Last week, a client came to me with a last-minute request: they wanted me to create a video ad to help promote the grand opening of their business, and the promotion needed to start within two days. I said yes, and then I realized that they meant they wanted me to create the actual video.

I’m an excellent writer and I’ve got my marketing strategies on lockdown, but I felt like the all the air had been sucked out of the room. I’m not a videographer, and I’m pretty lousy at anything that has to do with visual design, but I also knew that a video ad would be an exceptional asset to this promotion and we wouldn’t be able to find anyone else to make it in time.

That’s where Shakr came in. With Shakr, I was actually able to create a stunning video ad in under 5 minutes. The ad is currently performing extremely well with a “brand awareness” objective, clocking in with high relevance and CTR scores, and low cost per action (CPA).

Shakr saved the day for both of us, and in this post, I wanted to show you exactly how I created a gorgeous, high-converting video ad in just under 5 minutes.

Why Speed & Ease of Use Is So Important

In this case, it’s easy to see why being able to create a video quickly, easily, and within a budget was so essential: we didn’t have a lot of time or money to do so. Even if you aren’t on a two-day deadline with no hope of finding a designer, though, these perks are still incredible relevant.

Videos have become an integral part of all areas of marketing: we need them in large amounts for social media, for our landing pages, and even for each individual product page. It’s actually estimated that 75% of mobile traffic will be video by 2020. We don’t just need one or two videos to introduce our brand now; we continually need to be creating videos on a regular basis. Having video creation tools like Shakr that make it easy, fast, and affordable to have a high output of marketing videos is a game changer.

How to Make a Video Ad in Under 5 Minutes with Shakr

One of my favorite things about Shakr is the ease of use. It’s convenient, it’s fast, and it will still look like a professional designer spent hours slaving away even if it only took you ten minutes to put the whole thing together. If you’re in a rush, like I was, and still want your video to come out great, this is all you need to do to create your video in just five minutes.

1. Know What You Want Your Video to Be

Knowing roughly what type of video you want to make and what you want to accomplish with the video before you get started will actually save you a lot of time. Knowing, for example, that you want the campaign to run on Instagram Ads means the video will need to be under 60 seconds, and knowing you want it to be in a carousel ad would require you to choose different dimensions.

Know roughly how many images and video clips you have to use, so you don’t choose a template that’s built to feature 12 clips when you only have 5. While there are a plenty of different styles of templates available, finding exactly what you need right off the bat will help you if you’re in a time crunch. And to find what you need, you need to know what you need.

2. Choose Your Video Design

Shakr has an enormous library of video design templates that you can choose from. I knew that I needed one for a Facebook video ad, so I immediately clicked the “Facebook Video Ad Design” category towards the top of the browsing page.

I also knew that I wanted this video to be a single-video ad that would be shown on both Instagram and Facebook. This meant that it needed a horizontal ratio (16:9) so I automatically applied this as a filter when searching for templates. I also added a filter for ads that were no more than a minute long so I could run them on Instagram.

I had 47 video designs to choose from. From these, I was able to quickly scan my results and see which template fit the look I was going for and which were compatible with the media I had from my client. When scrolling through the designs, you’ll see the video’s length, the number of images you can add, and the number of video clips.

I chose the Inspiration design, which had room for 6 images—it was the exact number of images my client had sent me.

Once you pick your template, click “Make My Video” and you’re off and running.

3. Customize Each Scene

Shakr will show you exactly what you need to customize on each slide. To change the background image or video clip, click on the image or video symbol on each slide. You can crop each image so it will show up on the slide perfectly. Similarly, just click on the text boxes to customize the messages.

You can use free stock photos (searchable within Shakr) or upload your own images from your computer.

Once you’ve customized each slide, it will look something like this:

To save myself time with this, I had taken a few minutes to organize the images and the text (2 lines per slide) before I started creating it. This saved me some time, and with all the images in one folder, it was even easier to upload them quickly.

4. Finalize the Video

After you’ve customized each scene of the video, go through and check for any spelling or grammatic errors, and make sure everything is in the order you want it. When you’re ready, click the “Finish” button at the bottom right corner of the screen.

5. Download

You can find your finished video in your “My Videos” tab, where you can edit your video at any time. There, you can also download your video with just one click. The video will be downloaded as an MP4, and you’re ready to upload it right into Facebook Ads.

Final Thoughts

The video ad held up to Shakr’s promises of high-converting potential, with a relevance score of 8 and CTRs that were higher than all the brand’s other still-image ads. As a result, the CPA was lower, giving us higher reach and more engagement at a lower cost than the other campaigns. And we were able to do this in just a few minutes without any professional design or video creation experience.

With video marketing being an essential part of all areas of marketing, having tools like Shakr on hand to maintain the required output will improve your brand’s campaigns quality and performance.

I’ve tested out the claims—now it’s your turn! Sign up for your free trial now.