Evidence
TrendMD's content recommendation platform has been evaluated through peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials. Three RCTs demonstrate that TrendMD increases citations, Mendeley saves, and readership for scholarly content.
A peer-reviewed RCT block-randomized 3,200 articles across 64 journals in eight subject areas. Half (1,600) were distributed through TrendMD; the other half served as controls. Citations were tracked for 12 months after publication.
Promoted articles received 50% more citations at 12 months compared to controls.
Extended follow-up of the same 3,200-article RCT cohort, re-measuring citations at 36 months post-publication. The study assessed whether the initial citation advantage persisted or attenuated over time.
Promoted articles maintained a 28% citation advantage at 36 months (mean difference 10.52, 95% CI 3.79–17.25, P = .001).
Randomized 400 articles over four weeks, comparing TrendMD-promoted articles to controls on Mendeley saves. Mendeley saves are a recognized early indicator of future citations.
TrendMD-promoted articles received 77% more Mendeley saves (6.2 vs 3.5 mean saves, P < .05).
Independent analyses have compared TrendMD's reader engagement against other scholarly traffic sources. In a study of JMIR traffic data, TrendMD referrals showed twice the engagement of Google Scholar and PubMed, and three times the engagement of Twitter, with 150% more pages per visit and a bounce rate of 13% compared to 26% or higher for other sources.
A separate analysis with Springer Nature found that TrendMD referrals had a 9.25% bounce rate versus 67.59% for Twitter, with average time on site of 2 minutes 52 seconds and 52% more PDF downloads.
A pilot study of 100 JMIR articles (50 distributed through TrendMD, 50 controls) measured an 87% increase in article views over six weeks, with distributed articles averaging 191 views compared to 102 for controls.
A crossover study with BMJ Open tested 1,000 articles from 3,752 published over six weeks. Unpaid TrendMD promotion produced a 10.4% increase in weekly pageviews, while paid campaigns at modest budgets ($250–$500) achieved increases of 16.3% to 28.5%.
