YouTube Title A/B Testing: Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] I've just been given access to a new YouTube feature that is going to create so many extra views for so many YouTubers and that is Title AirB Testing. Now if you don't know for about a year now YouTube has had thumbnail AirB Testing.

[00:13] This means you can put two and up to three different thumbnails on the same video and YouTube will tell you which is giving you the highest watch time. Now I've used thumbnail AirB Testing a lot creating various different thumbnails with minor

[00:25] changes so that I can work out which one is actually best for my video and it's been very useful but one thing that has remained a mystery through my entire YouTube career is YouTube titles. When I've had a video not perform very well I've updated the title but I've never

[00:41] known if that title change has actually helped or hindered my video performance. So recently I did a geogasoon real life video where I was blindfolded and taken to a random location I had to try and work out where I was.

[00:54] So this is the original title that I had when the video came out and also you can see I had a different thumbnail as well but the video didn't perform that well so yes I was trying different thumbnails but I also tried changing the title and the video still wasn't performing

[01:06] how I wanted so I changed the title back to what I had it as originally and then I changed it one more time this time going with geogasoon real life old cups. Now each time I changed the title I was kind of just having to look at the video's views

[01:18] and guess whether or not it was helping I had literally no idea but this is the thing I've always done so the end of 2023 I released this video where I did a little collab with KSI and I helped him get a Guinness World record and I also got him to sign my diamond play button.

[01:32] Once again the video didn't do that well so I tweaked the title ever so slightly then I changed it again trying to get a bit more drama involved then I changed it back because it didn't really help and then months later I changed it to something totally different and I updated the thumbnail

[01:46] as well and you can see this is a process that took place over many months of me just stressing about what I should be titling my videos so this is just something I've always been doing but finally after years of youtubers like me requesting this feature I have been given

[02:01] early access to a B title testing so in this video we are going so all school jacks looks alive analytics content and I'm going to be running a bunch of different title a B tests and then getting the results in two weeks time so let's start off with this recent video

[02:16] I trained like professional athlete for 30 days if you haven't seen it it's fairly sub explanatory I just did a lot of cardio and strength training every single day for one month now this video I had a promising start and it was doing quite well after the first couple of days but then

[02:30] for whatever reason after the first week things really slowed down so let's see if we can bring things back to life with an air B test now it is pretty cool this feature because it's not only titles you can also test different thumbnail and title combinations like that's

[02:46] really useful but for now I am quite happy with this minorly obnoxious thumbnail now I think what would be really interesting to see is are we actually getting anything out of these little brackets that I sometimes put in titles so let's literally find out today by having

[02:59] a title that doesn't have anything in brackets and then I'm also going to try a totally different title as well so let's go with what should I say what happens when you do strength training and cardio every day is that we spell every day or is it its own word I really should know

[03:14] that yeah it is all one word actually instead of and let's go all caps and like that see this is just so totally different but it'd be really interesting to see a title that sounds a little bit too niche and like blah blah blah maybe that would actually help the video

[03:27] perform better so let's set up the test I am pretty excited to see what happens so let's click save and let's do our next one all right next up is the yoga's in real life so you can see I already have an air B test with my thumbnail and it does seem like this one is

[03:41] significantly better so I think we'll use it and now let's do a title test so we'll leave the all caps really simple quite old school YouTube to you guys in real life title and I'll try something totally different than my go the new thumbnail blind folded and abandoned

[03:55] quite dramatic already I admit can I find out where I am I don't like that title but at least I'll definitively know maybe it actually be better maybe let's say can I find out my location

[04:08] now that doesn't stop that's a terrible title Jack let's try I played geoguester but in real life you are yeah get a little exclamation point on the end and this is the original title

[04:21] that I went with but I'm not sure it works my new thumbnail but you know what seen as we can we're shoving it in anyway and then maybe I could mess with a thumbnail again if it does seem to work okay there you go so this next video is video where I explored London landmarks and I walk

[04:34] to every single one of them in one day you can see I did a thumbnail test where I add a little timer to the top left it didn't really make much of a difference so now we're going to do a title test I walked to every London landmark in 24 hours that is the current title but now we're going to

[04:46] do quite a simple change instead of walked we're going to say I visited I'm just curious maybe people don't care about the walking aspect maybe people are just interested in London in general but then we are going to pause a question title as well can I walk to every London landmark in 24 hours question mark

[05:06] okay set test baby I know why I said baby sorry guys all right here's another video that didn't do very well this was my worst performing video in a while but in all fairness it is just me trying to jump over a fence for 10 minutes I had an AirB test running where I had a little timer it does turn out

[05:24] that this one actually performs slightly better but it looks like the new one has been set so let's swap it to this one there's another video where I tried a couple of different titles but I didn't know at the time if they helped so let's bring some of those back so we have the current one can

[05:37] I learn to park or in one hour then we have learning how to park or over fences in one hour and finally I learned how to jump over fences like in the movies because if you actually watch the video at the beginning I do reference hot fuzz what's the matter Jenny you're never taking a shortcut before now

