Ads Creative Studio offers a number of video templates that you can customize to fit your needs. You can review the specifications for each template, or see all the templates by going to the Templates page from the left-hand navigation menu. If you want to build a video project from scratch, use the Blank Slate template.
Follow the steps below to create a video project.
Select a template
- Go to Ads Creative Studio.
- Go to the Templates
page.
- Review the available templates and choose the one that suits your needs best. Click a template to get more details, like its default orientation and what assets it supports. You can also see a preview with assets from a fictitious brand.
- When you've found the template you want, click Use template.
- Enter a name for the new project.
- Select the ad platform you want to export your project to, either Google Ads or Campaign Manager 360. After you create your project, you won't be able to change the ad platform.
- Click Create. This will create a new project.
To make changes to the template, click Edit template and continue following the instructions on this page. If you prefer to first set up rules for customizing variants of your ad, go to the Rules page — you can always edit the template later.
You can click Undo to remove your most recent edit. Click it more than once to undo each edit since your last save. To redo edits that have been undone, click Redo
.
Select the frame rate and orientation
Use the drop-down menus above the preview area to set your video project's frame rate and orientation. The frame rate should match that of any video assets you want to include in this project. Video projects in Ads Creative Studio support the following frame rates and orientations:
| Frame rates (FPS) | Orientations |
|---|---|
|
|
If you change the orientation, you should adjust the position and size of any existing elements to fit within the new video size.
Add or remove elements
Elements are listed below the preview area as rows along a timeline, and represent the assets that will be used to create your video.
Each template already includes at least one element, but you can add more, or delete existing elements. As you change elements, you may also want to reorder or rename them.
Add an element
- Click
Add element in the timeline.
- Select the type of element that you want. You can add elements of the following types, up to the listed limit:
- Text – 25 elements
- Image – 10 elements
- Video – 5 elements
- Audio – 5 elements
- Voice-over – 10 elements
- Color – 10 elements
- Configure the element. (More details on each step are available below.)
- Set whether the element is swappable.
- Add an asset and set asset properties.
- Set the timing, position, and size.
Delete an element
- Select the element you want to delete in the timeline.
- Click More options
above the element configuration options.
- Click Delete.
Reorder elements
Elements are layered in the order they are listed, and may cover content in rows below. For example, the base video element for your project should the bottom row so that other elements are visible on top of the video.
By default, newly added elements are added to the top of the element list. You can change the element order by dragging Reorder next to an element's name, or by clicking Reorder
and selecting Move up or Move down.
The layer order has no effect on audio elements.
Rename an element
- Select the element you want to rename in the timeline.
- Click Edit element name
at the top next to the current element name.
- Enter a new name.
Swappable elements will be referenced by their names throughout the Variants and Rules pages. Meaningful names such as "Call to action" or "Disclaimer text" can help you more easily identify what content to provide for each element.
Choose swappable elements
Video projects are customizable, which means that you can create multiple variants of your ad in the same project. In the template, you can choose which elements you want to be swappable in variants.
- If you want to be able to swap out an element's asset, set the Swappable toggle to on.
- If you want an element to be the same for all variants, set the Swappable toggle to off.
If you change a template element to unswappable after you've already made variants, you might lose the variant's content and settings for the element.
Add assets
Add assets for each element, then configure the element's properties, timing, and position and size.
- Assets for non-swappable elements are required in the template and will be used across all variants in the completed ad.
- Assets for swappable elements will serve as placeholders for preview purposes only. You'll need to add assets for swappable elements when you create variants, even if you add assets in the template.
Once you provide assets for all of the elements in your template, the preview area will populate with those assets so that you can see how your ad will appear.
When configuring swappable elements, it's helpful to use actual content so that you can visualize and test different scenarios, such as text of varying lengths.
As you adjust each element property, check the preview to see how the element will render and to fine-tune the position and other properties. You can reposition and resize elements directly within the preview area.
Asset properties
Depending on the element type, you can set different properties.
Text
- Text content*
- Font face – You can upload a custom font, such as one downloaded from Google Fonts (see supported types), or select one from the asset library
- Font size
- Color
- Opacity
- Stroke – You can add an outline around the characters and set the line's width, color, and opacity
- Drop shadow
- No shadow
- Light offset – A light gray shadow set slightly below and to the right of the text.
- Medium offset – A medium gray shadow set slightly below and to the right of the text.
- Dark offset – A dark gray shadow set slightly below and to the right of the text.
- Dark centered – A dark gray shadow surrounding the text.
- Horizontal alignment
- Vertical alignment
- Line spacing
Properties with an asterisk * can be swapped out in different variants.
Image
- Image file* – You can upload an image (see supported types) or select one from the asset library
Properties with an asterisk * can be swapped out in different variants.
Video
- Video file* – You can upload a video (see supported types) or select one from the asset library
- Volume
Properties with an asterisk * can be swapped out in different variants.
