If you're struggling with your Thumbnails, read this...

Hi friend!

Mario Joos here - I’m a strategist for creators like Mr. Beast, The Stokes twins, and more…

We just finished a free livestream where we discussed the psychology behind thumbnails (you can watch it below if you missed it), and there’s one thing I keep coming back to…

Most creators don’t understand how to properly A/B test on YouTube, and it is one of the core reasons they’ll never develop packaging that really moves the needle. So let's have a serious conversation about A/B testing…

A/B testing sounds simple on the surface. But the way it’s usually done leads creators to the wrong conclusions, and then they double down on ideas that were never tested properly in the first place.

For example, almost every week, I see another creator changing very small details and thinking they just figured out why they’re not getting millions of views. Different t-shirt colors. Smiling with your mouth closed. A slightly brighter background.

In 99.9% of the cases, you’re not testing anything meaningful. The overall message of the thumbnail stays the same, the viewer will barely notice any difference, and the impact on views tends to be negligible.

In the first roughly 200-300 milliseconds, the brain is already starting to ask questions like: “What is happening here?”, “What is this video about?” Small changes don’t affect that thinking process, so the likelihood of it changing the test results is close to none.

Good A/B testing is not about changing a few colors, or deciding whether to put your face on the right or left side of the thumbnail. It’s about the bigger changes that change the overall message of the thumbnail. These are things like testing multiple compositions, changing the elements within the thumbnail, and so much more.

So what can you do? Well, a great thumbnail test does 3 things: 

1. It tests for short-term impact. We look at immediate changes in views to figure out if the changes have a desired outcome. I often prefer hard changes over using any tool, because then it’s easier to understand if the impact comes from the new thumbnail or just the way viewers watch content.

2. It tests for long-term impact. You may see short-term results, but if the overall views per hour don’t change long term (two weeks+), then we don’t really have a successful change. Viewers often get confused thinking that a video is new because there’s a new thumbnail. This affects the way they interact with that video short term. But real change shouldn’t lose its impact after that initial traffic surge. That’s why I often recommend not judging a change until at least two weeks after.

3. A great test doesn’t just get you an answer short term, but it teaches you something about first principles in the long term. The last thing you want to be doing is to constantly test the same thing because you never took the time to interpret why the change worked. So that in the future you can focus on testing different things and go in with initial confidence because you understand why something works.

This was a shorter explanation on the importance of intentional A/B testing, but remember that everything comes with nuance, even this text.

This really is just scratching the surface of how A/B testing should be approached. If this topic matters to you, I genuinely recommend watching the full session we just wrapped. It’s available for on Million View Club.

MVC is something I built to share the strategies and lessons I’ve picked up from working closely with creators like MrBeast, The Stokes Twins, and others over the years, the stuff that usually only lives behind the scenes. And this week only, you can join for only $1 for your first two weeks!

You can also poke around all of the course material and past sessions we’ve hosted. For this week only, everything is only $1! Cancel anytime, no strings attached.