15 Cool PowerPoint Features for Designing PPC Video Ads

Summary
Ever designed PPC video ads using PowerPoint? What about creating social media video with PowerPoint?

These are questions I sometimes raise with our templates users to get a feel about their needs. Intriguingly, in many cases, their answers border on real surprise that they didn’t know about PowerPoint’s effectiveness for creating animated visuals including video ads, even though they have been using it for many years.

Talking to them it occurs to me that PowerPoint’s use as a “non-presentation” video making tool has largely remained an enigma. People sort of fail to consider using PowerPoint for anything other than presentations.

With that in mind, I will, in this article, explain some features of PowerPoint that together make it a ‘surprisingly’ awesome tool to explore and create social media video ads.

First, let me briefly touch upon why PowerPoint is the most versatile yet cost-effective tool for designing PPC video ads.

Why use PowerPoint for PPC video ads?

PowerPoint is like a Swiss army knife, catering to many visual graphic needs efficiently. On top of that, PowerPoint is easy to use, and yes, inexpensive compared to other similar tools.

What though clinches the issue for me is that PowerPoint is backed by the ingenuity of a formidable high-calibre team in Microsoft which very few companies if any can afford.

Looking at PowerPoint’s utility, I am often reminded of a childhood lesson which I still follow in life.

It goes like this:

Optimum utilization of resources is the best way to boost productivity.

Now, consider this. PowerPoint is already an essential tool for most businesses. So, instead of using some other tool, would it not be judicious to use it to the hilt for maximizing resource utilization?

I am hopeful that you will say yes.

So, let me cross to the other side and share with you some cool things about PowerPoint for making PPC video ads.

But wait, before we start, let’s have a look at some interesting information about PowerPoint you probably did not know (but I guess you want to know this!).

PowerPoint’s early jaunts

When PowerPoint was first launched in April 1987, it was in fact meant for use with Mac OS computers. Just 3 months later, Microsoft, realizing its potential, acquired PowerPoint, which became its first notable buyout.

While works progressed at the Microsoft lab over the new acquisition, it was not before another 2 years that PowerPoint became part of Microsoft Office suite.

And yet (will you believe!), it was still for Macintosh computers.

Finally, after one more year, in 1990, Microsoft launched the Office suite for Windows OS. This time it included PowerPoint for the first time.

Tell this story today to anyone who prefers Mac over PC, it is likely that she may not believe it.

The reason could be because of a long-accepted credence that Keynote is for Mac, while PowerPoint isn’t.

But here is a small twist. Keynote debuted much later, in January of 2003.

Which means that for a long time – 13 years at the least – users mostly depended on PowerPoint to create visual presentations. This happened before Keynote’s arrival.

So, for a long, long time there was little or no option for users except using PowerPoint for visual presentations.

PowerPoint too was not that evolving as it is now. As a result, a sense of fatigue engulfed people, leading many to believe (even today) that PowerPoint barely has all that it takes to create great visuals.

Fortunately, the truth today is that PowerPoint has improved a lot over the years. And today it is an awesome tool for many visual works. One of those is my favorite which is to create stunning social media ads including PPC video ads.

In this article, I will quickly go through 15 cool PowerPoint features (you may not know) that greatly help you use it for video advertising and for other social media videos.

Ready? Let’s start.

Make PPC video ads of any size

Why this is important?

Social media platforms accept a wide range of video ads sizes in terms of their aspect ratios. Some common aspect ratios as of this writing are 9:16 vertical or portrait (accepted by Facebook, Instagram Story, Pinterest), 1:1 square (accepted by Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest), 4:5 vertical (accepted by Facebook, Instagram), and occasionally 16:9 landscape (accepted by Facebook, Pinterest) or 4:3 (accepted by Dribbble) or even 2:3 (accepted by Facebook, Pinterest).

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

In PowerPoint, from Design menu go to Slide Size > Custom Slide Size. Once here, you can literally create ads for any size – 1:1, 9:16, 4:5, 2:3, 16:9, 4:3, anything. What about odd sizes like 4:9, 15:8, 2:10? Well, you name it, you can do it in PowerPoint.

The example below shows 16:9 vertical PPC video ad.

Produce video ads in MP4 or GIF

Why this is important?

