Here's how to make a killer YouTube thumbnail to blow up your channel. Because a single thumbnail could be the difference between getting your big break on YouTube and going completely unnoticed. As Beast is fond of saying, If people don't click, they don't watch. But how exactly do you get someone to click?
What do the top Youtuberss know that we don't? To find out, I spent the last 36 days poring over interviews, listening to talks, and analyzing the best performing thumbnails from the top creators in the world. 73 pages of notes later, I discovered that the best YouTube thumbnails follow a four-part formula. And this video will walk you through them all.
The first part is the one that's by far the most important, and yet also the most overlooked. If you're watching this video, I don't have to tell you that thumbnails are important. There is a reason why you clicked on this video in the first place.
But where most of us go wrong is in the time we dedicate to our thumbnails. You see, the top Youtuberss know that YouTube is a game of clicks and watches. The success of a video is determined in part by the effectiveness of the packaging, which drives clicks, and in part by the video itself, which drives watch time.
The problem is, most of us spend our time like this. We'll spend countless hours agonizing over scripts, capturing the best shots, and editing our videos to perfection, only to come up with a thumbnail an hour before the video goes live. If that sounds like you, don't worry, you're not alone.
It's something I've been working on improving myself. But why would you spend 10% of your time on something that determines 50% of the result? That's why part one of making a killer YouTube thumbnail to blow up your channel is killer time allocation.
The best Youtuberss in the world view thumbnails as a priority, not as an afterthought. And while most of us don't even start thinking about thumbnails until right before hitting publish, top Youtuberss take the time to finalize their thumbnails first. before they even start working on the video itself. So don't be afraid to spend days or even weeks perfecting your thumbnail. It's worth taking the time to get it right.
Once you're prepared to give your thumbnail the time it deserves, you're ready to move on to part two of the formula to make a killer YouTube thumbnail to blow up your channel. Killer psychology. When most of us go into thumbnail creation, our process might look a little something like this.
We'll think, oh yeah, I need a thumbnail. Um, I should probably be in it. and there should be some images or icons related to my video topic, and I should throw some text in there too to really emphasize the point. With that as the default, we'll spend the majority of our time finalizing the colors, positioning, and text. Our process couldn't be more wrong if we tried.
Because while we're spending most of our time on thumbnail design, the most successful Youtuberss spend the majority of their time nailing the psychology behind the click. And recently, world-renowned YouTube consultant Patti Galloway confirmed the exact same thing. A thumbnail to me is at least 80, maybe 90% the psychology of the click, and then maybe 10, 20% the actual design of the thumbnail. Because ultimately, no matter the formatting or color scheme of a thumbnail, the decision to click is driven by a single psychological mechanism.
Curiosity. And that curiosity is strongest when we experience what's known as a curiosity gap. This is the gap between what we currently know and what we want to know, and is one of the most basic drivers of human behavior.
Because as humans, our brains are wired to crave closure. So when we're introduced to an unfinished story or a question without an answer, it's like having an itch that we very much want to scratch. Our brains go, wow, I could really use some closure right now. It pushes us to seek out answers by clicking on the video. To see this in action, let's take a look at this thumbnail from Kelly Wakasa.
Design-wise, this thumbnail is relatively simple. There are no crazy halos of light or detailed illustrations. Yes, the colors are great, which is something we'll get into detail later. But it's not the colors that make this an insanely clickable thumbnail. It's Ashley and her position and her expression and Kelly and the action he's taking.
These elements work together to evoke the questions, what led up to this very moment and what's about to happen next? These questions open a curiosity gap. That gap is only closed by clicking on the video and watching it.
The stronger the curiosity gap, the more clickable the thumbnail. And the strongest curiosity gaps on YouTube are created using one of the same thumbnails. five methods. The thumbnail we just looked at is a prime example of a moment thumbnail.
These thumbnails generate curiosity by offering a glimpse into the moment right before a powerful reaction. When the moment captured contains enough emotion and tension, it becomes nearly irresistible. When we inevitably click on the video, we're clicking to find out what happens directly before, during, and after that exact moment. Story thumbnails also generate curiosity by provoking the question, what happens next?
