How To Make Video Ads For E-commerce And Dropshipping
In this tutorial, I will be showing you how to create high-converting video ads for Facebook and Instagram. If you’re running a dropshipping store or e-commerce brand, this is one of the best methods, and it doesn’t require a lot of time and effort, and it can be easily mastered even if you’re a beginner.
Let’s get started!
Write a Video Script
Every ad is a micro movie. Therefore, the creation process is somewhat similar to creating a movie, although, it’s much simpler and faster.
First of all, you want to write a script for your video ad. I usually include things like problem statements, possible solutions to the problem, and just some types of clips that I might want to include in my ad.
Make Raw Video Content Based On The Script
After that, I make raw video content based on the script. I’ll usually shoot myself, or find on YouTube and also go into details about some other methods that you can use. After that, I’ll edit my video and turn the raw content that I shot into the video ad.
3 Wining Ad Ingredients
I want to quickly talk about three winning ad ingredients that I include in all of my ads.
- Simple and easy to understand: Don’t make people think, because they see a lot of ads on a daily basis and if your ad looks confusing, they’re just going to scroll past it.
- Attention-grabbing: Make sure that your ads grab attention right away. Again, if your ad doesn’t grab their attention in the first 2 to 3 seconds, they’re just going to scroll past it.
- Wow-effect, something they haven’t seen before: Add something that they haven’t seen before. Entertain your potential customers or surprise them with something cold. Show your customers how the product that you’re advertising is going to solve their problems and don’t forget to include product benefits and features, you can usually include multiple product benefits and features that you want to demonstrate but don’t include all of them because your ad is just going to become very long. And don’t forget to end your ad with a strong call to action. I usually add something like 30% or 50% off, Get Now, Tag a friend, things like that usually work well.
Videos Ad Formula
For most of my ads, I follow a simple formula that allows me to include all the things that I mentioned in the previous slide, and it also allows me to connect all the clips and weave them as a sequence. As I said before, I’m creating a mini-movie that entertains the customers, mentions my product problems, benefit, solutions, etc.
The formula starts with the;
- Bait: That stops the scroll and sparks curiosity. It can also cause an emotional reaction, show the pain point, or wow factor.
- Hook: Which captures attention where we can show product benefits or another wow factoring in.
- Action: Inspire action and show some product benefits, stunning animations, memes, or humor.
- Reel: We want to reel the customer, and it allows us to strengthen our product offer by showing social proof, testimonials, and showing the customer that other people trust our product.
- The catch: Unreeling our offer, and usually things like urgency, discount, or tag a friend, works like magic.
There are plenty of other ad formats but for ninety percent of my ads, I use that one, because it mimics the viral video ad and compared to other formats and brings more sales also.
Model (Don’t Copy) Your Competitors.
You can use your competitors as an inspiration and see what works for them and what doesn’t, and based on that, you can make your ads better. Model your competitors but never copy them.
Mimic Typical “Organic” Post from Friend
Try to mimic typical organic posts that you might have seen from friends or from other brands. Sometimes they really look like they were created by users and they don’t look like an ad, this is what you want to aim for. The more organic the post looks like, the higher the click-through rate is going to get.
Make It Fun and Entertain Your Customer
Make it fun and entertaining for your users to watch your video. No one likes watching boring ads. If you can make your ad fun and entertaining to watch, it’s going to lead to higher watch time and probably a higher click-through rate. Even if the person doesn’t buy anything from your ad, at least you made someone’s day better.
Make Your Ad Visually Pleasant To Watch
It goes hand-in-hand with making your ad visually pleasant to watch. Because if your ad looks better than your competitor’s ad, there is a higher chance that your potential customers are going to wash your ad, which will lead to a higher click-through rate and potential purchases.
How To Find Content For Your Video Clips
One of the easiest methods is to use clips provided by the Aliexpress suppliers. I recommend you ask for permission to use the clips because I know some people that start using the clips from the suppliers but later got into trouble.
You can also message the supplier and ask if they have more content if you don’t like the clips that they have listed on Aliexpress. I Found a product on Aliexpress and this supplier provided us with a video
It’s not the best video because it just has a lot of images stitched together but it also has nice parts that you can use. It shows how the product can be inflated, some of the features, and also, how to use the product. It’s a decent clip and if you want to sell this product you can just go ahead and use this clip from the supplier that I showed.
Youtube / Vimeo Clips
The most popular method in the dropshipping community by far is using clips from YouTube. It’s a bit risky because some videos can be copyrighted and it’s also ethical because you’re using someone else’s content without their permission. But if you don’t have a lot of money, if you’re just starting drop shipping, it’s okay to use the clips, but I recommend you create your own content as soon as the product starts gaining traction.