If there is one universal video file format accepted by almost all social media platforms, it is MP4. It’s also referred to as H.264, because in most cases H.264 encoded files are MP4 files even though, strictly speaking, H.264 is a video compression codec, while MP4 is the video container that hosts the encoded video.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

You can produce MP4 video with PowerPoint in 4 different ‘qualities’ or resolutions – Standard (480p), HD (720p), Full HD (1080p), and Ultra HD (4K). This means you can produce videos for different purposes.

Similarly, you can produce animated GIFs in 4 different qualities – 240p (15 fps or frames per second), 480p (15 fps), 720p (24 fps), and 1080p (24 fps).

Higher the qualities, higher will be the file sizes. So, you have to be judicious about the ideal output quality for your needs. Remember though, if the output file size is big, you have other online external tools to reduce file size to a large extent.

Source items easily for video advertising

Why this is important?

Believe or not, you’ll need to resource plenty of media items for creating your video advertising campaign. Whether they’re vectors, video clips, images, or maybe even sound clips, you need them to enrich your creative work for the most perfect PPC video ads.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

PowerPoint is a supercool tool for this. Starting from simple shape items like dots, lines, curves, arrows to complex ones like patterns, clip arts, etc. – you get all of that in PowerPoint. Plus, you’ve the option to embed/paste a large variety of external resources (think of vectors like wmf, svg, etc. or videos like mov, mp4, wmv, etc. or audios like wav, mp3, wma, etc.) to make your work smart and endearing to the viewers.

PowerPoint auto-suggests snazzy designs

Why this is important?

If you are not a professional video designer (which many of us are not), you may find it difficult to even get started with designing, let alone get noticed. And, unless you have something (to your credit) to show around, you’ll not be taken seriously.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

PowerPoint a superb tool for both beginners (with no design experience) and pros. It is a sort of godsend tool for great leap to designing paradise. Okay, poetic words aside, PowerPoint is, to the best of my knowledge, unlike any other design tool. It lets you find your bearing even before you make any worthwhile effort (literally).

Animate PPC video ad for stunning effects

Why this is important?

Enter the world of reality. Animation in video ads is no longer a fancy thing, it’s a necessity. Why? Well, if you want to showcase say 3 to 4 products, which could be small video clips or static images, you have perhaps no option but to animate their appearance in the ad.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

As a long-time PowerPoint user, one of the coolest things I find with it is the power of animation. With a bit of imagination, you can create mesmerizing animations for multi-product and multi-video PPC ads for your business. Take a look my Dribbble portfolio for some idea about PowerPoint animation that we do at VidBazaar.

Create multiple animations

Why this is important?

Creativity is never a static concept. It always seeks to grow and spread like a tree. For video ads, the power of creativity largely lies with types and styles of animations. You need the choice for multiple animations, no matter what your products are.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

PowerPoint animations come under 4 main categories – Entrance, Exit, Emphasis, Motion Path. There are multiple animation types under each category. What’s cool is that you can mix multiple animations (which of course is an art) simultaneously for a single object. Visit our templates shop to see that for yourself. But wait, there’s more. You can do multiple animations to multiple objects on a single slide. How cool is that?

The example below show multiple animations in multi-video PPC ads.

Use transitions for great effects

Why this is important?

If you go to any good video editor you’ll find scores of transition effects ready for use between one clip and the next. Transitions make changes smoother from one scene to the next, and they render an air of elegance if done well.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

PowerPoint transitions are as exciting as the animations you get with it. Here too there are three main categories – Subtle, Exciting, Dynamic Content. In most cases you have sub-options for each transition, as you find in animations. For example, if you choose the Push transition between any 2 slides, the 4 sub-options are From Bottom, From Left, From Right, and From Top. You can choose only one transition at a time, unlike animation. So, if you select Push transition from top, the second slide will appear from top when you play the slides.

Okay, let me now talk about some advanced and distinctive PowerPoint features for making PPC video ads.

Embed external video on to slides

Why this is important?

Using multiple short video clips in a product ad is a great way to sell to interested prospects. This not only enhances the visibility of your products in just one video ad, it also lends a certain amount of tasteful grace to your products if the design is done well. Our PPC video ads templates have earned lots of praise for simple yet pleasingly ingenious designs.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

It’s easy to embed external videos on to the PowerPoint slides. Both MP4 and MOV video formats are embeddable, however in some cases MOV files may need QuickTime Player installed on your computer. If need be, you can embed multiple video clips in one PowerPoint slide and make them play separately or together.

