Hi creators,
At RDC, we announced thumbnail personalization to help users discover your game by automatically showing the most relevant thumbnail to each user on Home. We’re getting ready to launch this feature in early November and wanted to give you a heads-up now so that you can:
- Prepare new thumbnails to take advantage of this feature as soon as it launches.
- Sign up for our live stream on Monday, November 4 at 1 pm PST for a live walkthrough and Q&A. (we’ll also upload the recording after).
During our experiment phase, experiences saw an average +8.5% increase in qualified play through rate (qPTR), with some seeing +50% increase.
Below is a quick preview of how the feature works and some best practices for creating thumbnails.
How thumbnail personalization will work at launch
- In your thumbnails page on Creator Hub, you’ll see a new Home Page tab.
- On this tab, you can upload new thumbnails and then set up to 5 thumbnails as “active.” Setting 2 or more thumbnails to active will turn personalization on.
- Initially, traffic will be split evenly across your active thumbnails. Thumbnails with higher qualified play through rates (qPTR) for specific user groups will automatically receive more traffic from that group. After a few hours, you’ll see per-thumbnail stats in the table and charts.
- The algorithm will continue to show the best thumbnail to each user over time while keeping minimal traffic to explore other thumbnails. You can add or remove thumbnails at any time, but we recommend keeping a diverse set of thumbnails set to active so that personalization can continue. Also, your winning thumbnail can change over time as user preferences change.
As mentioned in the Discovery vision post, we are building state-of-the-art algorithms and UI that personalize Discovery for every user. Hence our goal with thumbnail personalization is to automatically show the best thumbnail to each user so that you can focus on building your experience.
Here’s an example of what the new thumbnails page looks like in Creator Hub :
Note: Data shown is illustrative. As an example, this experience tested 5 thumbnails and found that 2 performed significantly better than the rest. Every hour, the personalization algorithm sends more traffic to the thumbnails with higher qualified play through rates.
Best practices for creating new thumbnails
Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when preparing your new thumbnails:
- Showcase your gameplay or content update. We reward thumbnails that match what users can expect to play in your game. Avoid click-bait thumbnails that’ll lead to quick bounces.
- Use high quality 16:9 images. Use 16:9 aspect ratio and 1920x1080 resolution to ensure your thumbnail looks sharp on any platform.
- Keep your target audience in mind. Consider what resonates most with them. Get qualitative feedback on new thumbnails from your player community.
- Maintain a consistent visual theme. Use consistent colors and styles to help users recognize your experience across your thumbnails and icons.
- Don’t be afraid to test and experiment. New perspectives like a first person view of your experience could work well.
Check out our RDC analytics session for some real examples of the impact of thumbnail updates.
Interested in learning more?
Sign up for our live stream on Monday, November 4th, at 1 pm PT / 4 pm ET to see a live demo of thumbnail personalization and ask us any questions you have live.
And don’t forget to get your new thumbnails ready for our launch in November.
Talk soon!
