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Before we even get started with the meat and potatoes of this conversation let's take a look at what should be considered one of the greatest thumbnails ever created:
Absolutely iconic. Some of the most recognizable creators in history. Let's talk about this. No, it isn't a video that originally surfaced on YouTube but the concept behind this packaging is the same. Nobody is going to come see your movie if you can't sell them on what's inside before they see it. Here's the rub... it is unlikely that you have the ability to hire this artist to create a painting for your thumbnail. Even if you have the skill you do not have the time to put in that amount of effort into the work of art that is going to represent the content that you are hammering out on a bi-weekly, weekly or daily basis. But can you do this...
I'm making a stretch here... but this could be accomplished with the most rudimentary knowledge of photography and a free phone app. Do you remember seeing this for the first time? If you were a Star Wars fan in 1998 you absolutely flipped when you saw this. This is compelling. It speaks on so many levels... the actual beginning of the SW saga marked by this character's youth, the callback to suck a memorable setting and of course the ominous foreshadowing to one of the greatest movie villains of all time.
My point here is that all that talk about great thumbnails has nothing to do with your photoshop skills, it doesn't matter how many lonely nights you spent slaving away with 20 layers of imagery in order to get that font and color pattern to marry up and the 36 inch monitor you purchased specifically for thumbnail editing was a bit of a splurge. What sells is intrigue and that starts in the conceptual phase, not in the editing bay.
Getting Started
Alright... so you have an idea for the most amazing video ever. Time to grab your camera and go... shoot photographs for thumbnails. Yup, filming comes later. This is weird way of starting your process but it really does work. Because the thumbnail is the gate to your content it helps that you first design the packaging so you know how to fit the contents through that gate. This is the order that viewers consume the content, it will help ensure that the concept aligns with expectations and it causes you to take some time to put thought/effort into being proactive about the presentation of your video rather than retroactively designing something that just happens to fit around your video. Another benefit of this is that once you have a concept for your amazing video you need to immediately do a search for that video on YouTube. You want to see what other creators are doing and you want to see their thumbnails. Yours needs to align with viewer expectations but it also needs to stand out from the rest of the pack. Look for gaps in presentation and style, color schemes or dramatic elements. Here are some examples of this:
In the first column I did a Search for "Minecraft For Beginners." This is a good example of opportunities based on gaps in color schemes and presentation style. All follow that same, basic green/blue/grey color scheme. They all lean heavily on that grey Minecraft logo with a hint of yellow and/or white text to stand out. The last uses a more dramatic approach... a close-up image of the character with what appears to be accelerated growth after only one day. These are the videos that top the search ranks for the topic, so I am going to want to watch each for a bit to see what these creators are doing right and what they are missing, so there is this added benefit of knowledge before we film. For the purposes of Thumbnails I am immediately going to go red. Bright red and dramatic. I want mine to be the new hotness and a standout option when it is seen next to these other thumbnails.
In the second column I did a search for "Foods that gain muscle." These guys are all across the board when it comes to style and I am not a fan of the top 3 in general. They are leaning heavily into a lot of different graphic elements to really push all the things that the video discusses. The is similar, though more simplified. That bowl of rice thumb stands out... it offers simple, outstanding text that lets me know this is exactly what I am looking for. A simple to understand image. It's bright and stands out against the rest. I don't see anyone here selling a really compelling presentation though, and I would want to lean into that.
Starting The Video
So it warrants mention that the thumbnail is only about 1/3 of the connection with viewers scrolling. Of course the title also plays into this but these days that first few seconds of the video is critical. With YouTube expanding the use of Autoplay across devices viewers spend far less time looking at thumbnails than in days of old. The value of the first 30 seconds of a video has now increased exponentially and should be a major focus. All the more reason why it is valuable to focus on the thumbnail before you even film.
Multiply Your Chances For Success
So now that you have the perfect thumbnail for your video it's time to get started on the real meat and potatoes part of the thumbnail creation process. The first step? Go make more thumbnails. I would advise coming up with 4 total thumbnail options. In a perfect world you would run these options through various think-tanks and accountability groups to see what the human reaction to these options is. But for TubeBuddy users who have a Legend license we offer the Thumbnail Analyzer. This tool will break down each thumbnail and give you feedback as to which would perform better based on tens of millions of thumbnails that have been tested using our AB Testing tool (more on that in a moment). It isn't an exact science and you will want to account for the human element; your audience may respond differently to a thumbnail than the general viewing audience on YouTube as a whole. But the Thumbnail Analyzer will give you a good idea of which two thumbnails are best and what elements about them cause them to stand out.
