Case study: cropping the face tighter raised Shorts CTR-ish 9%

Case study: cropping the face tighter raised Shorts CTR-ish 9%

Shorts don't have classic thumbnails, but the first frame is your thumbnail in feed and on the channel grid. A gaming creator's grid frames were wide shots.

We re-exported 24 Shorts with a tight face crop on frame one, made in Canva (batch resize).

Result: channel-page click-through to those Shorts rose 9%; browse-feed impressions click rate up 6%.

Pros:
— Canva batch did 24 frames in 20 min
— Free tier covered everything we needed

Cons:
— Manual to set the exact first frame in the editor
— Easy to overcrop and clip the chin

Price: Canva free / Pro $13 mo.

Verdict: free, 20 minutes, measurable lift. Do it. Skip only if your Shorts open on text, not faces.