What is A/B Testing and How Does it Help? [A/B Testing for YouTube Thumbnails]

A/B Testing

A/B testing, by my definition, is where you are trying to advertise one thing, but are showcasing it two different ways, and figuring out which way of advertising brings in the bigger audience over the other.

This helps in a big way because you may like sticking to one way of advertising something because that is always the way you have been doing things or it may just be because you like how it looks. In this instance, that's not always the case. Sometimes, different visuals appeal to the audience in different ways than one might think. For instance, I have been making YouTube videos now for almost 10 years and I've never stopped doing it because it is fun and exciting! There have been some times where I can't choose a thumbnail and I will end up having two different versions that I like, but can't choose by myself.

TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy, which is a great source to use on YouTube, gives some more insight into what you should look out for when doing an A/B test. One important thing to note that they mention is that even if you do an A/B test with the same video and different thumbnails, you will definitely get different results every time because every person is active different times of the day and different days of the week which will change your results a lot.

So, when making a YouTube thumbnail, each part of the uploaded video gets put into consideration: The title of the video, the description you added that most of the time describes what the video is about, and the tags. By tags, I mean short terms that a person searches for on the search bar in YouTube that helps them to find your videos.

Take into consideration, if you were a YouTuber that makes videos that are focused towards younger kids, you would want to make the thumbnails colorful and have the cartoon characters they love somewhere on the thumbnails too. If you were to make a different thumbnail that did not have anything at all that kids liked on it, and it was black and white, there is no way that they would want to click on a thumbnail that didn't make them happy.

You may have thought that I forgot to mention how A/B testing helps. Well, don't worry, that's where I'm getting to right now.

 

How Does This All Help?

The way A/B testing helps, whether it is for digital marketing advertisements on websites or if it is for comparing how different thumbnails bring in different audiences on your YouTube channel's videos, they both basically are doing the same thing. They are comparing CTRs. A CTR is short for click-through-rate and that is determined by how many people out there see your ad and click it because they want to learn more about your advertisement. CTRs are the most basic thing A/B tests start analyzing. The next thing they look for is where and when your audience is clicking your ad from. Every person, as I said before, is active during different times and days of the week, so the results will still differ every time. Say, if your main audience on YouTube watches your videos mostly on Friday nights at 5:00 PM CT, then that's when you would want to upload your videos because if you were to upload your videos any other time of the day or on a different day, even with the thumbnail that would have grabbed their attention, it won't bring in as many people because they are not expecting you to release anything on a different time schedule than what you have already planned.

Lastly, I know I have not mentioned this at all yet, but the last thing that gets put into consideration is the different traffic sources that your advertisements get put on. Not only do my YouTube videos send out notifications to my subscribers that I uploaded a video, but it also sends out a tweet to my Twitter too for anybody that follows me on there so they will also know I just uploaded new content. Continuing the A/B test through different sources, you will still get different results because your audience won't know what to think right away since they usually know how your thumbnails are designed and if they look different from usual, there will be less CTRs.

If you take all of these considerations into mind, then you will be able to successfully create an advertisement (or YouTube thumbnail) that will appeal to your audience the way you want.

How to Make Paid Search Advertising Easier to Understand [Fun and Easy Steps Everyone Can Follow!]

Have you ever wondered what paid search advertising is and wanted to know more about it? Then you have come to the right place! Not only will I tell you more about it, but I will also help to make it easier for you to understand so that it will become second nature to you!

Paid Search Advertising

What is paid search advertising? According to AdRoll, it is a marketing tactic in which advertisers pay search engines for ad placements on SERPs and SERP stands for Search Engine Results Pages which means anything that shows up on a web page when you are searching for something on the internet.

When it comes to figuring out where your advertisements are going to be placed on SERPs, there are 6 different things that help determine its placement.

1. Bids
2. Ad & Landing Page Quality
3. Ad thresholds
4. Popularity of Keywords
5. Context of Search
6. Impact of Ad Extension
   

Bids

For a bid, it works like an auction between businesses. Each business bids on keywords and phrases that relate to their products and services. How they work is by PPC, which stands for pay-per-click and the businesses only have to pay money when someone clicks on their advertisement.

Ad & Landing Page Quality

Ad & landing page quality. With how smart phones are a thing this day in age, the more mobile-friendly a website is, the better quality score it gets especially with how relevant and useful Google considers it to be. If you know how to create a website with HTML and CSS, then I would say you're golden!

Ad Thresholds

For ad thresholds, there is not a whole lot I'll be able to explain about it, but I'll try my best to teach you about it. The ad quality, ad position, user signals and attributes, topic and nature of a search result, and related auctions are all part of ad thresholds. I believe this is all of what makes up an advertisement and each part should be taken seriously when you are considering how your audience will see your finished advertisements on the internet because those ads will reflect how they see your company.

Popularity of Keywords

In terms of the popularity of a keyword you have added to your advertisement and website, if another advertisement has the same exact keyword, then it all comes down to who can pay more money for it because that higher bidder will win the auction at that point.

Not only does Google take into account what you are searching, but it also is considering how and where you are searching. What I mean is is that your location, time, search term, what type of device you are on, what the nature of your search is, what other advertisements are competing with you, and search results from your search are taken into account to help you get the best result they believe you were looking for.

Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are very helpful in ways that you would have not ever thought of before. There are many different extensions that do many different things. According to HubSpot, here's how they describe each extension. There's the call out extension which allows customers to highlight specific points about a person's business, products, or services that can be shown alongside the company's advertisement on a Google search. A site link extension is what appears beneath your text ads and directs users to specific pages on your website. An example of one might be a "Buy now" link to a product that shows up as a result on Google. A price extension shows prices of products or services to help make informed decisions about the product or service. This might also include showing the availability of a product currently and the rating along with how many ratings it has.

The location extension provides an extra line in your businesses advertisement and highlights where your businesses location is. Structured snippet extensions are provided by the advertiser, but show information in a structured format that they show with your advertisement. Promotion extensions are what make it easy for a business to keep up with their promotions without having to create a whole new advertisement. The good things that paid search advertising brings to fruition are that there are always high-intent audiences. In other words, no matter what keyword you might try researching on the internet, there will always be a way to reach the type of audience you desire. You save money when making your advertisements because the market is what dictates the price for ads. Lastly, you'll start seeing results right away since there's no need for you to persuade any new customers online since you'll be the one giving them a shorter path to checkout.