We Tried YouTube's A/B/C Thumbnail Tester

YouTube has changed a LOT over the years, sometimes before your very eyes. We've been using their new A/B/C thumbnail tester to figure out what makes YOU stick around and watch more of the video.

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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova

Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:48 Bell's Upgrade
3:35 Scorpion Chair
4:48 Our Best PC Builds
5:57 What's Going On?
7:27 Conclusion
10:44 Outro

[nomoreaudio]

Ineffective i clicked the notification not the thumbnail.

[raistlinmajere]

Not gonna lie, I was expecting a silly video with the thumbmail, but it was really interesting.

[YippingFox]

I've not been using an extension to remove ALL thumbnails. It reverts it back to the old youtube days of it just picking a point in the video. You can even choose if it picks the beginning, middle or ending. It also does its best to remove excessive capitalisation in titles.

[Owy.]

Due to the crazy of clickbait, I've noticed that I no longer focus on the thumbnail. I only pay attention to the channel name/logo and title before watching a video. The thumbnail doesn't really matter to me anymore.

[Ivenesco]

Did you try to use the same 2 thumbnails for A/B test to see the what is the expected deviation from 50/50?

[Hyperdriveuk]

My thumbnail for this video was Linus chocking Linus with a red back ground... I wonder what other people saw lol.

[kylespevak]

3:54 This is because the chair itself invites way more curiosity than the boxes. Ive seen boxes, i HAVEN'T seen a scorpion gaming chair

[tvdan]

I've been working in traditional (OTA) television for more than 30 years, and one of the first things I learned way back in the early 90s is that the whole left-to-right thing you mentioned is 100% true. Viewers are more comfortable and therefore more receptive when the story visually moves left to right. And the opposite has proven true in cultures that read right-to-left.
Every time a graphic artist comes in and changes things "just to be different" and upsets this flow, viewers hate it. They'll even tell us "Yeah, the new graphics are cool and all, but something just seems off."

[MakaProductions]

I’ve also done a fair bit of AB testing recently; albeit much simpler. I’ve found basically the exact same results. A lot of tests come up with puzzling results, and the thumbnail mostly doesn’t matter as long as you follow decent design language, and come through with the content the thumbnail promises. However, with my videos not being in the entertainment, and relying heavily on search result viewers, text is 100% critical in success, so there can be major differences depending on audience and view types. Thanks for sharing the findings. 🙏🏻

[wilfredfurey]

this is good to know.
Honestly, I stopped watching videos like "Wow, what's this weird thing! - Box image", "You won't believe, what this pc does - blurred program logo or whatever". Because of the video name / thumbnail, as I don't know, what the video is about... I expect clear topic from LTT. I believe this is also caused by the audience of LTT, we should be more inclined to search for content that we want, instead of being served "something" and "another thing".
On the type of smile doesn't matter - the only important thing to me is that it's you, or someone from the cast to identify the video as LTT.

[ScrawnyClownSnatch]

Linus: "we figured it out"
Viewers: "what did you figure out"
Linus: "that we have no idea why you guys watch us"
viewers "and that's why we love you"

[lifeinhd]

I think your conclusion of "it doesn't matter for subscribers" is spot on. It's currently a couple days after this video was uploaded, I saw it appear in my feed when it first came out (I have notifications off), and thought "cool, I'll get to it." Now, a couple days later, I've watched it... and right before I did, the thumbnail changed on me. That had no bearing whatsoever on whether I watched or not though. (And of course I watched the whole way through.) We know it'll be quality content, so what does the thumbnail matter?

[kethwintham]

My theory on the Bell's upgrade video is that the successful thumbnail shows you (linus) facing him (bell?), indicating connection between the two of you psychologically, while the other image shows you reacting to absolutely nothing with extreme curiosity while bell stares at me with the intent to cause emotional damage.

[fkarg]

Joke's on you - with DeArrow I don't even see the normal thumbnails anymore.

[barryallencoffee]

i have an extension that overrides thumbnails and just just captures one from the middle of the video, love it

[SevenGC]

If I'm being completely honest at least for myself, Thumbnails only matter on channels I've never watched, when it comes to channels I watch every video from like LTT it doesn't matter to what the thumbnail is because I already know I'm going to enjoy the content, but I'm a boomer and I think this is more focused on those with less attention span than a YT short.

[ImperatorSupreme]

There was a theory of marketing I was taught in University. The theory holds that marketing is all about the ‘promises’ you are making to your audience. Some of that is literal, verbal promises, like you might get in interviews. But it’s also about the visual cues you’re giving them. If you’re sticking a shocked face on the thumbnail, and then not delivering on the Shocking content… your audience is going to get turned off. Whereas if the Audience feels that the expectations set by the thumbnail have been met, they’ll likely stick around for quality content.

[Muttisuri]

Knowing that google has data on users this could eventually mean that youtube could eventually serve thumbails depending on what The Algorithm thinks you'll click.

[Jouniii]

The thumbnail I saw: Angry linus (right side) strangling another linus (left side) with mouth open and tongue out and eyes crossed. Both wearing black shirt. Background is like red/pink.

[aeedi]

Honestly the fact that a thumbnail designer position even exists is wild