But instead of focusing on a specific moment before a reaction, story thumbnails place the emphasis on building narrative. They usually do this by introducing a point of tension or a question that sets up the first act of the story. When we click on the video, we click both for the resolution of the tension on the screen and for whatever new tension or consequence that resolution leads to.
The stronger the tension, the more effective the thumbnail. Result thumbnails feature a desired result. Whether it's a physical final product or a sought-after skill, the curiosity gap remains the same. How did they do it? And commonly, how can I do it too?
The more sought-after the result, the stronger the curiosity gap, and the more effective the thumbnail. Transformation thumbnails also feature a desired result. The difference is they also show a beginning state. The more relatable this beginning state, the more effective transformation thumbnails are, with the curiosity coming from the desire to know the story and process behind getting from point A to point B. And last but not least, novelty thumbnails draw their power from our natural urge to experience something we've never seen before.
Novelty thumbnails typically come in two flavors. Novelty that inspires awe, and novelty that is weird or unexpected. And while novelty can be drawn from complete absurdity, it tends to be the most effective when it's combined with something we're already familiar with, offering a unique spin to something we already know. So before you open Canva or Photoshop, consider what curiosity gap you want to create first.
What questions can you introduce that they really need the answers to? If you're having trouble coming up with a strong curiosity gap, I have some bad news for you. Your video idea probably isn't interesting enough. in the first place.
And I get this all the time, you know, I've got this amazing idea, it's gonna be so funny, I just can't think of a way to thumbnail that. And I'm like, well then it's not a good, it's not a good YouTube idea, unfortunately. The best YouTube thumbnails come from killer video ideas.
And the topic of how to come up with a killer video idea is big enough to make an entire other video about it. So I will. I'll put a link in the description below when it's out, but to make sure you don't miss it, now would be a great time to...
Well, you know the rest. After you're 90% confident you have a curiosity gap people will click for, you have the foundation for your killer thumbnail to blow up your channel. But in order for someone to get hooked by your killer curiosity gap, they have to notice it in the first place. Because as soon as we log onto YouTube, we're hit with a screen full of different recommendations, each one vying for attention.
And as we're browsing through our recommendations, often with our brains on autopilot, We scroll past countless thumbnails that we don't even mentally register. To avoid their thumbnails being lost in the noise, the best Youtuberss in the world are masters at pattern interruption. They know exactly what to include in their thumbnails to stop your scroll.
Because they know how to hack our brain's attention system. You see, our brains are constantly bombarded by stimulus. If we constantly took in everything we could perceive at all times, we'd be paralyzed with information overload. So to help us out, our brains use attention, focusing on the most relevant or useful information while filtering out the rest. But this attention system can be hacked, because our brains are biologically primed to pay more attention to certain things.
I call these things scroll stoppers, and top Youtuberss include them in their thumbnails to ensure that their thumbnails catch your eye. A classic example is the use of faces. You've probably heard the advice that faces do well in thumbnails. And indeed, our brains are very good at recognizing faces because it helps us understand other people's emotions and intentions, which can in turn signal a potential threat or opportunity. The larger the face, the stronger this effect.
But before you go slapping a giant picture of your face to the left side of each of your thumbnails, hey Mr. Beast, keep in mind that faces are quite a bit more effective for your favorite Youtuberss than they are for you. And no, that's not a diss on your looks. It's due to something called familiarity bias, which is the idea that our brains are naturally drawn to what we're familiar with. When we recognize the face of a Youtubers we already know, like, and trust, we're more likely to click on it, versus a thumbnail featuring a face we don't recognize. Now, this doesn't mean that if you're a new or small Youtubers, you're completely screwed.
And in fact, familiarity bias is something that can even be hacked in our favor. That's the logic behind the thumbnail style of charisma on command. People are more likely to stop to scroll when they see a celebrity they recognize versus the face of a random guy they don't know.
Familiarity bias is so powerful that even well-known gaming Youtuberss will often feature a recognizable character or element from a popular game instead of their own face in a thumbnail. And familiarity bias extends beyond faces as well. That's one of the reasons why thumbnails featuring instantly recognizable interfaces such as Discord, iMessage, Yelp, PayPal and others are so eye-catching.
