Should I upload my ad with or without subtitles?

We are often asked this question, and the answer, for the most part, is: it depends.

In our YouTube benchmark database, roughly 90% of the ads do not include subtitles. Most YouTube ads Are Watched In An Audio-On Setting, and subtitles are not as important as on some other channels where content is consumed with sound off. Therefore, if you want to follow the general trend on YouTube, most advertisers do not include subtitles.

However, if subtitles are important for your ad and you do wish to include them - keep in mind that they will likely affect your cognitive ease and ad breakthrough scores. If your ad already has a lot of quick movements and different visual focus points, creating an additional focus point will likely result in a lower score on cognitive ease as the additional focus point will make the ad harder to process. On the other hand - if there is no clear focal point and then you add subtitles, the score may improve by creating a clear focus point around the subtitles.

As for ad breakthrough - it is possible that subtitles could give a small boost to the ad breakthrough score, particularly if the texts are quite big and use contrasting colors. Eyes are naturally drawn to big, bold texts so you can expect to likely see a small boost to your ad breakthrough score - but this will also depend greatly on the other visual elements in your video which may distract from the subtitles.