Facebook Ads Video Creation Kit

Video Transcript:

Video advertising is a great way to get in front of your target audience with your product or service that’s just more dynamic and more engaging than having a static banner or text ad. The biggest problem with video is that it can be really expensive. Either you’re going to spend your time and money trying to figure out how to create a video that looks professional, or you’re going to pay a professional videographer to put it together for you. And that’s going to cost a pretty penny. 

The good news is that the advertising platforms know that this is the biggest barrier, and they’re trying to help us out a little bit. YouTube has put together a video ads creation tool, and we have a video on that if you want to check that out. And today I want to talk about the Facebook counterpart, the Facebook ads video creation kit. So today we’re going to talk about how you can use this tool, where it lives in the platform, how you can use just a handful of your own images as well as some preset templates, and customizable text fields to start to put together professional video content that you can start leveraging in your Facebook ads campaigns. 

Jumping into the Facebook interface, I went ahead and set up a placeholder campaign and jumped all the way down to the media portion of the ad creation section. Because this is where the video kit lives, I’ve already chosen a single image or video ad format. Down here where you choose your media. This is where you can add either your images or your video or add from a catalog. 

But since we want to create a video, we’re going to hop down here, and this create video button is what’s going to open the video creation kit. Once this opens up, there are a number of things that I want to talk about. The first is that all of this main middle section is going to show you the templates that you can choose from. 

The first section starts off with templates from stock images. So both of these just have one image in them. It’s a stock image that’s already provided that you can run with and then it’s got a little bit of a logo. 

Second, if we scroll down, you can see templates for two or more images. So if you have a handful of images that you want to upload, this is the different section of templates you can choose from. So we’ve got something that comes in with shades, something that kind of zooms on the photos, and then there are a few others down here that kind of swipe through or float through.

And then you can also choose from templates that just have one image available. So if you only have one image, and you want to utilize that one, you can notice that each of these is only really using one image and then it kind of moves around. Everything else is placeholder text, background colors, or logos that are also added into it. So there are a number of different ones available for single images as well if you only have one. So check out each of these different templates, see which one makes the most sense for you, but let’s keep running through each of the different sections of this builder. 

So I’m going to jump back up to the top. Now the next thing I want to call out for these templates is that this little logo icon thing here means something. If you hover over this one, it says this template generates a square video. So the logo that has a square with some dotted lines around it means that it’s going to generate a square video. Once you’re finished with it, it’s going to look very similar to what you see here. 

If you scroll down a little bit, you can see this other icon here, and it says this template generates a square and a vertical video. So depending on which placements you’re using, which devices you’re going to be targeting with your video ad, make sure you’re using a template that will generate the video that makes the most sense for that placement. We’ve talked on this channel before, and we actually have another video that you can check out about customizing your Facebook ads and Instagram ads by each placement. It’s very important to make sure you’re putting your brand in the best light on every single placement across the Facebook ads network. And these little icons can make it really easy to figure out which type of video you’re going to be able to generate. 

So the last thing I want to note about these templates is that if you watch this from start to finish, you see the guy with a delivery bag. Now I’ve got text in the background that pops up, and it scrolls up, and there’s a logo and some text and then it goes right back to the beginning. Each one of these templates that you see in this template gallery is showing you what the ad would look like in total from start to finish. There’s no additional frames, no additional anything.

Everything you see in this template gallery is what’s going to show up. So just make sure that you’re choosing one that has all of the right steps that you want and isn’t missing anything. Because if it’s missing something, you’re not going to get it later on because this is going to show you the entire template from start to finish. 

So let’s start to customize one of these templates a little bit over here on the left. You can see this choose image section. And there are a couple things we can do here. The first is that you can add images for these video templates. You can add up to six images to turn them into a video. So I’m going to go ahead and choose a handful of images that we have in the library. Fair warning, these images are not optimized for any of these placements. They’re just files that I have available. Don’t come at me because they’re ugly. I know that it’s going to turn out to be an ugly video, but this will just get us some placeholder images to start messing around with once I select my images. 

