Hi my name is Kent
I'm a creative specialist at Google
and I'd like to show how to create dynamic videos in Google Web Designer
These are video ads often produced in batches with variations
So for example you might have a hundred videos of the same ad
but each one includes some custom content
like a city name, price or imagery to reflect the time of day or weather
then those videos can be published on YouTube, Facebook or another platform
which serves the version most relevant for each viewer
Unlike dynamic html5 ads, we're not creating these video variants dynamically
with the data feed as the ad is served
but instead we're creating separate videos in advance
and then with targeting in the campaign setup, the most relevant one is shown
Here's an example, a video ad I've built from scratch in Google Web Designer
I'll just play it first
It's pretty simple
I have three video clips, a logo, some text and an audio track
Now suppose there are 10 dealers in my area
so I just want to change the store name at the end
and I'll be showing these to people based on their location
Here's an example of a finished variant
The main change is the store name...
but I also use the different ending video clip
and a different logo moved to the other side
and constrained the text to a smaller area
For every element I want to be dynamic
I'll first add a binding
which describes what I want to change about it
then use the Variants tab to set the content for each variant
so to start I'll navigate to the text
right-click
add variant binding to the HTML content
which I use instead of text content because in this case I want to capture the bold formatted store name
and while I'm here, I'll just point out you can also change all the text styles
like the font, style, weight, color & position
then switch to the Variants tab
click the first icon to create a new variant
right-click to rename it
and the pencil icon to set the new content
notice I've written the bold tags right into this line
and we see it updated on the stage
click the X or arrow to go back to the variants List view
notice the Variants panel has two states
the List view and the variant Editor
Now onto the other dynamic items starting with the closing video clip
I'll go to the root div
then scrub to the clip I want to change
right-click it in the timeline
add a binding to the source
notice the In-point is also an option
then back in my Variants panel
open Hibiscus and set its source clip
Since we're on clips I want to point out the distinction between clips and the video track containing them
Video tracks have all different bindings...
colors, size, position, opacity
and these will affect every clip in the track
And this one, Show element is worth a look
and we also saw this as a text binding
Notice the video disappeared
not just this clip but all clips in the track
by default Show element is hidden in all variants
and if I wanted to show it now there's a check box in the variant controls to do so
So show element is used basically to hide stuff
I'll just delete it since I don't really need it in this file
I'll scrub through
and now I see my text is overlapping the bottle in this new clip
so here's how to fix that
I've already set up this text to stay right aligned
and enabled text fitting so longer store names will shrink to fit
so really all I need to do here is change the width of the container element
I'll right-click to add a variant binding to the Width
then open the variant and set a smaller value
and automatically my text becomes small enough to stay off the bottle in this video
Last is the logo and by now it should be pretty routine
I'll just right-click it to add a binding to the source
then open the variant and change it
and if I wanted to I can move it over to the other side
add another binding to the left and change that
so that finishes this file but I just want to quickly mention dynamic audio
Audio clips can also be bound to the In-point and source just like video
but they also include volume which is handy when you have multiple clips you want to normalize
Audio tracks can bind to Mute silencing every clip in the track
and now the last thing I want to show is more of an advanced feature
for importing and exporting CSV files
These are spreadsheets for creating lots of video variants
From this file I can export a CSV of the variants
although I only have one for now
In the Variants panel, click the middle Export button... and Save
Then open the project folder
and you'll find a file ending with CSV
which stands for "Comma Separated Values"
and if I open the file, here's what I see
all my variants and all my data even though it's a little hard to read
Now if I wanted to create a hundred variants of this video
the quickest way is to make all the edits in this file
then I can import it and the rest is automatic
So here's how to do that...
Open Google Sheets and start a new blank spreadsheet
then File > Import > Upload
and drag that CSV into here
I'll leave the default settings and Import Data
Now it's a little easier to read
I see the names of my dynamic elements in the top row
and the variant values in the other rows
And I create new variants in this spreadsheet with just text
so that's one and I can continue
but I'll skip ahead to a version I've already filled out with a hundred variants
any field left blank would just use the default content
When you're done editing, choose File > Download > CSV... and Save it
then back in GWD, in the Variants panel
click the third button icon, Import Variants
and select that new CSV in the Downloads folder
but be careful because this will overwrite any variants you've already entered manually in the Variants panel
and instantly I've created 100 different versions of this video
I'll play one to verify
That looks good
I can see the logo is different
The last step is to export all these video variants
Publish > Locally
and for variants, Select All...
Video output has some options
and to save time I'm just going to choose half size for resolution
leave this set to my preview time range, and Export
Now this part will take a while because I have so many videos
so I'm going to fast forward about five minutes
but that's still pretty fast because it's less than the total playing time of all these videos
My exports are done
so I'll close the render dialog
and open my project folder
and here's all hundred variants
I'll play the last one which I know should end with the peach video
and there's the peach ending as expected
So that's how you create hundreds of video variants quickly with Google Web Designer
That's it for Dynamic Video
Thanks for watching!