How A/B Testing Increased My Revenue By 320%
With A/B Testing at TubeBuddy, you can upload two thumbnails for your Youtube video. TubeBuddy will show them every other day on autopilot and show you which thumbnail is performing better.
The results were astounding!
So I did this with a video where I show people how to make a website. In that video, I promoted a web hosting company. When people get web hosting through my affiliate link, I make money. On the image below, you see that the right thumbnail was performing 37.2% better.
I got a few sales per month. The video was doing okay. When I started using the A/B Testing feature at TubeBuddy, I found out that adding a simple red line around my Thumbnail increased the click-through rate by 37%. That means that 37% more people were clicking on my video than before. After I performed the A/B Test At TubeBuddy, my sales went through the roof.
How does 37% get a 320% increase?
Maybe you think: How can this give you 320% more revenue when the increase is only 37%? Great question! When the Click Trough Rate Of A Video becomes higher, Youtube wants to share the video with more people. So because of the 37% increase in CTR (Click Through Rate), I did not just get 37% more visitors, but I got 400% more visitors to my Youtube video. And in that way, I was able to increase my revenue by 320%.
Below you see all the data TubeBuddy gives you when performing an A/B test.
What Is A/B Testing On TubeBuddy? A/B Testing Statistics
A/B Split testing is the process of selecting two different thumbnails and letting TubeBuddy show each thumbnail every other day. When you do that TubeBuddy keeps track of all the statistics and shows you which thumbnail is performing better. These are the statistics TubeBuddy is tracking:
- Click-Through Rate
- Impressions > Clicks
- Watch time er Impression
- Daily Impressions
- Daily Clicks
- Total Views
- Avg View Dution
- Estimated Total Minutes Watched
- Daily Views
- Youtube Search Numbers
- Suggested Video Numbers
- Browse Features Numbers
- Subs Gained
- Comments
- Likes
- Dislikes
With all those statistics TubeBuddy can automatically help us decide which thumbnail is performing better. At the end of the day, it will bring you a higher click-through rate, more views, and more exposure on Youtube because videos with a higher click-through rate are shown more often on Youtube.
Which statistics are the most important ones?
I know it looks overwhelming and exciting — all those statistics. I focus on two statistics.
- Click-Through Rate
- Average View Duration
When those two are better than the original thumbnail, I have a winning thumbnail. Why? For Youtube, Click-Through Rate and Average View Time are super important!
Which one is the most important? Average View Duration. Youtube wants to keep the viewer on the platform as long as possible so they can make more money through ads. So if you can let viewers stay on the platform for a longer time, Youtube loves that!
How can a thumbnail increase or decrease the Average View Duration?
If I made a thumbnail that states that people can start making $1,000 per day by doing something for 5 minutes, my Click Through Rate would go through the roof. A high percentage would click! But when the viewers would find out it is a video about plants, they would leave the video as soon as they click on the video.
When your thumbnail is not in line with your content, people tend to leave unless the content is better than what the thumbnail seems to tell. So getting a higher click-through rate is not hard. But it can decrease the Average View Duration. When your thumbnail and content of your video are in line, you can increase your Average View Duration.
The best scenario is when your new thumbnail is performing better than the original, and it is increasing the Average View Duration. Then your video can start to perform a lot better, as you have seen in the case study above! This is the best scenario: Your new thumbnail increases the CTR and the Average View Duration.
What To Do After an A/B Split Test
After finishing your A/B Split test, you can do a new split test on the winning thumbnail. In that way, you can keep making your thumbnail better to drive more traffic and let Youtube show your video to more people.
Let me talk about the A/B testing examples you see above. I tried a different profile picture of myself. The left one (below) is a tele shot (zoomed in from a distance). The right one (below) is a close-up image (24mm lens). The thumbnail with the close-up image performs 20 better than the left image.
So I chose this winning thumbnail. But now I tried something else with the winning product. I changed the text in the button from “2023” (left above) to “Make Your First Website” (right above). TubeBuddy found out that the original with “2023” is performing better. When the Average View Durations of both thumbnails are almost the same, I would go with the original image and try something new.
Your goal should always be to have a few A/B Tests in progress. Why? In that way, you can keep optimizing your thumbnails, get more views, be shown to a broader audience on Youtube, make more money and grow your channel.
Split Testing Your Title, Description, and Tags
You can even take it a step further. You can not just do an A/B test on thumbnails but also on your Youtube video’s Title, Description, and Tags. So you can play around with that and see what is performing better. When you use the same tags as the number one video on your video’s perfect search term, it can be that your video will be suggested more. Let’s show an example.
How To Get Started With TubeBuddy A/B Testing
So, I hope you are excited and ready to see the results for yourself! So how to get started? You can sign up for TubeBuddy via the button below.
Go to TubeBuddy and click on “Explore Pricing.”
Which Plan Should You Choose?
Now you need to choose the Legend plan because that plan enables A/B Testing. Let’s do some math: When you make $30 per 1000 views on Youtube, and you have ten videos that generate 100 views per day, you will make around $30 per day. When you apply A/B testing, and you increase the Click Through rate on all videos by 20%, you make $36 per day. $6 extra times 365 days = $2,190 extra money per year. And then I am not even talking about getting more views because your Click Through Rate is higher. That is why I am so excited about TubeBuddy and Split Testing.
Linking your Youtube Account (Which Is Totally Save)
After you select the Legend plan, you need to link your Youtube channel and fill in your details. You can pay with PayPal and Creditcard.
Create Your First A/B Test
Now you can start doing Split Tests. Go to your TubeBuddy Dashboard and select A/B Tests.
Click On “Create AB Test”
Click on the Green button that says: “Create AB Test.”
Upload Your Second Thumbnail
Upload the second thumbnail that you created for the Split Test. Do you yet have to create a thumbnail? You can follow this guide on how to do that using TubeBuddy.
You can select one of your recent videos or search for a specific video by typing in the title or a keyword your video contains.
There are two types of A/B Tests.
- Thumbnails
- Metadata (Title, Description, Tags, Thumbnail)
Choose “Number Of Days” or “Statistically Significant”?
Now you can choose to run the split test for a certain amount of days, or you run it until TubeBuddy is sure that one of the thumbnails is performing better. Never choose that option! Why? TubeBuddy only looks at the Click Through Rate. But it is also very important to take a look at the Average View Duration. If that drops drastically with a better performing Click Through Rate in the eyes of TubeBuddy, it can harm the exposure of your video and give you fewer views. So always choose the Number of Days. I always keep it at 14 days. Within 14 days, you will know which thumbnail is performing better.
Upload the second Thumbnail
After selecting the 14 Days option, upload the second thumbnail to TubeBuddy. Now TubeBuddy will work its magic! So you can sit back and relax. Every 24 hours TubeBuddy will change your thumbnail and keep track of the statistics.
Is there a maximum amount of thumbnails you can test?
There is no maximum amount of A/B tests you can run at the same time, so I would definitely get the most out of it by creating tons of thumbnails and finding out which ones are performing better!
You can also do this with older videos! When you make this a weekly habit, you can be 100% sure that your videos will perform better!
What else can you do with TubeBuddy?
This was only one feature of TubeBuddy. But wait! There is more! Here are some other features TubeBuddy offers:
- Health Report
- Launch Pad
- Competitor Scorecard
- Search Rank Tracking
- Brand Alerts
- Backups & Export
- Canned Responses
- Promo Materials
- Retention Analyzer
- Usage Statistics
- Reply Templates
On this website, you can find more information about those topics.
