How To Make Great Video Ads

Riley Bennett

I’ve found a lot of times video ads will outperform regular Sponsored Product ads.

Story #1: for my product, the SBV ad has been making the lions share of the sales for years.

Story #2: for a clients product, we launched a SBV ad and sales nearly doubles (wow - yeah)

Story #3: for another client we launched a stupid simple ad and the it outperformed every other campaign by ACOS

Here’s how I make stupid simple yet effective SBV video ads in Canva.

Step 1

→ First 6 seconds = must be optimized for the thumbnail.

  • This is because Amazon automatically chooses a still frame from the first 5 seconds to be the thumbnail (so I optimize the first 6 seconds so there’s enough wiggle room.

  • The thumbnail is critical because this is what desktop shoppers see!

  • It needs to be enticing though to first GET ATTENTION, and second GET THEM TO CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO.

  • So the entirety of the first 6 seconds needs to be an appropriate thumbnail.

  • This means make sure there are NO blank frames

  • I’ve been noticing recently that the thumbnail is chosen from the ~5 second mark – but we can’t be sure. I think it may be random, or AI chooses an appropriate frame. But just to be safe I make sure every frame from first 6 seconds is good for a thumbnail.

  • (I’ve noticed that 99% of brands have bad video thumbnails – so doing this right is a big opportunity)

Step 2

→ First 3 seconds must be optimized also. Because on mobile, the video AUTOPLAYS. So they will not see a ‘thumbnail’ – the video just plays in their face. So think about this and take it into consideration.

  • The first 3 seconds must

    • get attention

    • show the product

    • ideally highlight the USP

  • But the cool part is, since we already optimized the first 6 seconds to be a good thumbnail, that means the first 3 seconds should be good anyway (big headline on the left + good photo/video on the right)

Step 3

→ Best, simplest format: split screen. This means a headline / huge text on the left half, and a photo/video on the right half. For the first 6 seconds (thumbnail) thing about a headline that will pique enough interest for people to click the video. Think of it like a YouTube thumbnail! It’s the exact same principle. We wanna focus first on the CLICK.

  • Examples

    • FEEL THE DIFFERENCE

    • WHY CHOOSE US

    • WHY THIS CRUSHES

    • LEVELS ABOVE

    • WHY COLLAGEN ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH

    • LOOKING FOR THE BEST?

    • JUST WOOW

    • NOT YOUR AVERAGE PROTEIN

    • DID YOU KNOW

    • TIRED OF AVERAGE GUMMIES?

    • YOU WON’T BELIEVE THE DIFFERENCE

  • You should also test the target keyword as the headline, e.g.

    • SUGAR FREE CREATINE GUMMY

    • MAGNESIUM BISGLYCINATE or

    • THE MOST BIOAVAILABLE MAGNESIUM BISGLYCINATE

    • 8 STRAIN DOG PROBITIC

  • Sometimes a ‘creative’ headline works best for the thumbnail / first 6 seconds, sometimes simply putting the keyword works best

Step 4→ What you DON’T need to do

  • Explain the entire product (that’s the listing’s job!)

  • Make the video long

  • DONT’S

    • Not allowed: “best protein”, show customer reviews directly, “5 stars”, CTAs

    • Put the main image in the video! Why? Because they see the main image next to the video anyway! (Silly common mistake lol)

Step 5 → What you DO need to do

  • Show just enough to pique their interest so they click & visit the listing.

  • Show your best photos or video content

  • Don’t think of it like a ‘COMMERICIAL’ – think of if more like a BILLBOARD

    • e.g. think of it just like a static image ad (the thumbnail) - and the ‘video’ portion is just a bonus

    • I’ve seen video ads that are literally a single static slide (nothing moving) perform well

    • It’s just REAL ESTATE ON PAGE 1 at the end of the day

  • DO’S

    • Rephrase your raving customer reviews

    • Call out your competitors in a fun way: “DUDE, STOP IT WITH THE WIPES” (DudeWipes alternative)

    • Make it stupid simple

    • Think about: “will someone understand my product and the USP in 3 seconds.”

    • Show media mentions

Step 6 → If you have existing great UGC / video content

  • trim the fat

  • put the video on the right half

  • put a huge headline on the left half

  • add video captions (Canva can do this but the captions feature is not robust so if I need to heavily edit the captions, I use Capcut)

  • If you have existing ‘commercials’ or ‘featured videos’ that you’ve already had professionally produced, then of course you should test it

Step 7 → Test 5-10 versions/variations → see what works best

Step 8 → Make 5-10 versions of the WINNING one → See what works best

Step 9 → Now you know the best performing video. It could be your breadwinner.

→ What tools do you use?

  • I use Canva to build & edit everything. It’s easy to use.

→ Do you have any templates?

  • Here are my 100 video ad templates. You can preview every single one of by scrolling through the slides, and if you want to use them you can click buy. Some of them I made myself, some of them my VA copied from ads that I like in the wild.

To recap:

Whip up some stupid simple videos, run the ads, find the winners, then re-test new iterations of the winning ads.

Simple, but very effective.

Talk soon,

Riley

PS. If you want me to script, edit, and run your ads, get in touch via our website (amazingmarketingco.com). Or if you want to just steal my ad templates, you can do that here (amazingmarketingco.com/products) (the screenshot above is what it looks like).