Audio
- Audio file* – You can upload an audio file (see supported types) or select one from the asset library
- Volume
Properties with an asterisk * can be swapped out in different variants.
Voice-over
- Voice-over* – Up to 700 characters
- Language* – English (United States, Indian, Australian, or British), Hindi, French, Spanish, Indonesian, Malaysian, Mandarin, Filipino, Korean, Swedish, German, Italian, Japanese, Danish, or Dutch
- Speed* – How fast you want the text spoken
- Voice* – Male or female
- Style* – Announcer, Creator, Expert, or Luxury
- Volume
- Ducking – Reduce the volume of other audio in your ad by 45% to be able to hear the voiceover audio clearly.
Properties with an asterisk * can be swapped out in different variants.
After you add a voice-over element, click Listen to hear your text with the voice options you selected.
Color
- Color* – Enter a hexadecimal color value (for example, #ffffff for white), then choose an opacity from 0–100%. Zero opacity is invisible, 50% is see-through, and 100% is fully visible. You can select values in increments of 10.
Properties with an asterisk * can be swapped out in different variants.
Element settings
You can control when, where, and how each asset appears in your video with the settings below.
Timing
The timing settings determine when an element is visible or audible during the video. All timing values are set in seconds.
- Start – When an element appears
- End – When an element disappears
- Fade in – How long it takes for an element to fully appear (beginning at the start time)
- Fade out – How long it takes for an element to fully disappear (finishing at the end time)
The total fade in and fade out duration can't be longer than the total duration of the element (that is, the duration between the start time and end time).
Start and end times for each element are indicated in the timeline by a bar. You can also adjust start and end times by dragging the left and right edges of the bars, or drag the entire bar along the timeline to change the start and end times by the same amount.
The video's total duration automatically adjusts to match the latest end time of any element.
Position & size
Set the position and size of each element so that it appears where you want within the video. You can drag the element within the preview area to reposition it, or drag the handles along the element's box area to resize it. You can also enter the position and size values for each element into the appropriate fields. Position coordinates are set in pixels, starting at the top left corner at 0,0.
Make sure that the box area for each element, as set by the width and height values, is positioned so that it fits within the video project's dimensions. If your element's box area will be cropped by the video project's boundaries, a warning will appear for you to adjust the element's size or position.
- X position – The horizontal placement of the element. To move the element to the right, increase this value, or drag the element within the preview.
- Y position – The vertical placement of the element. To move the element downward, increase this value, or drag the element within the preview.
- Width – The width of the element box area. Set the width in pixels or by dragging the handles on the sides of the element's box area in the preview. Use the scaling options described below to automatically adjust asset size to fit within the element box area.
- Height – The height of the element box area. Set the height in pixels or by dragging the handles on the top and bottom of the element's box area in the preview. Use the scaling options described below to automatically adjust asset size to fit within the element box area.
- Scaling (for text elements only)
- No scaling – The font size is fixed and text may be cropped to fit inside the element's box area.
- Contain – Adjust the font size to fill the element area.
- Shrink – Decrease the font size as necessary to fit inside the element area.
- Media scaling (for image and video elements only)
- No scaling – Use the original dimensions of the image or video. The image or video may be cropped to fit inside the element's box area.
- Contain – Resize the image or video to fill either the width or the height of the element area while preserving the aspect ratio. There may be empty space either on the top and bottom or on the left and right.
- Cover – Fill the element area while preserving the aspect ratio. The image or video may be cropped.
To avoid scaling background images or videos, you should use assets with the same dimensions as the video project.
Position and size properties are unavailable for audio elements, since audio elements aren't visible.
Pan & zoom
Add some motion to image elements with camera pan and zoom effects. When you turn on pan & zoom, you can set a start frame and an end frame for the effect.
- If you make the frame smaller than the image, it will work like a camera zoom. The part of the image in the start frame will be zoomed to fill the full video frame. The end frame will be the final camera position.
- To create a camera pan, put the start frame on one side of the image and put the end frame on the other side of the image.
- If you center both frames on the image, only zoom will be applied. You can control zoom in and zoom out by changing the size of the start or end frames.
Preview your template
Once assets are added and processed for all elements, you can see how your template appears in the preview area. The preview shows you a thumbnail snapshot of your project that updates automatically when you make changes. If you select an element with a start time later than 0s, the thumbnail will display your video project at that element's start time.
If you see the message "Thumbnail isn't available", check that you've added an asset for every element.
You can also watch the playback of your template preview video by clicking the Play button and using the other video player controls.
The template preview uses assets for swappable elements as placeholders. Later, you'll be able to preview multiple variants with different assets.
Next steps
Once your changes to the template are complete, click Save and close the template editing page. You can come back and edit the template if necessary.
- If you want to customize variants of your ad based on audience or context, you should set up rules and assign variants for your project on the Rules page.
- If you don't need rules-based customization, go to the Variants page to create variants of your ad.