I think the number one complaint
from creators that I hear is the inability to AB test thumbnails.
Wait, what did they just say?
I think the number one complaint from creators
that I hear is the inability to AB test thumbnails.
Boys, boys, boys you can totally do that.
Let me show you.
Hey, howdy.
Hey, y'all. What is if we haven't met?
My name is Jessica Stansberry, and on my channel we talk about
all things tech, productivity and creator tips.
So I am super pumped to be here on TubeBuddy's channel today.
Listen, if people like Colin and Samir and MKBHD don't know about this,
I'm going to just go out on a limb and say that you may not either.
But I am so pumped to talk about one of my personal favorite
TubeBuddy features, which is ab testing for thumbnails.
Before we actually get into the how to's of testing your thumbnails
with TubeBuddy You might be wondering why this is even important.
Like, why should you want to test thumbnails?
Why did they wish this is a feature built into YouTube,
and the reason is pretty clear.
So two of the main factors when it comes to getting your videos
discovered on YouTube, getting more traffic, having YouTube
really pick up your videos and you know everything that most creators
want are Click Through Rate or CTR and watch time
and your thumbnail is directly related to your CTR.
See your stories, your click through rate and your click through rate
is basically the amount of people who have seen your video shown to them on
like their home page or their subscription page, versus the amount of people
who've actually clicked through to that video.
And the higher the click through rate, the better that video is going to perform.
Because YouTube is going to see that when they show it in front of people,
more people will click.
And probably the most important factor on whether or not someone clicks
on a video when it is shown to them in their home page
or their subscription feed is, you guessed it, the thumbnail.
Of course, your title plays a bit of a role here, too,
but for the most part, the thumbnail is the most important thing
you need to focus on when it comes to getting a higher click through rate.
So picking the right thumbnail could literally make or break
the success of your video.
Yes, like really?
So split testing thumbnails can help you put your best foot forward with your video
because you can let TubeBuddy kind of show you which one of these thumbnails
is outperforming the other so that you can use the one
that has the higher analytics, the higher click through rate,
and all of that good jazz so that your video just skyrocket.
And TubeBuddy makes it so easy to split test two different thumbnails
that you literally don't have to ever lift a thumb nail.
So maybe you're
trying to choose between these two thumbnails.
Will my audience, will my Ideal viewer, click
on this one more or will they click on this one more?
All you've got to do is go ahead and upload your video to YouTube
like normal and go ahead and upload
one of the thumbnails to YouTube, just like you would normally.
So this is going to be your original thumbnail.
Now you want to log in to TubeBuddy
and from the home screen, literally just go to AB Test.
Right here, it's super easy.
Then all you have to do is click Create a test, select
which video that you want it to AB test with,
and these videos can be unlisted, public or scheduled.
So even if you have a video scheduled for later
or you're uploading one that's unlisted,
that's not going to be published until later.
You can totally go ahead and get this set up.
Or if you have a video that's already running, you can do it with that one too.
TubeBuddy goes ahead and pulls in your most recent uploads,
or you can search for any of your past videos.
Once you find the video you want to do an AB test on,
it's going to ask you which kind of AB test you want to do.
And while this video is not about AB testing your title
or your description or your tags, that is in there too, and
this is exactly how you do that as well.
But for now,
for the purposes of this video, we're going to select thumbnails to test
and then you get to pick how long you want this test to run for.
Now you can choose to run it for a set amount of time,
or you can tell TubeBuddy you want it to run until the statistics
show that one of the thumbnails is outperforming the other, right?
So that could happen in a couple of days, or it could be a few weeks
so you can pick the one you want to do there.
I personally like to choose my own timeline.
And so I'll usually do 14 days.
A lot of times I stop it way before that 14 day mark because I can see
from the analytics that one thumbnail is outperforming another.
And remember, a second ago
I said, you could schedule this for whenever your video goes live or whatever.
After you select that, you want it to run for a certain amount of days.
All you have to do is choose to start the test
ASAP, like right now or schedule the start time.
Then literally all you have to do is upload the other thumbnail.
So it's going to pull the original thumbnail from your upload
in YouTube, and then you just have to go in and upload the other one.
So the secondary option, the be split on this split test,
if you will, and then just hit start test and if it was scheduled to start now
or if it was scheduled to start later TubeBuddy will get all the balls rolling.
And so what happens is TubeBuddy will actually switch out your thumbnail
every 24 hours for the duration of the test.
And as it's switching out your thumbnails, it will also be grabbing the analytics
that are important the click through rate, the average view duration,
the watch time and so much more so you can make an educated decision
between the two thumbnails on which one is outperforming the other.
So you can actually see here in one of my more recent tests
that I was testing out two different thumbnails about an iOS update.
What I do normally like to do
is kind of test out text and no text, that kind of thing.
But for this one, neither one of them had text and we rolled with it.
And you can see that by far through these analytics that the variation
or the one I uploaded to TubeBuddy as the "B" in this split test
did so much better in the click through rate, the impressions, et cetera.
Now, honestly,
neither one of them did great, and I feel like I could still improve
on my thumbnails here.
But this is a great way to kind of get that ball rolling and see which,
you know, still shot.
I should start with, and then maybe I'll build on that with text and call outs
and things like that that will really make the thumbnail even better.
See, I told you, it's freakin easy as pie, and the ability to run
a split test is available on TubeBuddy legend plan.
So I will make sure there is a link to that in the description below
because trust me, it is worth every penny.
Now I've got to get back to my run, but press that red subscribe button below
to get more tips on how to use TubeBuddy to help you grow your channel.
And I would absolutely love for you to come hang out with me on my channel.
I'll pop the URL across the screen right here.
You can go to YouTube.com forward slash Jessica Stansberry
and thank you again to TubeBuddy
for letting me hop on your channel and share this awesomeness with you.
Bye y'all.