You can start to see that there are four over here on the left, and each of the templates is going to start populating and running through the images that I have assigned. It automatically set us up for templates for two or more images because I provided my own images, and I provided four of them. The next thing I want you to pay attention to is the order. 

So in this first one right here, it starts off with video ad creation on Facebook, then goes to LinkedIn video ads, then Joe and I speaking at SMX, and then a static picture of the Matterhorn. The reason it’s doing that is because that’s the order that I uploaded them. If you decide that you want this picture of the Matterhorn further up, these six little dots over here. You can come over here, grab, drag it up, and then Facebook will reorder. Now it’s going to cycle through them in the new order. 

So now it goes to Facebook, then the Matterhorn, then the LinkedIn video, then back to Joe and I speaking. Keep in mind whatever order you upload these in, that’s going to end up mattering as to what order they play in the video itself. So if you have something that goes through a specific process, or you’re trying to outline the way to order something online (let’s say and you have steps 1-2-3, and 4), make sure those are uploaded in the proper order over here on the left. If you decide you want to get rid of an image, you can easily click the X. If you want to add new, you can add them really easy just by clicking the plus sign down here at the bottom. 

We can also add a logo that’s optional, but you can see a couple of these templates have logos available in them. So let’s go ahead and add a placeholder logo just to see what it looks like. Okay, so again, this is a very ugly looking video, but we’ve got a very basic placeholder Paid Media Pros logo. You can see that populating here and in different places in each of these different videos. 

As these are cycling through, you can also see that there are some text options available here. So these are things that we’ll be able to customize later on. Once we get into the builder, the last thing I want to do before we start to customize is take a look at what these look like in a vertical format. Right now we’re only seeing these in square. But if you come up here to the upper right, you get to choose which format you want to preview the templates. 

Right now it’s selected to be square. But if you choose this logo over here, you can see what they look like in vertical orientation. In this orientation, it’s even more apparent that these are just not good videos for this type of template. But if you’re trying to choose between a couple, let’s say you’re trying to choose between the shades and the zoom template, and you want to see what your ads look like based on the images you already have, you can start to preview what those look like and think which one makes the most sense for you. For right now, I’m going to go ahead and just keep the shades when selected. 

And let’s start to customize what our video is going to look like. So here’s where we can customize our video a little bit more. You’ll notice that it’s got all of our different cards or images up here at the top. And as I scroll through them, the blue line kind of populates. Right now we’re already selected on the first one. That’s why it’s got the preview over here. You can change the background image that you chose. You can either change the image itself, or you can crop it. 

So let’s say I want to crop and move the image over a little bit, you can come in here and use the regular type of crop editor. So for whatever reason, if I want to just put the Facebook logo in here, you can do that. Select Done, and now you’ve changed what that first card is going to look like. 

The next thing is you can adjust the logo. So if you want to change the image and change whatever the logo is, you can do that. You can also choose the size that you want for the logo. So for whatever reason on this car do you want the logo to be medium sized? Or do you want it to be large sized as opposed to the small one it came with originally? You can do that. Let’s go ahead and revert it back to small. 

You can then also adjust the position of the logo. So as we click through these, you’ll see that the logo will move where it is within the card itself. The only placement you can’t have is basically the middle of the slide, with the middle on vertical, and the middle horizontally. So this is the only location that didn’t show up. But if you want to show up in any of these different placements around the card, you can customize where the logo shows up based on what images were blank spaces, and what makes the most impact as I choose these different images. 

Let’s go ahead and choose one that’s down here. You’ll notice in these cards up here that the logo is now showing up in the bottom left of this first one, but it’s still in the top left of all of the other cards. So as you’re updating this, this is only going to impact this specific slide. You can also come down here and add some text if you want. You can then choose the different font that you want. There’s quite a number of different fonts available. So that’s kind of nice. And just like you can with a logo, you can then choose the placement of this text that you want to have. So whatever makes the most sense for you, put the text where you want it to be. 

If we scroll down a little bit, we can also customize the text. So right now the text color is white. If you choose that, you can change the color of the text however you want to. You can also change the background color of the text to make it stand out a little bit. So there are a couple dials down here that you can see. 

