If you have a YouTube channel, you’re probably aware of the importance of creating a good thumbnail for your videos on the Google-owned platform. It’s essentially your video’s calling card, and whether it’s eye-catching or not largely determines the success of your content and whether users decide to click play to learn more.
To help content creators choose the thumbnail that will perform best, YouTube has launched a feature—already available on some channels and rolling out to all in the coming weeks—that allows A/B testing of these icons.
The tool allows channel administrators to upload up to three different thumbnails for each video and receive statistics on which one is performing best. When new content is published, YouTube shows the different thumbnails to various viewers at random.
Once enough information has been gathered, about two weeks after the video is published, YouTube will show which thumbnail generated the most watch time from viewers. It can classify the results as follows:
-Winner: If there is a clear winner with outstanding performance in terms of watch time, this will be the thumbnail shown from that moment on.
-Preferred: One thumbnail performs better than the others, but the results are more or less similar or only slightly better statistically.
-None: None of the three thumbnails is a clear winner, so the one the user selected as the primary when uploading the video will continue to be shown.
Of course, the video creator can choose to keep showing a thumbnail different from the one recommended by YouTube, even if it’s not the winning option after the statistical and performance analysis.
