Small creators cannot make thumbnails that reach 5% CTR
Content creators, particularly those new to platforms like YouTube, are experiencing frustration and low engagement due to a lack of effective thumbnails. They recognize the importance of compelling visuals but struggle with design skills, understanding what resonates with audiences, and achieving higher click-through rates. This leads to feelings of inadequacy and a desire for guidance or affordable design solutions.
SOURCES (60)
“Will I be absolutely destroyed if I use an AI thumbnail? Here are two that I am considering. I’m not a photographer I am just trying to do my best. submitted by /u/Hefty-Perception1751 [link] [comments]”
“There seem to be rolling trends that simply must be getting some kind of push from... I don't know where, but they're all f-ing annoying. Most recently I think it's smiling. Yeah, smiling. Suddenly people I've seen doing videos for years with straight faces are suddenly smiling in their thumbnails like someone slipped them something. People I actually know. Who do NOT smile like that. And pointing at stuff. Like, here's a video about how to make tomato sauce, and here's m”
“You 100% want a custom thumbnail for each episode and I'd suggest looking at similar YouTube channels to see if your RSS titles seem in line with popular videos in your niche.”
“I use the firefox addon noimgur. I agree they are all pretty shit.. but the bottom ones the best of a bad bunch.”
“Hi! I make funny commentary videos. Would love help on picking the best thumbnail for my video. Thanks! Here are the 3 thumbnails: https://imgur.com/a/5PlEcYC submitted by /u/iridiumpaintbrush [link] [comments]”
“Some combination of GIMP and Inkscape. That will do everything you need for free. Affinity will likely work fine too.”
“Adobe thumbnail maker is free and also canva with basic features is also free I think.”
“I’ve recently gotten into making thumbnails for fun and I make Minecraft thumbnails as they are the easiest for me. I want to start selling thumbnails as a place to get money from because as a teenager there isn’t many things I can do often. My work takes me about an hour or two to build sets for the thumbnail and animate the character in Npc studio and to edit the thumbnail to add affects like a glow around characters or using the suns position to make diffrent lighting in photopea. (to broke f”
“I’m a Roblox YouTuber and I’m using Picsart to make my thumbnails. However im looking to switch to a better software with more effects. I’m broke at the moment and my parents aren’t willing to finance my little endeavour. Please help Reddit 🙏🙏 submitted by /u/kokichi_Ouma3 [link] [comments]”
“That is, before the video's autoplay? I (a creator) see that most of my videos get watched on mobile phones, and I'm wondering whether I should put much more effort into the first few seconds of the videos than into thumbnail designs. In other words, whether thumbnails are as important as they're made out to be, at least for mobile phones. submitted by /u/Exciting_Ad_6837 [link] [comments]”
“Thumbnails are the first thing viewers see, so yeah influencers are going to try to make them attention grabbing and not overly cluttered”
“There’s YouTube videos on familiarizing yourself with the program, tutorials on how to make stuff (like making logos and text embossed into wood and metal), introductions to plugins and how they can expand tools and filters. It can be overwhelming but here’s a playlist to help you start. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTNnEL_7_itCPFHEgIWUkDVT_yhtIajNi&si=4Bpe3f_QSN-gNn5j Sincerely, a previous Photoshop user.”
“I just would imagine that with 5m views and 50m+ impressions someone would say something.”
“Just because “no one says a word” doesn’t mean there aren’t people who spot the ai slop thumbnail and choose not to watch. Just because they aren’t vocal about it doesn’t mean they don’t know”
“these arent the best examples but what im asking is do yall prefer thumbnails that are photoshopped with real people n stuff or drawn like the second one? im asking because i plan on making videos soon but idk what people will mainly want to click on submitted by /u/Granny_Hammie [link] [comments]”
“I absolutely hate the generic look of them all. and some of my favorite content creators are doing them. I particularly hate the ones with the surprised look on their faces. So many travel, disney, and cruise vloggers are doing them. UGH.”
“Im more focused on the idea of people saying its saturated, my stuff aside, there just isnt that much funny moments content out there, but there is so much more of the latter, thats my main focus, my English is not so good so sorry If I type bad”
“I know this is hard for you to understand in your 'I'm awesome at thumbnails' world. But I am shit at thumbnails and AI helps me make less shit thumnails.”
“Overly saturated and edited thumbnail to attract views. Same with the Gordon Ramsey thumbnails that make him look as if he has the most neon cyan eyes.”
“Try Canva.com It's free and they have templates you can use a base and starting point.”
“please, don't take my nonsense like a pro opinion, because it is it not, just another small creator. can't help you with shorts, i don't watch any, i don't do many, i suck at them. i don't think they are related to long-form in any case. i recently posted a pair short+long on the same thing, short sucked at 500 views, long-form is doing numbers, over 7K (real old school views, not the new bs).”
“Yea maybe I will skip out on the speech bubble next time. I was wondering if I could get your pro opinion on something else. I've done about 20 shorts before uploading my first longform and what I did after uploading my long-form was make a linked short to bring attention to the video. 20 views. Which was odd coming from an average of 1.5-2k. I've posted 5 more shorts since then and they have all been under 100 views likely only coming from my subscribers. I don't understand what'”
“I am not very good with photoshop, any thumbnail I attempt to make it’s very clear that it’s all badly edited cutouts. I try to follow guides and video tutorials but it all still looks bad. I also tried using Fiverr but the artist I hired used AI that I didn’t catch until about 3 months after the video was uploaded. Where can I find an actual artist on a tight budget? submitted by /u/ABOMB98 [link] [comments]”
“And about the text the black popped in the white background. I'll have to see what you are talking about with the font.”
