Thumbnails

YouTube Thumbnails – Zero1 by Zerodha

Where Strategy Meets Visuals to Drive Growth
In the last six months, I’ve led the thumbnail strategy for Zero1’s YouTube channel not just as a designer, but as a performance driven creative.

My role goes far beyond visuals. I dive deep into thumbnail psychology, conduct outlier research, track analytics, and constantly experiment with data-backed strategies. Through A/B testing and ongoing iteration, we built a thumbnail system that’s not just scroll stopping, but click compelling.

The result?
Monthly views grew from an average of 50K to 200K+Multiple videos achieved a CTR as high as 16% Thumbnails became a core driver of channel discovery and retention Each thumbnail was approached like a hypothesis grounded in audience behavior, inspired by content outliers, and optimized for performance. I worked across concept creation, copy direction, design, and post-launch analytics to refine what works and what doesn’t.

This wasn’t just design it was strategy, experimentation, and storytelling at scale. And it worked.