Testing Time
Who saw this coming? Of course the next step is AB Testing but... there's a trick to this step that few creators realize. You are going to want to wait 3-7 days before you start testing your thumbnails. Your subscribers know you, they have committed to your content and they are going to respond differently to your thumbnails than the viewers who have never seen you before. But it is the viewers who have never seen you before that you are actually targeting with your thumbnails. So you don't want subscribers mucking up the CTR data collected on AB Tests. Give the subs 3-7 days to watch your content and then run your AB Test after so that it gives you more specific data on these non-subscriber views.
When It's Broke... Fix It
There are going to be times when you put together a really amazing video and the audience really responds... tons of likes and an exquisite average view duration. And then the video bombs because you thought it would be a good idea to add a little extra text or you went far to heavy into that picture of your YouTube face in the thumbnail. We've all done it. In fact we all do it. Constantly. There are always going to be videos that underperform and a regular part of your content publishing schedule should be spent "fixing" these underperforming videos. Go find those videos and run them through some fresh AB Tests with updated titles/thumbnails to see if you can't rejuvenate them. Often you can kickstart a video that is 18 months or older with a few tweaks and you should always have some video that you are working on. If you need help finding these underperforming videos TubeBuddy has that covered as well; the Click Magnet feature for Legend license holders offers a complete breakdown of your most underperforming videos so that you can focus on improving thumbnails rather than researching your older video's performance.
The complete process for the optimization of thumbnails can be a chore and this is likely a lot more work that what anyone thought when they first clicked on this article. It can be daunting, especially for those with less experience in photography, graphic design and composition. But the results will speak for themselves; when you get that first video that gets triple the CTR that you are accustomed to and suddenly you have a new channel-driving video producing a completely new foundation of views this load looks less like work and more like a puzzle to be solved. This workflow will help you take your thumbnail game from beginner to master in far less time than would have otherwise been possible and is the fastest way to change the trajectory of your channel's performance.
Absolutely iconic. Some of the most recognizable creators in history. Let's talk about this. No, it isn't a video that originally surfaced on YouTube but the concept behind this packaging is the same. Nobody is going to come see your movie if you can't sell them on what's inside before they see it. Here's the rub... it is unlikely that you have the ability to hire this artist to create a painting for your thumbnail. Even if you have the skill you do not have the time to put in that amount of effort into the work of art that is going to represent the content that you are hammering out on a bi-weekly, weekly or daily basis. But can you do this...
I'm making a stretch here... but this could be accomplished with the most rudimentary knowledge of photography and a free phone app. Do you remember seeing this for the first time? If you were a Star Wars fan in 1998 you absolutely flipped when you saw this. This is compelling. It speaks on so many levels... the actual beginning of the SW saga marked by this character's youth, the callback to suck a memorable setting and of course the ominous foreshadowing to one of the greatest movie villains of all time.
My point here is that all that talk about great thumbnails has nothing to do with your photoshop skills, it doesn't matter how many lonely nights you spent slaving away with 20 layers of imagery in order to get that font and color pattern to marry up and the 36 inch monitor you purchased specifically for thumbnail editing was a bit of a splurge. What sells is intrigue and that starts in the conceptual phase, not in the editing bay.
Getting Started
Alright... so you have an idea for the most amazing video ever. Time to grab your camera and go... shoot photographs for thumbnails. Yup, filming comes later. This is weird way of starting your process but it really does work. Because the thumbnail is the gate to your content it helps that you first design the packaging so you know how to fit the contents through that gate. This is the order that viewers consume the content, it will help ensure that the concept aligns with expectations and it causes you to take some time to put thought/effort into being proactive about the presentation of your video rather than retroactively designing something that just happens to fit around your video. Another benefit of this is that once you have a concept for your amazing video you need to immediately do a search for that video on YouTube. You want to see what other creators are doing and you want to see their thumbnails. Yours needs to align with viewer expectations but it also needs to stand out from the rest of the pack. Look for gaps in presentation and style, color schemes or dramatic elements. Here are some examples of this:
In the first column I did a Search for "Minecraft For Beginners." This is a good example of opportunities based on gaps in color schemes and presentation style. All follow that same, basic green/blue/grey color scheme. They all lean heavily on that grey Minecraft logo with a hint of yellow and/or white text to stand out. The last uses a more dramatic approach... a close-up image of the character with what appears to be accelerated growth after only one day. These are the videos that top the search ranks for the topic, so I am going to want to watch each for a bit to see what these creators are doing right and what they are missing, so there is this added benefit of knowledge before we film. For the purposes of Thumbnails I am immediately going to go red. Bright red and dramatic. I want mine to be the new hotness and a standout option when it is seen next to these other thumbnails.