This isn't to say that you should never include your face in a thumbnail if you're a lesser-known Youtubers. Our natural attraction to faces is powerful even if they're unfamiliar. But if you're a smaller Youtubers hoping to attract a larger audience, you shouldn't rely on your face alone to stop a scroll. Instead, consider using one or more of these other scroll stoppers. In general, we're attracted to nice large round numbers.
These clickable numbers become easy to follow. even more clickable when money is attached to it, something finance channels tend to use to their advantage. In fact, money in any form tends to stop our scroll.
We're also naturally wired to detect danger and movement, as they can often signal a new threat or opportunity in our environment. In a similar vein, we're drawn to displays of emotion, because an emotional reaction in others can signal a threat we haven't detected ourselves yet. We're biologically attracted to bright colors. which in the early days of human existence could help us identify everything from ripening fruit to fresh blood.
And we're also drawn to things that are aesthetically pleasing, because frankly, they feel really nice to look at and our brains want more of that pleasurable feeling. But while it may be tempting to jam as many scroll stoppers as possible into your thumbnail, that could end up hurting rather than helping you. Because the more scroll stoppers your thumbnail has and the more clickbaity your thumbnail becomes, the more diluted your brand gets. That's one of the reasons why Ryan Trahan opts for more realistic looking faces in his thumbnails. And I found that realistic thumbnails just feel like me.
It feels like, yeah, if my face is not like, I feel more connected to the, to the thumbnail. If I'm just making a very subtle face, that's like, Because it's realistic and I'm like, oh, that's legit. So before you get lost in the sauce of throwing in big numbers, bright colors, and giant emotional faces in each of your thumbnails, consider the brand you want to build and the story you want to tell.
Not every scroll stopper will fit with every creator and every audience and every curiosity gap, and that's okay. Just choose the one or two that enhances rather than dilutes or distracts from your chosen curiosity gap and your brand. After you have a killer curiosity gap, and one or more killer scroll stoppers, you've nailed the psychology of the click.
But how can we turn that well thought out psychology into a physical thumbnail? That brings us to part three in making a killer thumbnail to blow up your channel, killer design. We tend to think of design as adding things, but great design is actually about getting the main point across as quickly as possible.
Which is good news for us, because if it takes more than two seconds for a viewer to fully understand what's happening in your thumbnail, they're already scrolling past, leaving your video unnoticed and unwatched. To avoid this, top Youtuberss obsess over making their thumbnails extremely obvious to see and incredibly easy to process. And to do that, they perfect the three C's of thumbnail design. Contents, composition, and contrast.
The contents of your thumbnail are all of the visual elements that make up your thumbnail, including people, icons, graphics, backgrounds, and text. Essentially, it's the what of your thumbnail. But how do you decide what to include in your thumbnail? It's simple. You include whatever you need to create your curiosity gap.
Typically, these elements are broken into two categories. main characters, and supporting characters. The main character is the single element that best contributes to the curiosity gap. This is the hero, or focal point, of the thumbnail. For a novelty thumbnail, it's the weird, new, or unexpected thing.
For a result thumbnail, it's the result. For a story thumbnail, it's the main character or driver of the story. And so on and so forth. And while in some rare cases there can be more than one main character, in the vast majority of thumbnails, every other element exists to support the main character in creating the curiosity gap, either by providing necessary context, drawing attention, or adding additional curiosity.
In this story thumbnail for Mr. Beast, the curiosity gap comes from wanting to know what happened while he was stranded at sea, what challenges he came across, and how he dealt with those challenges. The story is about Mr. Beast, so he's the main character. The rest of the elements are supporting characters.
There's a raft to indicate that the main character is stranded, the water to indicate that he's at sea, sharks to add the scroll stopper of danger, and the words Day 7 to indicate the scope and depth of the video. There's nothing extraneous here. Every single element has a purpose.
And every element is positioned in a way that guides the eye directly to the main character. Which brings us to the second C of thumbnail design. Composition.
Starting with layout. most high-performing thumbnails follow one of two alignments. Symmetrical thumbnails place their main character in the center, with the left side of the thumbnail closely resembling the right side.
Asymmetrical thumbnails follow the rule of thirds, placing their main character on the left or right third of the thumbnail. But it's not just the placement of the main character that matters. Supporting characters and backgrounds can also be used to direct attention.
