Something as simple as a thumbnail change or a title change can completely change the trajectory of a video. It can take a video that flatlined and revive it entirely.
Here’s a bunch of great before and afters I could find, grouped by niche, so you can learn from some of the biggest creators and how they approach packaging for their videos.
Look at the before, look at the After, guess why it performed better, then read the lesson I wrote beneath each!
A tool that's really good at researching Thumbnail/Title changes on YouTube is 1of10. If you want to take YouTube more seriously, definitely check it out. It's something that I use personally.
❌ BEFORE ~15K views an hour
✅ AFTER peaked at ~200K views an hour
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About 5x more views an hour on average · 1,129,845 views in one day · 214,400,000 views total · watch
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This video was 9 months old. Then Elon did his flying Tesla Roadster demo that went viral on YouTube and Twitter
Everyone was talking about it, so MrBeast threw a flying Tesla in the thumbnail. Same video, but now it's part of a conversation people are already having.
❌ BEFORE 9.6K views a day
✅ AFTER 32.1K views a day
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3.4x more views a day · 5,300,000 views total · watch
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The old one was a mystery box from TikTok Shop, which says shopping, not side hustle. The new one is a PayPal notification, "You've Earned $247.39 for Watching Netflix!" The second one just seems like a much better side hustle. Imagine you're actually making money watching Netflix. You know what I mean? It draws more people in.
❌ BEFORE 97.3K views that week
✅ AFTER 1.86M views the next week
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19.1x more views in a week · 17,300,000 views total · watch
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The only big difference is the economy seats next to him went from empty to packed with tired people. A nice seat only feels nice when you can see the bad seats. Same lesson as the lighter further down.