In contrast, Canva offer lots of cute and aesthetically pleasing templates but under the discerning lens of a marketer who understands design, their designs are not well thought out.

Has some of the best, professional-designed templates that are created keeping in mind platform-specific best practices. Another common design element that shows the side by side comparison that the video covers.

The big fat arrow which is another common element among trending video thumbnails from various genres.

The shocked facial expression which is the most common visual cue in thumbnails.

Our study of 600+ YouTube videos that we curated from the trending section on the platform showed that the best YouTube thumbnails feature:

88% of the most popular thumbnails are colorful and get an average of 617,000 more views than less colorful thumbnails.

72% of the most popular YouTube thumbnails include a face - getting an average of 921,000 more views than thumbnails without faces.

Still debating whether you need custom YouTube thumbnails? Let’s look at some impressively convincing numbers that this study concluded: Consistent content experiences are cool after all 🙌 If you’re coming from our blog post, for example, you can instantly tell you’re in the same company.

Youtube thumbnail background