In the second column I did a search for "Foods that gain muscle." These guys are all across the board when it comes to style and I am not a fan of the top 3 in general. They are leaning heavily into a lot of different graphic elements to really push all the things that the video discusses. The is similar, though more simplified. That bowl of rice thumb stands out... it offers simple, outstanding text that lets me know this is exactly what I am looking for. A simple to understand image. It's bright and stands out against the rest. I don't see anyone here selling a really compelling presentation though, and I would want to lean into that.
Starting The Video
So it warrants mention that the thumbnail is only about 1/3 of the connection with viewers scrolling. Of course the title also plays into this but these days that first few seconds of the video is critical. With YouTube expanding the use of Autoplay across devices viewers spend far less time looking at thumbnails than in days of old. The value of the first 30 seconds of a video has now increased exponentially and should be a major focus. All the more reason why it is valuable to focus on the thumbnail before you even film.
Multiply Your Chances For Success
So now that you have the perfect thumbnail for your video it's time to get started on the real meat and potatoes part of the thumbnail creation process. The first step? Go make more thumbnails. I would advise coming up with 4 total thumbnail options. In a perfect world you would run these options through various think-tanks and accountability groups to see what the human reaction to these options is. But for TubeBuddy users who have a Legend license we offer the Thumbnail Analyzer. This tool will break down each thumbnail and give you feedback as to which would perform better based on tens of millions of thumbnails that have been tested using our AB Testing tool (more on that in a moment). It isn't an exact science and you will want to account for the human element; your audience may respond differently to a thumbnail than the general viewing audience on YouTube as a whole. But the Thumbnail Analyzer will give you a good idea of which two thumbnails are best and what elements about them cause them to stand out.
Testing Time
Who saw this coming? Of course the next step is AB Testing but... there's a trick to this step that few creators realize. You are going to want to wait 3-7 days before you start testing your thumbnails. Your subscribers know you, they have committed to your content and they are going to respond differently to your thumbnails than the viewers who have never seen you before. But it is the viewers who have never seen you before that you are actually targeting with your thumbnails. So you don't want subscribers mucking up the CTR data collected on AB Tests. Give the subs 3-7 days to watch your content and then run your AB Test after so that it gives you more specific data on these non-subscriber views.
When It's Broke... Fix It
There are going to be times when you put together a really amazing video and the audience really responds... tons of likes and an exquisite average view duration. And then the video bombs because you thought it would be a good idea to add a little extra text or you went far to heavy into that picture of your YouTube face in the thumbnail. We've all done it. In fact we all do it. Constantly. There are always going to be videos that underperform and a regular part of your content publishing schedule should be spent "fixing" these underperforming videos. Go find those videos and run them through some fresh AB Tests with updated titles/thumbnails to see if you can't rejuvenate them. Often you can kickstart a video that is 18 months or older with a few tweaks and you should always have some video that you are working on. If you need help finding these underperforming videos TubeBuddy has that covered as well; the Click Magnet feature for Legend license holders offers a complete breakdown of your most underperforming videos so that you can focus on improving thumbnails rather than researching your older video's performance.
The complete process for the optimization of thumbnails can be a chore and this is likely a lot more work that what anyone thought when they first clicked on this article. It can be daunting, especially for those with less experience in photography, graphic design and composition. But the results will speak for themselves; when you get that first video that gets triple the CTR that you are accustomed to and suddenly you have a new channel-driving video producing a completely new foundation of views this load looks less like work and more like a puzzle to be solved. This workflow will help you take your thumbnail game from beginner to master in far less time than would have otherwise been possible and is the fastest way to change the trajectory of your channel's performance.