When placed properly, natural lines in the background can become leading lines, subtly drawing our eyes to the main character. And of course, the classic red arrow or circle helps to quite literally point out what we should be looking at. In some cases though, top Youtuberss will intentionally direct some attention away from the main character.
instead choosing to emphasize a supporting character. This is usually in cases where the supporting character is used as a reference point to establish some unique defining characteristic of the main character, such as size. In those cases, top Youtuberss are very careful to ensure their thumbnails maintain the proper hierarchy, preventing the main character from being overshadowed by any supporting characters. This hierarchy can be established using scale, where the main character is significantly larger than any other element, Blur, where the main character is in focus while the other elements are blurred. And Depth, where the main character is the element closest to the camera.
This hierarchy is especially critical to keep in mind when considering thumbnail text. Text in thumbnails is tricky. In some thumbnails, text is an integral supporting character, adding critical context, clarity, or curiosity. In others, text only serves to add clutter.
So if you're tripping over your words, here are some pointers. Text should only be used if it's additive to the story the thumbnail is trying to tell. What do I mean by additive? Well, there are a number of ways in which text can help create curiosity.
It can be used to show scope or intensity in a thumbnail. thumbnail, such as 41 minutes in or stake number 46, which gives viewers a sense of scale. It can add context, giving viewers insight to things they may not know.
It can add clarity to things that might not be obvious and can even be a source of curiosity, acting like a subheading. If you do elect to use text in your thumbnails, here are some things to keep in mind. While the human brain can process an image in as little as 13 milliseconds, it takes us much, much longer to process text.
So unless the text you use is a big flashy number with a dollar sign in front of it, don't count on text to be what draws in viewers in the first place. Your text should never just repeat your title. Remember, we're going for additive, not repetitive. And you should optimize your text for legibility. This means keeping it to a maximum of five words, avoiding it looking like a block of text, using language your audience can easily understand, and selecting a font that is easy to read.
Typically this means sans-serif fonts with outlines and shadows, unless you're going for a specific brand or vibe. And make sure your text is never higher in the element hierarchy than your main character. Take this lovely Binging with Babish thumbnail. It's a clear, compelling result thumbnail, and it looks...
delicious. Now let's make the most common thumbnail text mistake. No more eye-catching results.
Instead, just a block of text you won't bother reading as you scroll past. To avoid ruining a good thumbnail with poor text choices, ensure your main character always remains the dominant element. But positioning alone isn't enough to do that.
And even the most beautifully structured thumbnail can be ruined if it doesn't apply one cr- critical concept. This concept? Contrast.
And no, not this type of contrast. When we say that a thumbnail really pops, what we're really saying is that it has good contrast. And when applied properly, contrast can not only instantly capture attention, but also guide the viewer's eye directly to the most important part of the thumbnail. How do we do that? With color.
Colors have three values. Hue, saturation, and lightness or luminosity. and contrast can be created using each of these values.
Contrast using luminosity comes from mixing lights and darks. Luminosity contrast is the driver behind the success of this thumbnail from Mr. Who's the Boss. This is a novelty thumbnail, the curiosity generated from a strange crystal structure we've never seen before. The main character of the crystal structure and the critical supporting characters of the contextual text in the arrow are the complete opposite luminosity from the rest of the background.
and from Mr. Who's the Boss himself. If Mr. Who's the Boss's background was lighter, our attention wouldn't be drawn to the curiosity generators anymore. They'd completely blend in. Instead, we'd instantly be drawn to Mr. Who's the Boss's face, which isn't strong enough alone to drive curiosity and get the click. Contrast using saturation comes from mixing areas of high saturation with areas of low saturation.
The best example of this is Ryan Trahan's iconic world's quietest room thumbnail, which was so effective it started a whole trend. The main character in Ryan's thumbnail is Ryan himself and his reaction to being within the world's quietest room. By dropping the saturation to just grayscale for the rest of the thumbnail, but keeping Ryan in full saturation, that saturation being emphasized even more by using a rich bright color, Ryan instantly stands out from everything else and our eyes immediately find him. Saturation contrast can also be combined with luminosity contrast.
for eye-catching results. In this thumbnail from Elizabeth Phillips, the main curiosity generators are Elizabeth herself in the supporting text. Elizabeth's turtleneck in the supporting text are the opposite luminosity from the rest of the background, creating luminosity contrast.