Edit external video for cool effects

Why this is important?

Just using external video clips isn’t of any help unless you are able to modify or edit it to perfectly match with your video ad design. The good news is, if you use them well, you can create stunning PPC video ads like this one.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

Unlike a video editor where you have the timeline for editing video clips, PowerPoint has other ways to do simple video editing. It is possible to trim the duration of an external video, crop it, and change its look (color, brightness, contrast). You can also add special effects like 3D Rotation, Shadow, Reflection, and Glow. Finally, how about adding a cute border to the border or changing its shape to make it look like a bubble? Yes, you can do those as well.

Animate external video for elegant look

Why this is important?

Okay, now that we know how to edit external videos, it’s time to animate them. Simply put, after you’ve designed the overall look and feel of the video ad, animating the video clips is the next coolest thing to do to get the eyeballs of prospects. This applies to static images, and this applies to external videos too.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

Like any static element on a slide (text, image, shape, graphics, etc.), a video too is treated as an object in PowerPoint that can be animated as you wish. Not all animations may possibly suit your purpose, but the nice thing is, you can keep trying with different animations for the videos while undoing your work each time (Ctrl+Z) if you don’t like that.

Combine text animations with video

Why this is important?

This is taking a step further. You may have seen animated video ads that also includes texts that too are animated. Many a times animated texts are used for the purpose of labeling a product in the video ad, but there are other ways to use animated texts which can boost the appeal of a PPC video ad.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

Cool animations are something that PowerPoint is abundantly blessed with, to the absolute delight of video ad designers. It is entirely possible to beautifully combine text animations with video clips on one or more slides in PowerPoint. As part of our work, we do this often – so get in touch with us for any business inquiry.

See the example below.

Animate SVG clip arts in PowerPoint

Why this is important?

An SVG (or Scalable Vector Graphics) or WMF (Windows Metafile) clipart is usually a combination of numerous 2-dimensional graphics. Since vector images scale without pixelization they are popularly used in illustrative or explanatory videos.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

PowerPoint allows you to embed SVG clipart in the slides. Once you do that, you can ungroup the clipart to reveal the smaller graphics, which are then easy to animate for making video ads. Watch the GIF below showing SVG video clipart animation done with PowerPoint.

Combine multiple videos in PowerPoint

Why this is important?

As mentioned before, it is quite possible that your video ad is about something that requires you to showcase short video clips of say 3 to 4 products. Examples could be fashion garments, or tourist destinations, or maybe a real estate property seen from different angles.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

PowerPoint is eminently suitable to combine multiple video clips – each of which 6 to 7 seconds long or less – in a single PPC video ad. The video clips may play together simultaneously (as seen in the video ad below), or they may be made to appear sequentially, one after another. Isn’t that a cool thing with PowerPoint?

Use PowerPoint’s screen recording tool

Why this is important?

Screen recording can be a useful supplementary to video ads in select cases. This is especially relevant in instances (like SaaS products for example) when it is felt necessary to use screen recording for showing important features in a video ad.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

With PowerPoint you can record your computer screen (smallest recording area is 64×64 pixels) and have it auto embedded in your PowerPoint slide. Or you can save it as a separate media file. You can then edit this video file, crop or trim it, add effects, and even animate it as you wish.

Edit multiple objects in a slide using Selection Pane

Why this is important?

If you have used a video editor, you would know about timeline and tracks. The Selection Pane in PowerPoint is like having tracks for different items on a slide. This is a crucial feature that helps in selecting different objects on a slide and editing them individually.

How cool is PowerPoint for this?

Selection Pane is a cute cool feature that PowerPoint provides. Without this and the Animation Pane, which is like the timeline in a video editor, it’s perhaps not possible to create video ads with PowerPoint.

Summing up

Nothing attracts the attention of prospects more than using videos in PPC ads. And one of the best tools for this is PowerPoint. Whether you’re creating Instagram video, Pinterest idea pin, Facebook video ads, or even an Instagram story, you will be able to create stunning video ads with PowerPoint like the example above. I hope this article has been able to provide you a good idea about creating PPC video ads using just PowerPoint.

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