When I talk to clients about running video campaigns in Google ads, the biggest pushback I get is that there’s a lack of video creative. What I mean by this is that they don’t have an in house team that can make new video creative for us to use for ads. Or maybe they just don’t want to pay for someone to make it because they have it in their mind that creating video can be really expensive.
Well, first, I disagree with that idea, because we all have some pretty high video quality within our phones, and you can find some pretty cheap, or even free editing tools, to make your own videos. But if you don’t want to use the phone, that’s fine. You have a new option.
YouTube just announced a video builder tool. So within this tool, we can create video content, upload it to our YouTube channels, and then immediately start creating video campaigns in Google Ads with our new videos.
This post is going to show you how you can sign up for the YouTube Video Builder beta. I’ll then walk through one example of a video you can create to get an idea of the potential this tool has.
Sign Up for the Video Builder Beta
The YouTube video builder tool is still in beta. So to get access, you need to go to the Video Builder Beta sign up page to fill out the short form. All you need to do is fill out your email address and the customer ID for your Google Ads account.
The form page says the request may take up to five business days. So after you fill out the form, hopefully you can get access quickly. In my experience, I have received access in less than 48 hours. Once I had the confirmation email, there was a link in the email that sent me straight to the Video Builder.
Quick Note: It’s important to sign up with the email address associated with the YouTube channel you’ll be using to run your video campaigns.
Let’s now dive in and get a better understanding of what we can do with the tool.
YouTube Video Builder Templates
Advertisers can choose from a variety of templates depending on what they want their video campaign goal to be.
There are options for product catalogs, product or service consideration, promos, branding, app promotion, and phone interaction. The templates range from six-second ads (bumper ad formats) to fifteen and sixteen-second in-stream ads. The time lengths on these video templates are going to help you make a decision of which one would be better. Do you just want a quick little reminder for users just so you’re staying on top of mind, or do you want something that’s a little bit more engaging to keep the user wanting to watch more of the video?
I’m not going to go through all of these templates, but I will show you how easy it is to create a video ad from a few of these options.
Getting Started: “Highlight Product Catalog” Template
To start off, I’m going to choose the highlight product catalog option. When choosing your template, YouTube gives you a preview of what a finished video using the template could look like. Here is the example of the product catalog template:
Besides previewing it, YouTube is going to tell you exactly what you need to make this video within the builder. So for this particular template, we’ll need two logos, five images, and 14 text areas.
While the template can help you get some ideas to prep what you exactly need, I still recommend going into the actual layout so you get more specific information on the exact dimensions and specs you’ll need for these images.
Next we need to add our five images. Your first image for this template is going to be a lifestyle image so we can see a specific size and orientation there. We are then going to see the recommended sizes for the remaining four images and all four of those images are the same size.
After your images are done, we need to scroll down to the text area. You’re going to start off with the main message text you will add to your video. There will be some direction on where this text is going to be.
For this particular template we also need to add prices to each of the five images we saw earlier. So all in all, there is a decent amount of text if you’re choosing this product template.
When you have all of the text areas filled in (and making sure you’re staying within the character limits for each text area), you can scroll down to the font section. There is a default option selected, but if you don’t like it, you can remove it. If you have a specific font in mind, you could type it in and see if it’s available. All fonts will come from the Google Fonts catalog.
You may have specific brand standards and may want your brand font to be represented in the video as close as possible. There are a lot of options for you to choose from. Most likely you will find one you need or something close.
Finally, YouTube offers a library of music we can add to the video creative. If you want to hear a preview, just select the option and then you can hit the play button to get a snippet of what the video’s audio will be.
If you are happy with all of your options, click “create video.” It will take a little time for YouTube to create your video. But once it is complete, you will have the option to preview your video. Let’s take a look at one example I quickly created.
If you do not like any element of the video, you can choose to edit the option before you save it. If everything looks good, you can choose to save the video.
When you signed up for the beta, you gave them a specific email address that is tied to your YouTube channel you’ll be using to run these video ads. This is important because you have to select which YouTube channel you want to save the video. If you do not have access to the proper YouTube channel, you will have to add it to your own and that can cause headaches later on when trying to use the account for advertising.
Assuming everything looks good, you can save the video. Now that our video is saved, you will be able to see it in your YouTube Studio account.
You can see it is now in my video section for my YouTube channel and the visibility column indicates it is Unlisted. Unlisted means that if someone goes to your YouTube channel, and they click on the video section, they won’t be able to see this specific video creative. The only way that they can find an Unlisted video is if they have the specific link to the video watch page. If you edit the details of the video, you can choose to make it public if you want. Personally, if I’m going in and creating a lot of different advertisements, I like to leave these Unlisted.
This is especially true if I am testing out a different variety and have a few ad combinations. If you leave all of these different creatives public, you’re going to flood your video channel with a bunch of 15-second promo ads, and that can actually be a turn-off to users. It’s up to you, but that’s the reasoning behind why I select that visibility setting.
Promoting Your Videos with Google Ads
If you already have a video campaign created in Google Ads, you can just copy the video link from the Video Builder and use it to create new ads in your campaigns. If you need to create a new campaign from the video you just made, you can click on the “Create campaign” button you see in the image below.
You will be taken into the Google Ads account you have associated with the email you used to sign up for the beta. You can then go through all the steps to create a video campaign in Google Ads to start setting up your YouTube ads strategy.
YouTube Video Builder Is a Must Try
This tool is so easy to use. You don’t need any video editing experience. You just need to have your brand message figured out and images that you can use to create your videos.
Since the tool is still in beta at the time of this post, we may see some features change in the future. If you are really interested in testing YouTube ads, it’s worth trying to get into the beta. You now have a free way of making new creative to use for your video campaigns within Google ads. There are no more excuses anymore.
Good luck with your video campaigns, and hopefully you can find a template that really fits your business!
Have you tested YouTube Video Builder yet? What features did you love? What do you hope they add or tweak in the future? We’d love to hear your experience with this beta!