But to take things one step further, she adds a bright pop of red for saturation contrast, instantly drawing attention to her face and to the most important word on the thumbnail. Less common but still worth mentioning, we have hue contrast. Contrast using hue comes from using what's known as complementary colors. These are colors that sit opposite to each other on the color wheel.
They're the colors that create the most pop when placed side by side. In this thumbnail from Beast, the color of the raft is neatly complementary to the color of the water. If his raft were a different color, it wouldn't stand out as much. And take a look at this thumbnail from Nick DiGiovanni. He could have chosen any color as his background, but this bright blue is the one that best complements the vibrant orange of the Prime bottle, allowing it to pop.
But contrasting hue isn't reserved for just two colors. Remember when I said the colors in this Kelly Wakasa thumbnail were great? It's a great example of split complementary colors.
The main colors of Ashley's skin tone, her blue coat, and Kelly's yellow coat are nearly perfect. perfectly split complementary, resulting in each color standing out without anyone overpowering the others. Other complementary color schemes include triads and even texas.
Petrads. And while using complementary colors is by no means necessary for a killer thumbnail, trust me, the vast majority of successful thumbnails don't follow a perfectly complementary color scheme. It's a great place to start if you typically struggle with picking out thumbnail colors.
But the concept of contrast isn't reserved for color values within a thumbnail itself. Contrast is also incredibly powerful when applied in relation to other thumbnails your viewers might often see. In a second, I'm going to show you a screen of thumbnails.
I want you to notice which ones your eyes are instantly drawn to. Ready? Go.
Which thumbnail does your attention keep snagging on? For most people, it's this one, which is wild because looking at it, there's nearly nothing on it. It doesn't seem like a particularly brilliant thumbnail, but it stands out to us because it's different. While every other Minecraft thumbnail is bursting with numerous brightly colored elements...
This thumbnail just has one big color block. As a result, it's remarkable. It contrasts with every thumbnail around it, making it pop. So while it may be tempting to follow the thumbnail meta of your niche, consider going against the grain.
If most thumbnails are maximalist, try something minimalist. If most thumbnails use red, try using blue or green. Try being remarkable. It might just be your breakout thumbnail. It was for me.
But whether you choose to think outside the rectangle or draw your inspiration from what already works, it's safe to say that by now a lot of work has been poured into your thumbnail. There are curiosity gaps and scroll stoppers and contents and composition and contrast. It's a lot to keep track of. So as you're making your final thumbnail adjustments, how do you know when you're done? How do you know that you have a killer thumbnail that's good enough to blow up your channel?
To evaluate the quality of their thumbnails, the best Youtuberss in the world run their finished thumbnails through a series of three tests. Which brings us to the fourth and final step in our formula to make a killer thumbnail to blow up your channel. Killer analysis.
The first test top Youtuberss run on their thumbnails is the clarity test. Because when we make our thumbnails, they're usually taking up our entire screen on Photoshop, Canva, or in my case, Figma. They look brilliant, bold, and beautiful. The perfect thumbnail.
a masterpiece. But your viewers don't see your thumbnail on Photoshop. Your viewers see your thumbnail on YouTube. And thumbnails can look very different in full screen than when they're teeny tiny on a suggested panel. So to make sure your thumbnail makes sense at any size, pop it into a preview tool like ClickPilot.
The smallest your thumbnail will ever show up on YouTube is in the suggested panel. So to pass the clarity test, you must be able to make out every element of your thumbnail in the sidebar view without straining. Can you clearly read every word?
Can you easily identify every element? If the answer is no, your thumbnail still needs some work. Once you've passed the clarity test, you can advance the contrast test. This is where top Youtuberss verify their thumbnail stands out in a crowd. Add a few channels that your viewers are also watching.
Does your thumbnail interrupt the pattern? Can your thumbnail stop the scroll? If not, go back and make some changes. If yes, you're ready to move on to the third and final test. the glance test.
