Package anatomy.

What the ZIP contains

When the Studio finishes a campaign, it hands you one ZIP rather than a folder of loose exports. Every file inside has a specific destination, and knowing which file goes where saves you from resizing, re-cropping, or re-typing anything on posting day.

For a deeper look at why the three graphic sizes are what they are, see the social image sizes guide.

Why the thumbnail ships clean

The 1280×720 thumbnail is deliberately exported without overlay text baked in. A thumbnail lives a different life from a promo graphic: it renders around 360px wide in search results and around 168px wide in the suggested sidebar, so any text on it has to be enormous to survive — and the right words depend on the specific video title next to it. Baking a caption in at export time locks you into one phrasing forever. A clean plate lets you add large, title-aware text in the thumbnail tool — or leave it text-free when the image speaks for itself. It also keeps the file comfortably under YouTube’s 2MB limit, with JPG and PNG both accepted. These specs are current as of August 2026 — verify against the platform’s own documentation before a critical launch.

Why the QR code comes twice

The same code ships as both PNG and SVG because raster and vector fail in opposite places. The PNG drops straight into social graphics, slide decks, and anything screen-bound. The SVG is for print: it scales to a poster, a banner, or a vehicle wrap without any quality loss, so the module edges stay crisp at every size. Whichever file you place, preserve the quiet zone — four modules of clear space on every side — and keep the code dark on a light background. Sizing, error correction, and placement rules are covered in the QR codes on promos guide, and you can regenerate variants any time with the free QR tool.

The Tap-or-Scan card

A QR code is the right answer when your promo is across the room; a link is the right answer when it is already on someone’s screen. The Tap-or-Scan card covers both: it is a self-contained rich-HTML card that renders your campaign visual with the QR for far-away viewers and a tappable link for everyone else. Drop it into a newsletter, a link-in-bio hub, or any page you control. You can preview how the pattern behaves with the Tap-or-Scan tool.

What the manifest is for

The manifest is a machine-readable inventory of the package: which files were generated, at what dimensions, and from which destination URL. It exists so the ZIP is inspectable — weeks later you can open one file and know exactly what this package was built to promote, without loading every image. It also lets scripts and scheduling tools consume the package programmatically: anything that can parse the manifest can find the right graphic for the right slot without guessing from filenames.

Event campaigns add calendar files

When a campaign carries a date, time, and venue, the package grows two extra artifacts: an ICS file and a Google Calendar URL. The ICS file works with virtually every calendar application, and the URL gives web-first audiences a one-tap add. The point is to shorten the distance between seeing the promo and holding the commitment — a viewer who adds the event to their calendar has a reminder working in your favor, which no graphic alone can do.

Use the caption set per platform

The caption set contains one caption per platform rather than one caption for everywhere, because platforms differ in how links, hashtags, and length behave. Some placements make links clickable in the caption; others ignore them, which is exactly when you point to a link in your profile instead. Tone and pacing differ too: what reads naturally in a short vertical-video caption feels clipped in a longer feed post. Pasting the matching caption takes the same few seconds as pasting a generic one — the difference is that each platform gets copy written for how it actually displays text. Treat the set as a starting draft and adjust voice to taste; the structure is the part worth keeping.