[05:52] this is such a weird nerdy little title and normally I wouldn't be bald enough to actually set it as the only tile but when I actually can literally experiment it's quite freeing to know that I can just give something a try and YouTube will just get rid of it if it doesn't work there's another AirB test I

[06:07] did so this is a video where I did only push ups and pull ups for 30 days now these thumbnails are so unbelievably similar but I think the difference is I enhanced some of the features on my body and this

[06:19] one like you can see there's just a little bit more definition around my upper peg it's such a minute change but I was just curious to see would that create more watch time and apparently it did actually create like two to three percent extra but anyway when I'm gonna do a new title test so

[06:33] I do think this title is quite good and the video did get I think like 700,000 views which is great maybe you could get a million views of the new title so it's always worth trying so let's get rid of and this happened to my body and instead let's bring back amazing results and then I'm just gonna

[06:48] leave it at these two but if this one wins when it's getting a little explanation point in there you go nice but if this wins I'll test it again but I'll put amazing results and then I'll put surprising results so yeah once you've got a win and title that doesn't mean you stop there you can

[07:02] then try that winning title with a variation on that winning title oh yeah it just goes forever so I have another video I'm incredibly proud of what happens if you walk 100,000 steps in a day this did well 600,000 views but it was like such an adventure and such an accomplishment that I would love

[07:18] to get closer to a million views so let's do a title AB test or you can see look at my thumbnail test that I've been doing as well so I was trying different text next to it but it didn't seem like any of them made much of a difference so the original is what happens if you walk 100,000 steps in

[07:31] a day but we'll also have can you walk 100,000 steps in a day and what happens to your body if you walk 100,000 steps in a day because the happens to your body matter that I've had in a few other titles has done quite well so I thought I'd try in this one too all right now we're gonna try and all the

[07:45] jacks looks aligned video they're still getting views so this is I bought a $1,500 YouTube channel and earned blank so you can see I've done a thumbnail test on this fella as well I tried having an arrow

[07:57] and not having one and we can see without the red arrow we generated an extra percent or sort of watch time YouTube's an amazing job and it's obviously a lot of fun but I can understand at the same time how people get bogged down in these kind of analytics because you know there is so much to fiddle

[08:13] with if you want to so this is the current title which has brought us a colossal amount of views it's one of the most popular videos on my channel so this is a working title there's no reason to try anything different but hey who knows we might think that we're at the peak of the mountain but maybe the

[08:29] peaks all the way up here so what title variation could I try what if instead of it being blank I actually put a number yeah we're doing it we are changing it to $15,000 I mean I think the

[08:41] blank one would be better but I'm curious to find out so let's set the test up okay I now have title tags running on seven different YouTube videos so I guess we will leave it about 10 days also

[08:53] and then we can take a look at the results okay here we are 10 days later and I'm excited to take a look at some data did that remind me so you can see we've got a few airb test still running let's just go from top to bottom so starting with my athlete video and here are the current results

[09:08] and there is actually some differences it's not just an even 33% split this is almost a 6% high watch time share and the only difference is that I've put in brackets and there's the results so it just

[09:20] shows that that kind of style does work now what we can also see is that my totally different title has also performed quite nicely so rather than just letting this continue for the next four days I'm actually going to go ahead and remove the worst performing title so that we can just let these

[09:35] two remaining ones bottle it out oh it's deleted it what was me good title have genuinely forgotten it I think it was something like that I'll check once this recording stopped and I'll change it if not so let's go ahead and set this up as a new test now my geogas in real life video I am curious

[09:51] about because I've been struggling with that one a bit as I mentioned so we do have some discrepancies again we have geogas in real life all caps the really simple one has performed with an extra 3% watch

[10:03] time share compared to both of these versions and these are two titles that I tried originally and then I did change to this one this was before the test so that means I must have made the right decision there now I'm once again going to do a new test with the winning title and what we'll do

[10:17] is we will try these brackets that I've heard such good things about I'm going to go ahead and put lost in the UK it's a bit of a weird one but hey I've got title it be tested now I can just throw as much as I want at the wall and see if anything sticks next up was my walking to every London

[10:33] landmark so let's have a look all right 33% 34% and 31% so which is the one that performed the worst can I walk to every London landmark in 24 hours it seems like people aren't as interested in the

[10:46] question mark okay we'll see if that's a running theme with my other tests and we can see that these two are very close it's not made a huge difference however saying visited instead of walked has actually added about an extra percent so we'll keep the walk and visited but we'll get rid of the

[11:03] question and instead I'm adding an I tried to visit every London landmark in 24 hours let's walk in and lips us on the end as well very nice so that's a new test we'll see how things are looking in a few more days next up was my push ups and pull ups video and we can see not very much of a