First, you can change the color that you want it to be. So let’s say we want it to show up as green just so it’ll be a little bit easier to see. You can choose the green color, but you can also choose the opacity or how see-through it is depending on what your background is. So if you don’t want it at all, or if you want it to be very, very bold and stand out, you can also do that. But for right now, I’m just going to go ahead and leave it as white and not have a background. 

Each of the different cards that we have here have the same level of customization that you can have. So again, background logo and the text. You can do that for all of these that are here. The last thing you can do is this stickers card, and this is kind of fun. Let’s go ahead and choose this, and this is where you can add stickers to your video. 

Odds are you’ve probably seen these around in different Facebook placements, maybe on Instagram, so go ahead and choose a sticker. You can see there are a number of featured stickers available: back in business, ready to serve, shop small, all this sort of thing that we’re seeing a lot right now. You can also choose from the drop down whether you want it to be promotions, discount, general. So for whatever reason if you want to Go in here and just try to find a more general sticker, there are a number to choose from. 

So let’s go ahead and, just for fun, choose this cool one. And now you can see the cool sticker, as shown up up here in the top right. One thing to note is that everything you do with stickers is going to impact every one of the cards. So I added it to this one, but it’s also showing up here. It’s kind of hard to see, but you can see it a lot easier on the second card. 

These stickers are going to show up on every image that you have available in here. Whatever you choose, make sure that it’s going to show up and look good,  and all of the different images that you have available. Just like with logos and text, you can then choose the placement that you want the cool sticker to be. And you can choose the size. So if you want it to be large, you can do that. If you want it to be small, you can also do that. 

It’s a little bit hard to see on here, but on your phone, it would be a little bit easier to see. you can then easily change the sticker if you want to or remove it. Just remember you can only have one sticker for the entire video. So make sure it counts. For right now I’m just going to remove this. 

And at this stage, we are done customizing our video. So if there’s anything else that you want to do, you can select each of the different images,  go back, make sure that everything that you have looks good. And then once you’ve gotten the video the way that you want, you can come down here and click Done. 

Since we chose a video template that utilizes both vertical and square orientations, I got this pop up. I think this is great. We customized the vertical look, and that’s going to show up in three placements across the Facebook network. But we can also customize the square version as well to make it more impactful. So all we have to do is click Edit. Now we’re back into the same builder, and we’re able to customize this in all the same ways that we did before, but it’s going to be only for the square orientation. 

So for whatever reason, let’s say we want to add a sticker to the square orientation. We’ll say back in business just for fun. We can do that. Save the difference for the square version versus vertical, click Done. And you can see now that we have the logo in the bottom left because we left it there from the vertical orientation. This square orientation now has this back in business sticker available, but the vertical does not because we customized them separately. 

Once we click “Use video” down here at the bottom, it’s going to create two separate videos. One that’s vertical orientation, and one that square so we can customize what we want to use in our ads so they show up in the best placement around the web. If for whatever reason you don’t want the square to show up, you can just click this box, and it won’t create it. But for now, I’m going to go ahead and let it do it because I think that that’s going to be the best use of our efforts that we’ve put together here and make sure that our ads look as good as they can across all the different placements. 

So let’s click Use video. And like I said Facebook is going to create these videos. So you can see down here at the bottom, it’s populating that this is going to take a little bit. With the magic of editing, we’re going to fast-forward to when it’s done. Now we can see the two videos that we created right here in the media section. We’ve got the square orientation that’ll run in nine different placements, and the vertical orientation is going to run in three different placements. We can then customize this however we want to utilizing the primary text, headline description, all that good stuff, and it will run just the same as a regular video ad across the Facebook network. 

As you can tell this was way easier than trying to get some professional videographer to put together a video. Is it going to be the same quality as those customized videos from professional? No, it’s not, but it’s going to look really good compared to what it could look like. And now you can actually start to test video on the Facebook Network and engage your users in a different way than just using those static images in either single or carousel posts. 

Written by Michelle Morgan