate whether it works or whom it harms. Construct validity, effect sizes, and criterion validity are the vocabulary for asking an AI vendor the right questions.

How is the research made accessible?

The evidence is indexed and searchable: 205+ works, 40+ citation-grade insight cards, and 8 research arcs, so the right finding reaches the right decision at the right time.

What separates good people measurement from assertion?

Good measurement has a method: construct validity, reliability, and effect-size interpretation are not optional — they are what separates evidence from assertion.

library / lib6ae8ec99de56efa9

Scientific Advertising

Claude C. Hopkins · 1923

In a sentence

Advertising is salesmanship in print, governed by testable, fixed laws, and every campaign should be measured by traced returns to know its true cost and result.

Scientific Advertising distills decades of agency experience into a textbook of established principles: advertising is not an art of impressing oneself, but multiplied salesmanship whose only purpose is to make profitable sales. Claude Hopkins argues that the guesswork can be removed entirely through keyed coupons, test campaigns, and traced returns that reveal cost per customer with mathematical precision. Drawing on mail-order rigor, he teaches how to write headlines that select your buyers, offer service rather than demand purchases, be specific instead of using empty superlatives, tell a complete story, use samples and tests, secure distribution, and build an enduring individuality—while avoiding costly mistakes like trying to change deeply rooted habits. The book promises that when you measure everything, advertising becomes one of the safest, surest business ventures available.

The four lenses

Science
Statistics
Systems
Strategy

The model

A causal model in which design levers (salesmanship framing, headline selection, specificity, complete story, service offers, samples) and the discipline of testing and tracing drive reader attention, interest, and trust, which mediate to action and ultimately to profitable sales measured by cost per customer.

Salesmanship Framingdesign lever

Conceiving each advertisement as a salesman in print whose sole purpose is to make profitable sales, judged by what a good salesman would do face-to-face rather than by entertainment or literary standards.

Service and Benefit Offerdesign lever

Basing the ad on offering wanted service, information, samples, or trials that appeal to the reader's self-interest rather than demanding that they buy or blazoning the seller's name.

Headline Selectivitydesign lever

Crafting the headline to hail and attract only the specific people who can be interested in the product, selecting the right audience from the crowd rather than seeking broad undifferentiated attention.

Claim Specificitydesign lever

Using definite, concrete, factual claims and actual figures instead of vague superlatives and generalities, because specific statements are believed and carry full persuasive weight while platitudes are discounted.

Complete Selling Storydesign lever

Telling a reasonably complete selling story in each advertisement, bringing all good arguments to bear on the once-only reader rather than relying on brevity, serials, or single claims.

Testing and Tracing Disciplinedesign lever

The systematic use of keyed coupons, test campaigns, and traced returns to measure cost per reply, cost per customer, and cost per sale, letting thousands of small results predict what millions will do before scaling.

Reader Attentionpsychological state

The degree to which the right prospects notice and begin reading an advertisement, a precondition for any selling effect, gained primarily through headlines and pictures that promise relevant benefit.

Reader Interest and Trustpsychological state

The reader's engaged interest in and belief in the advertised offer, built through service appeals, specific believable claims, and a complete story, which converts attention into a willingness to act.

Reader Actionbehavioral pattern

The observable response of the prospect to the ad—cutting a coupon, requesting a sample, writing in, or making a purchase—representing the behavioral conversion of interest and trust.

Profitable Sales and Low Cost Per Customeroutcome metric

The ultimate outcome of advertising: customers acquired at a cost that yields profit, measured by cost per customer, cost per sale, and the ratio of returns to advertising expenditure.

Habit Entrenchment of Audiencecontextual condition

The degree to which target consumers are wedded to existing habits or rival brands, a contextual condition that raises the cost of conversion and can make certain advertising objectives prohibitively expensive.

How they connect

salesmanship framing → influences reader interest trust
service offer → influences reader interest trust
service offer → predicts reader action
headline selectivity → predicts reader attention
claim specificity → influences reader interest trust
complete story → influences reader interest trust
reader attention → predicts reader interest trust
reader interest trust → predicts reader action
reader action → predicts profitable sales
testing discipline → predicts profitable sales
testing discipline → influences headline selectivity
habit entrenchment − moderates reader action

A candidate measure

Scientific Advertising — derived measurement candidates