[11:20] difference this is so close that it doesn't feel like there's any kind of correlation it just feels like stuff being split into kind of equally so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and introduce a third option I did only push ups and pull ups of 30 days it's changed everything

[11:37] ho ho ho let's put a full stop on the end let's go crazy with it and this is not clickbait by the way it was actually a very effective and simple workout you can watch the video so let's start that new test okay next up is my 100,000 steps in a day video and here are the results there is

[11:52] definitely a loser and that's this middle fella can you walk 100,000 steps in a day no one cares but what happens to your body if you walk 100,000 steps in a day we've got an extra 4% compared to this one and then this one's also somewhere in the middle so I think this is the title I had originally

[12:08] right so we do have a new winner so let's do a new test and get rid of this middle fella yeah I'm just going to leave it on these two and we'll let them battle it out isn't it interesting how these my new changes are actually equating to a minute or two extra watch time like a 5% difference

[12:23] is kind of significant what all I've done is insert the words to your body in the middle of an existing sentence all right next up my park haul video so I tried a few weird titles on this one and it looks like there's another case of them all being quite close and non-really making a big

[12:37] difference what could be happening here is this video hasn't really been getting many views for a while so potentially there's not enough people clicking on it to really get much data back from it so we do have a winner currently it is just the plain simple original one and for now as I can't

[12:52] think of anything else to try we will just leave it there but let's not forget we still have this video which is one of my most popular add 5.3 million views and this is still getting like about 50,000

[13:04] views a month so our test report should come back with a nice amount of data all we did was add an actual number as opposed to leaving it blank okay so we do have a winner 51% and it is actually the one

[13:17] with the money included in the title so as this percentage is too close I think I'm just going to leave this to run and maybe we'll see a fluctuation it is interesting that the non-blank one is currently winning but it has reminded me I have another video from a few years ago that also has

[13:33] this similar blank finance title format now you can see I did a thumbnail test on this well over a year ago and it turned out that the badly pixelated money as opposed to it being completely blank actually contributed quite a significant amount to extra watch time so I'm going to start a new test

[13:49] and I'm actually going to add the exact amount that is featured in the thumbnail there you go and now we'll be able to have two different case studies where I'm testing this blank number versus actual number and we can see does the actual number win both times so there you go let's set the new

[14:06] test okay we've settled on a few titles we've done a few further tests so I'm once again just gonna give it another few days and see if there's anything new all right it's time for the final update on results and I've actually left it an extra two weeks since the last recording you've just watched

[14:21] because I really wanted to give the data time to do its thing and it was worth it my athlete video test has ended with a significant winner and it's what happens when you do strength training and cardio every day I thought this would be a way less exciting title than training like a professional

[14:36] athlete for 30 days but you can see the results are quite significant look at this we have a winner how exciting this has been a great example of just doing multiple tests a few times in order to get the most efficient title possible like I'm almost thinking maybe I should hire somebody to just do

[14:53] constant AB title tests across all of my channels and speaking of my other channels on jacksuxed stuff I've been running some tests as well so I did a video playing a new kneel dot fun game I tried slightly different titles and even a different thumbnail but there was still a clear winner 35% watch time share

[15:10] and then I did a reddit video also on jacksuxed stuff and you can see once again these two they're you know fine but this title definitely contributed to quite a bit more watch time I absolutely love AB title tests it is an amazing new feature it is so so useful in the end my yoga sundry live test

[15:28] finished with an inconclusive result so trying the brackets didn't really seem to make much of a difference now the walking to every London landmark video has had very interesting results 23% 24%

[15:40] 51% this is the biggest difference by far and it is basically a hybrid of the previous tests that I did this is a massive difference it's like twice as successful we got rid of the word walking we added the word tried and we've got a great title now here are the final results for the parkour

[15:56] video it finished without a conclusive result but this is still a winner so I'm going to choose this option I'm not sure why I didn't pick that one on my link in the end my pushups and pull up video into the titles didn't really change very much there's still a winner but it's pretty close I'm gonna set it

[16:10] as this one anyway all the hundred thousand steps videos had a big difference I added the phrase to your body and it's created a 60% watch time share that's the biggest we've had so far all right let's get an update on our numbers in the title test okay so once the test had enough time to run

[16:27] there wasn't very much of a difference 49 compared to 51 however the one with the actual amount in the title did win and youtube has now chosen this as the winning title let's see if that also is the

[16:39] case without other video no it isn't it actually is the opposite result 52% with the blank title compared to 47% with the one where I actually put the amount so that's opposite result across those

[16:52] two so no conclusive info on that one but on that note I am going to end off this video and you better believe I am going to be doing some serious title tests on this video that you've watched so

[17:04] I'm excited to say the results maybe I'll do a community post look out for that I'm going to continue doing title a b test across all of my channels I think it's one of the best new features that youtube have released in years anyway hopefully enjoyed there's good old fasha jacks looks at

[17:18] live analytics video what's that there's a play button video coming up next is it 2023 again what all right thanks for all guys I'll see you later