If you've made it all the way to this test, it's safe to say that you've spent a lot of time staring at your thumbnail, which means that you're more than a little biased. So for the ultimate test of whether or not they have a killer thumbnail, the best Youtuberss in the world show their thumbnails to someone else. Even sometimes they'll just take Take a thumbnail on my phone and show it to someone really quickly and just say, what did you see? Put your thumbnail on your phone and flash it to a friend, family member, or willing stranger for two seconds and then ask them what they saw. If those two seconds aren't enough for someone seeing your thumbnail for the first time to fully understand what's going on, your thumbnail isn't clear enough.
But if you pass the clarity test and the contrast test and the glance test, congratulations! You have your killer thumbnail. You'd think that would be the end, right?
But no, despite being so intentional about every component of their thumbnail, the best Youtuberss in the world still have one final secret they apply to every thumbnail they make. Because even the best Youtuberss in the world are wrong sometimes. So top Youtuberss don't just make one killer thumbnail, they make three.
The one that they hit publish with, and two variations that are ready to swap it in a moment's notice as soon as they see a video start to flop. These variations aren't as simple as just changing the t-shirt color and calling it a day. Because if a thumbnail is underperforming, a t-shirt color change isn't going to be enough to save it. Instead, top Youtuberss will go all the way back to the beginning. Considering different curiosity gaps, scroll stoppers, elements, compositions, and types of contrast, they'll come up with 10 to 15 entirely different concepts.
Don't worry, these concepts are not fully fleshed out. They're just sketched out. And taken from Patti Galloway, these sketches don't even have to be that good. They are the worst sketches ever known to mankind. The sketches just serve as a proof of concept to get a general gist of what the final product could look like.
From there, they'll select the three best concepts to take to full thumbnails. Those are their thumbnail variations. And those are the backups they have ready to swap in, just in case their initial guess was wrong. How do you know when it's time to swap? In the first few hours after you hit publish, click on the top right corner of the screen.
Closely monitor your video's views, impressions, and click-through rate, or CTR. If your views, impressions, and CTR are all above average, then congratulations! You did it!
You made your killer thumbnail. No swapping needed. If your views and impressions are both high, but your CTR is low, that's also a good sign.
This usually happens because YouTube decided to push your video out to people outside of your core audience. And a lower-than-average CTR is natural and expected. No swapping needed.
But if your views, impressions, and CTR are all below average, it's worth swapping to a different thumbnail variation to see if it's a problem with your thumbnail. If you're crunched for time and can't vigilantly monitor your analytics hours after each upload, that's okay, all is not lost. YouTube is rolling out their own native A-B testing feature.
And if you're a pleb like me and don't have access to it yet, or if you want deeper, more customizable testing, Thumbnail Test is a great alternative. Some top Youtuberss wait a few hours before swapping thumbnails, and some top Youtuberss wait a few days. Either way, it always pays off to have a few variations on standby. Because sometimes the only thing holding a video back from reaching its full potential is the right thumbnail. I know we've covered a lot in this video, and for good reason.
Thumbnails are simultaneously incredibly important and incredibly complex. And although I threw a lot at you today, if there is anything to remember when making a killer thumbnail to blow up your channel, it's... Give your viewers a reason to click, make your thumbnails obvious to see and easy to understand, and pass your tests. To help you out, you can even save this guide to reference every time you make a thumbnail. I'll put a link to download it for free in the video description below.
And here's the thing. The next thumbnail you make may not be perfect. Or the one after that.
Or the one after that. But guess what? There is no such thing as the perfect thumbnail.
Thumbnails are an art form. not an exact science. And all of the guidelines I introduce in this video are just that, guidelines.
For every point I brought up, there are dozens of examples of killer counterpoints. But sometimes you just need to understand the best practices in order to know which ones to bend or break. And as long as you implement the principles covered in this video with every thumbnail you make, you're going to get better and better.
YouTube channels tend to grow a little bit at a time and then all at once. And while I might not be able to guarantee that your next video will go viral, I am sure of one thing. If you keep going and if you keep improving, you will get there.
It might be tomorrow. It might... be quite a few tomorrows, but if you keep with it, your big break will come. After all, you're just one killer video away. But a killer thumbnail alone isn't enough to make a killer video, because after someone clicks on your video, they need to actually watch it.
And for that to happen, they need to make it through your intro. So to learn how to make a killer YouTube intro, click here. Otherwise, keep creating. Like and subscribe if you can, and I will see you in the next video.