I have never done a part two of a storefront audit before. Scott’s was important enough to break the rule. In part one I went through his product selection data — 84% selling products, 92% Creator Connections, 83% upper carousel — and how he builds his videos. Now I want to talk about the two things that actually win him the click before anyone watches a single second: his thumbnails and his titles. Because that combination is a huge part of why he’s one of the biggest winners in the Amazon influencer program right now.

What’s In Part Two

Thumbnails Decide the Click

Here’s the thing people forget about the carousel. A buyer lands on a product page, sees a row of influencer videos, and has to pick one. You are not competing against Amazon. You are competing against the other four or five creators sitting right next to you. You are fighting for that click.

The only two weapons you have in that fight are your thumbnail and your title. That’s it. Scott understood that early and went absolutely next level on both.

Scott’s Thumbnail Formula (And Why It’s Repeatable)

His thumbnails are bright. They’re obviously AI generated, but tastefully done. And they follow rules:

  • You can always see the product. That’s my number one rule of thumb, no exceptions. Whatever else you do, make the product clearly visible.
  • Big, bold text in the upper-left corner. Same placement, every time.
  • Contrasting colors on comparisons. If it’s a versus video, there’s a “vs” down the middle with red on one side and blue on the other.
  • Ruthless consistency. It’s essentially the same layout on almost everything. The aesthetic shifts a little to match the product, but the structure never does.

That consistency isn’t just a branding thing — it’s a workflow thing. He’s clearly trained his prompt once, and now he just tells the AI to swap the text and update the look to match the product. He doesn’t rebuild the design from scratch every time. That’s how you sustain high-effort thumbnails without burning your whole week on them.

I pulled up real carousels Scott is sitting in, and it isn’t close. On an AI glasses product, there are other creators genuinely demonstrating the thing — but you have to squint to figure out what’s happening in their thumbnails. I didn’t even notice one of them until I’d been staring at the row for ten seconds. Scott’s is the first thing your eye lands on.

On another carousel, Scott has two videos and both of them grab you first: big bold clean text, clean product shots. The rest are afterthoughts. And I don’t say that to be mean — those are all probably lovely people. They’re just losing clicks, and they’re losing them before anyone watches anything.

The worst cases are the ones where the creator let Amazon auto-select the thumbnail frame instead of uploading a custom one. Do you think anyone is choosing that over Scott’s? Very unlikely. I saw one where the thumbnail doesn’t even show the product. That creator might have wonderful content — nobody’s ever going to find out.

You Don’t Need AI-Level Thumbnails

You might be reading this thinking: I don’t have time for that, and I don’t know how. Good news — you don’t need to do what Scott does.

Scott is an outlier. He’s beating the people who are already beating everyone else, purely because he puts in the extra step. A regular person making regular thumbnails, as long as the product is clearly displayed — even just an arrow on it and some text — already beats most of what you’ll see on Amazon.

And here’s the part that makes his effort sustainable: Scott doesn’t make as many videos as a lot of other creators, because his videos convert so much better. That gives him the time to push the thumbnails another level. Fewer, better videos buys you room to be excellent at the details.

The Data on Custom Thumbnails

There’s a chunk of the Amazon influencer community that’s cynical about custom thumbnails. “I don’t like them. They look like clickbait.”

You are not the target. Regular shoppers — people who have never heard of this ecosystem and have zero cynicism about it — are the target. And for them, custom thumbnails work.

I ran the data analysis on this just last week. Videos with custom thumbnails, regardless of whether they sat in position one, two, three, four, or five, averaged more helpful votes than videos without them. More engagement, consistently. And there’s a strong signal that videos with custom thumbnails get a slight edge in carousel ranking too. Higher carousel position means better visibility, which means more of everything downstream.

So it’s fine if you personally don’t like custom thumbnails. The general public responds to them. Do you have to go to Scott’s level? No. But you should be doing something.

Titles That Create Curiosity

Now the other half. A buyer scanning that carousel is looking at your thumbnail, but they’re reading your title too. What I want from a title is curiosity. Mystery. A reason to click to find out.

Look at what Scott writes:

  • “Tested two popular metal wallets so you don’t have to” — I want to know the results.
  • “Which front pocket wallet is better for you?” — questions are fantastic title openers.
  • “Exploring AI smart glasses with built-in camera” — you have to watch to find out what he found.
  • “Shoe washing bag demo” — a demonstration promises a result you can only get by watching.
  • “Complete demo,” “Everything you must know,” “Watch before you buy” — all fine, all curiosity-driven.

See the pattern? Every one of those leaves the answer inside the video.

Titles That Kill the Click

Now the opposite. “The best minimalist wallet for men.” That title just told the buyer the answer to the exact thing they wanted to know. There is no reason left to click.

“Laundry shoe bag that makes messy laundry easier.” Same problem — you answered the question in the title and gave away your only leverage.

And then there’s the most common failure of all: using the product title as your video title. “Durable mesh shoe laundry bag.” “AI smart glasses.” That does nothing. It doesn’t create mystery, it doesn’t even say something good about the product. It just repeats what the buyer is already looking at on the page. Pair that with an auto-generated thumbnail and you have a video nobody will ever click.

Your thumbnail and your title are the only two levers you have in that carousel fight. Don’t waste one of them restating the product name.

The Whole Blueprint in Four Lines

Scott isn’t perfect. He’s got a few videos that run a minute and a half. There are a couple where he skipped the lav mic. I’d love to see him open his videos by connecting with the buyer instead of jumping straight in. But he is more consistent than almost anyone I have ever audited or interacted with in this program. He’s got a strategy and he doesn’t deviate from it.

Here’s that strategy, complete:

  1. Pick products that are selling, that are on Creator Connections, and that have an upper carousel.
  2. Make a genuinely good video by answering the three or four questions the buyer actually has.
  3. Take the extra time on a thumbnail that stands out and shows the product.
  4. Write a title that creates curiosity instead of giving away the answer.

That’s it. He doesn’t win because his videos are long — he wins because they’re good, and good ends up being longer. He’s been using Oink for at least the last year to find those products, but the tool is the accelerator, not the strategy. This is the basics of the program executed at a high level, and nothing else matters if you’re not doing this part right.

Watch the full part two below, and go back for part one if you haven’t seen the product selection numbers yet.

Thanks to Scott for letting me put his storefront under the microscope. For everyone else, this is the blueprint — orange wig and all. If you want to find the products worth building this kind of video around, that’s what I built Oink for.

I'm an Amazon Influencer since 2023 and blogger since 2021. My goal is to help you succeed in the Amazon Influencer Program.

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