Should I upload my ad with or without subtitles?

This is a question we get asked quite often, and for the most part, the answer is - it depends.

In our YouTube benchmark database, roughly 90% of the ads do not include subtitles as Most Youtube Ads Are Watched In An Audio-On Setting and subtitles are not as important as 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. But 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 colours. 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.