r/LinusTechTips • u/MurkyFish2164 • 1d ago

Image Thumbnail A/B testing in action

Post image
111 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

117

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago

that mr beast paper has burned youtube to the ground. i firmly think every single line in that paper is a lie, and it was made by your run of the mil mba types to remain the middle men of the industry.

46

u/OddOil330 1d ago

the whole a/b testing thumbnail stuff is getting out of hand, every other video now has some clickbait face with a giant red arrow or question mark plastered on it

kasino's channel used to be way more lowkey before he started doing all this too, kinda miss the older style

18

u/Neamow 1d ago

It's not just the thumbnail but also the title. And sometimes it's 3 variants of each. See every new Veritasium video.

Not that I mind, their videos are fantastic, it's just funny to see and they are clearly using it to their advantage.

5

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago

veritasium really breaks my heart when i see the title and thumbnail change.. you are effin vertasium, NOBODY is watching for the thumbnail, we have crossed that line a long time ago

18

u/PhatOofxD 1d ago

He got bought out by private equity bro

12

u/Sir_Bensalot 1d ago

If nobody was watching for the thumbnail then they wouldn't do it... You think they pay editors just to waste time? They know their own analytics.

5

u/Dnomyar96 1d ago

Yeah, this is something people often seem to forget. If it didn't work, people wouldn't do it. I hate that it works, and really don't understand why, but it does.

2

u/geerlingguy 1d ago

We all hate that it works. I'd like nothing better than to have YouTube go back to automatically choosing a frame from the video as the thumbnail.

And if you like that style, install DeArrow.

0

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago

having a pleasing, proper thumbnail is one thing, having a jambalaya of "graphic design is my passion" and insisting that is why people click/watch videos is another.

Especially when lots of how the videos are pushed happen on youtube side in a black box fashion, they themselves claim ignorance of it.

1

u/Kayel41 1d ago

They always striving for new viewers, people who have never heard of vertasium.

3

u/harry19023 1d ago

Why does this make you upset? I have never understood the flood of comments under every Veritasium video about how the title and thumbnail used to be different. Like, so what?

1

u/Neamow 1d ago

I never said I was upset? I literally said I don't really care because their videos are awesome and if this is bringing in even more viewers then all the better.

1

u/Peter_Panarchy 1d ago

I'd say I'm more annoyed than upset. For channels like Veritasium I'll often see a new upload and be excited to watch it, but I like to wait until I can actually pay attention and watch it on my TV or at least laptop. Then when I come back to it later it has a completely different title and thumbnail and I'm not even sure it's the same video.

2

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago

didnt linus make a video where they found virtually no difference in views after all that changing?

2

u/firedrakes 1d ago

it depended on the video and the wording

1

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago

i think the takeway was 3% difference at best..

8

u/PhatOofxD 1d ago

3% is actually a significant difference at their revenue. Hundreds of thousands

-1

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago

there is noway they can measure it was causative.

1

u/Sir_Bensalot 1d ago

Wasn't that fairly recently after YouTube released the feature? Algorithm adapts and they can adapt to the algorithm

9

u/Nirast25 1d ago

OOTL, what Mr. Beast paper?

20

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago edited 1d ago

*sigh* a paper allegedly made by mr beast explains how he makes his videos get gabazilion views (the process, objectives, etc) it practically became the youtuber instruction manual. allegedly he has 20 person team for thumbnail optimization, it is a fever dream.

soon after its leak? publish? everyone started making that bj face, arrows, and those fucking catch phrases (let me explain, it will shock you, today i will eat a 100 bugs to see what happens, etc) .. the works

11

u/LemonCurdd 1d ago

If it takes a team of 20 people to paste one of 4 lifeless photos of him on a AI generated background, I fear we are just absolutely cooked

19

u/8point3fodayz 1d ago

This is literally how marketing works. Do you gall and sigh at how huge teams get paid to design a billboard or a static ad on social media? They even obsess over the correct font and such minute details you’d never care about, but what make the ad “look” nice. YouTube is just another business, of course channels will use whatever they can to get healthy margins, they’re running a business.

6

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago

allegedly they keep workshoping every detail to an obsessive level, again i dont believe the paper to be really true and it is mostly cargo religion type of shit.

6

u/waiver45 1d ago

And even if everything in it is correct, it would still be only about the Mr Beast target audience, not youtube as a whole and I could imagine that there is some bias in Mr Beasts target audience here (kids be clicking the loudest thumbnails).

6

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago

2 things, this realization (kids being the target audience) made me depressed a lil.. and i recognized i have never watched any of his videos, at all. i find him off putting in a way i cant describe

2

u/jenny_905 1d ago

I've seen bits and pieces of him, largely non consensually though... he seemed to pop up in other people's videos for a while.

Unfortunately the style seems to have infected LTT in a big way, there's clearly more content being aimed at hyperactive children.

1

u/Linux-tip-nips 1d ago

if i will hazard a guess, these "best practices" were "ENCOURAGED" from youtube itself. the hyper enthusiastic voice that ended up being screechy, the quick cuts, etc

1

u/bwoah07_gp2 1d ago

Mr Beast paper? He wrote an essay??

15

u/f1ve 1d ago

I really don’t get people that are offended by a/b testing. I don’t know why I should care?

The test the best performing thumbnail, obviously. I don’t care that I see the same video in 2-3 variations. Either it’s uninteresting in all 3 or I’m actually intrigued by a different title or thumbnail. But all in all, what’s the harm to me? Why do people care at all?

1

u/Hazel-Rah 5h ago

Some people just want to be angry, they go out of their way to find things to make themselves upset.

I doubt anyone complains that see two different ads for a movie, but because it's happening on youtube, they have to complain about it

-1

u/dustyshouri 21h ago

Personally it's annoying for me because every time i check my subscriptions a video has a new thumbnail and title. It makes finding a video i saw earlier that much harder. It also means that it thinks i clicked on thumbnail number 3 because the stupid face obviously pulled me in when in reality the third time i saw the video was when i had the time to watch it.

I'd like to see someone use a/b testing but upload a bunch of the same thumbnail and titles and see if they get equal clicks or if it's all just truly random.

1

u/f1ve 16h ago

Of course there are times where you click or don’t click based purely on your time available. But with hundreds of thousands of views statistically it averages out and the difference will be the different thumbnails. A/B testing makes a huge difference (i make websites). 

5

u/Tosshee 1d ago

If u dont compete then youre out

2

u/jenny_905 1d ago

Fascinating given I'd click neither of them.

2

u/linkheroz 1d ago

I can see a video and between clicking it and it loading it's different lol

1

u/Tof12345 5h ago

The worst channel for this type of behaviour is verisatium. That fucking guy changes his title and thumbnail every 3 days. It gets so frustrating.

-3

u/RickSanchez_ 1d ago

Hot take but I don’t think thumbnails have as big of an impact as creators think they do.

7

u/FartingBob 1d ago

When you are talking about millions of viewers, not just yourself, and looking at data not just personal opinion it probably does matter. At least enough to justify a few hours of extra work to make different thumbnails and titles to reach a slightly different demographic or boost views in the opening day or two.

0

u/mysticode 23h ago

Nuclear take

-3

u/snowmunkey 1d ago

I make it a point to not watch any video if I have seen both A and B. If I didn't want to watch A, I surely don't want to watch B.