In order to find good clips on YouTube, look for clips like product demos, product reviews, and animations. When you found the clips related to your product you can download them using a bunch of tools that you can find online and just use these clips for your ads.
If you search for “neck traction devices” on YouTube, you’ll find a bunch of different clips that show you how to use the product. This is the review of the product that I used
You can download all these reviews and then later stitch them together and make a nice ad.
Create Your Own Content
This is by far the best method because Facebook loves original content, and it’s super easy to do, you just order the product and shoot the video on your smartphone or camera. If the product is available on Amazon or eBay, you can order it from there and get the product faster. And if you need actors for your product you can just ask your family and friends so it’s going to be cheap and you can make the content very fast.
Instagram Influencers
The other method is working with Instagram influencers to get your content made. This is a great method because a lot of influencers have experienced shooting content for brands so it will be very easy for them to shoot the content for you as well.
Find 3 to 5 small influencers that reviewed products similar to yours, or the products in your niche. Then you reach out to them and explain what you need, tell them that you need a video for your product or product review or any other format that you want to use in your video. After that, just send them the product. Again, you can send it directly from Amazon or eBay if it’s available there because if you send it from Aliexpress it’s going to take a few weeks for the product to arrive and you’re just going to get your content later. So I usually ship it from Amazon or eBay. After that, they will record content and send you back the results.
Some influencers will record the video just for free especially those that don’t have a lot of followers, and some influencers will ask for a small fee.
You can also ask this influencer to post a review of the product on their feed so that all their followers can see it but it might be pricey. If you have the budget, do it. If you don’t have the budget, don’t do it.
I found an influencer that I worked with before, theyoginist, and she creates different content related to yoga
If you need some content done for your product and it relates to yoga, you can just shoot her a message and she will do it for a small fee.
Hire A Product Reviewer
You can find them on websites like fiverr.com or upwork.com. Just search for product reviews, product videos, product demos, etc. After that, message a product reviewer that you like and explain what you need.
I usually try to be more specific and tell them exactly what I want because if you don’t give them specific instructions they will just shoot the content in the way they like or the way they usually do and you might not get what you expect.
Alternatively, you can create a job post on one of these platforms and just wait for interested product reviewers to apply. Just to show you an example of this, let’s search for some product reviewers on fiverr.com
As you can see, there are lots of male actors, female actors, basically depending on your product you can just pick the reviewer that you like. You can contact them, explain what you need, send the product and they’ll get back to you.
Making A Video Ad
Download Camtasia Video Editor, it’s simple and easy to use. Animoto is also good but lacks a number of features: I usually use Camtasia video editor for this, it’s simple and very beginner-friendly, but you can also use online tools like Animoto. It’s paid tool but it’s good but it lacks certain features so I would recommend you to use Camtasia.
Chop raw video content into multiple 3-5 second clips: The process I follow for video ad creation is straightforward. I usually take all my video clips and I chopped raw video content into multiple 3 to 5-second clips.
Select the best clips, as a result, you should have at least 10 clips that will allow you to test various clip combinations: I select the best clips, and usually, you’ll get around 8 to 10 clips that will allow you to test various clip combinations
20-35 seconds is the perfect length, each clip should be 3-5 seconds long: Aim for 20 to 35 seconds total clip duration and each mini clip is 3 to 5 seconds long.
Create at least 3 video variations with different leading clips: This allows you to mix and match clips the way you want and test different variations. I create at least 3 different variations with different leading clips, and the leading clip is basically your first 3 to 5 seconds. I recommend testing multiple variations because you never know which ad will work with Facebook so the more different leading clips you test, the more success you’re going to have.
Put everything together: I stitch the best clips into a single video. I add subtitles or letterboxes. I also recommend watermarking your videos, don’t just add a logo to the right corner and live it like that, the best way to watermark your video is to put the logo on the center and set the opacity to 10 or 20 percent. This will protect your video from getting ripped by other drop shippers
Add a matching soundtrack: I also add a matching soundtrack and you can find good soundtracks on Facebook or YouTube video library. Just Google “Facebook free music’. I usually just pick a track that I think will sound great with my video and if you don’t know what track to pick, just follow simple logic like if you’re selling a child’s product don’t add rock music. Let’s say, if you’re selling a medical product don’t add some funny childish music. Just tried a few different soundtracks and see which one works best.
Add effect and transitions: If you know how to do it, just add some effects or transitions and play with the clip speed to keep it engaged.
I want to show you how I edit my videos. Camtasia editor opens here and this is the neck traction device. I just drop all the raw content like this is the content from YouTube and some pieces that I recorded.
I’ll take all the clips that I have there, I’ll chop them into multiple pieces, and then put them together so they look like a little sequence.
Using Camtasia is simple so just go ahead and download Camtasia. Drop your Clips there, edit your video, and it should be fun.