“Dang I didn't know it was that bad. I've seen a lot of YouTubers in my niche use thumbnails more bland than this like the YouTuber soupmoto who is decently popular in the niche.”
“They're absolutely awful. Some of the worst I've ever seen on here. I bet the "which one" thumbnail has the word "one" blocked by the video length on a lot of setups. Never put text in the bottom right. Plain white background shows zero effort. Black text will not pop at all. Use something like yellow or red. Ask Gemini for a list of viral fonts, and make sure the text has an outline so it stands out. If you're that bad at thumbnails. you need to watch millions of”
“the blurry image there is the way i captured the image afterwards. Lost the file to the original image.”
“img 1 https://postimg.cc/zLY4yj4z img 2 https://postimg.cc/Z052v0s5 stats that i think might be intresting/important https://postimg.cc/gallery/cw9fbzD”
“the photo of the motoX rider in the bottom pic is waaay blurry, especially compared to the rest of the pic which is super weird because you have it as the centerpiece. Indicates the quality people will expect from your actual content. The first photo/thumbnail is just artifacted and blurry in general. These thumbnails in DESIGN/layout arent that bad for your niche i suppose, BUT the images in the thumbnails are blurry/low quality nad definitely hurts anyone clicking them.”
“Image is blocked here too so I can't see what you're working with. 11 views could be thumbnail related or it might just be the algorithm being weird to new channels. Sometimes even a perfect thumbnail won't save you if youtube hasn't figured out who to show your video yet. What I do is make 3-4 thumbnail variations and send them to friends before publishing, just to see which one they'd click. Most of the time the one I thought was best actually wasn't. Also check your CT”
Im not sure if my thumbnails are the thing holding me back. The video i made got 11 views and the only way i believe that would be possible is if no…
“Godspeed! Be sure to consult the guidance on hooks, you want different unique hooks in both your title and thumbnail itself. The one area where high effort creators (myself included) really fall down is not packaging effectively enough. Even a great video needs great packaging to stand out!”
“I would be unlikely to watch this because I dislike watching videos which feel like they should be podcasts. If the visual isn't adding substantially to the information or experience, I tend to click away.”
test it on your own audience. In my opinion, it can work if done right
“If "nobody" likes them then why are some of the top performing videos clearly using them? You may not like them, but if they get results, then they get results and nobody cares about the loud minority. Clutch your pearls all you want but until the numbers actually show it, people are free to generate their thumbnails, however they choose.”
“$20 doesn't seem too out of line for a hand-drawn thumbnail. (You are going to have to offer a revision, so sometimes you might have to draw two if the customer ain't happy with the 1st). You might also get pushback on $20, someone who lives in India could very easily undercut you by 80%+ due to the cost of living being so much cheaper in some other countries. (Some of the biggest YouTubers use India-based thumbnail makers/editors).”
“From research, I understand that charging about $20 would be fair for starters (even tho I usually charge more for artworks in general), and it is good enough for me atm, but I'm still a newbie and wanted to check with insiders. submitted by /u/tiagobox [link] [comments]”
“I usually think my thumbnails are amazing and then i get 2 whole views. I know that its normal considering that I've only published 3 videos so far BUT my analytics are suggesting that my video is being offered to views and that they are violently refusing to take what I am serving. u/Dinadotepub submitted by /u/ButterscotchGold7320 [link] [comments]”
“Ok yeah... I went ahead and did it because one of them had an awful percentage... Maybe it was a poor choice but I'm hoping it wasn't.”
Tell this to r/smallyoutubers or those other start up channel sub reddits
“If you've got an A B test going and you think the results are looking decisive go ahead and pick the winner, but be wary as that stuff can go different ways depending on what kind of impressions you're currently getting. It can make sense to let it ride until it finishes normally.”
“It started recommending me again and it's actually given me way more than I ever could have asked for. Will selecting the best one from the A/B test hurt this again? I ask because I have one thumbnail that is doing significantly poorer than the rest...”
“Yes. Search for a good image, so crazy effect, play with fonts, give someone big red glowing eyes only to regret it... Honestly, I spend all day making a bad thumbnail but it is fun. Unlike editing and recording where I need sound, I can have YouTube or Sports running in the background. And I can tinker around on the ol' iPad.”
“I love recording, scripting, and editing videos. But I can't tell you how much I hate making thumbnails. Does anyone else feel the same way? submitted by /u/StefanJenkins [link] [comments]”
yeah its almost always a thumbnail thing at those numbers
“I uploaded my first video! I’m excited about it. I know so little so I'm just asking others. I changed my thumbnail at 8 pm to simplify the background colors, and at that exact time YouTube stopped giving thumbnail impressions. After changing, the click through rate went way up from 2% to 30% and has stayed around there since, which is awesome, but also, it's being shown to so few people. After this, I read that you’re not supposed to change your thumbnail after release as a small channe”
“What do you guys think. It’s a little rusty but in tryinf new techniques and would appreciate some feedback submitted by /u/BanDa00 [link] [comments]”
“I haven't noticed an issue maybe other phones have different setups for youtube but on my personal phone it is legible i could see it being a lil on the small side on the channel page but even then i can read it and if you're there you've already how it looks on the home page more than likely https://reddit.com/link/p6jxm4d/video/8c1tasj7u8mh1/player”