It’s common knowledge that User Generated Content developed for social ads has the potential to deliver fantastic results for businesses.
However when working with content creators, continual experimentation is key to accumulating valuable insights from a campaign that can inform the next one. As part of this, a solid testing strategy can go a long way towards optimizing your UGC ads to deliver on your desired business outcome. But testing only matters when effective follow-ups are applied. Therefore, implementing and iterating on the initial test results can make or break your efforts to build your brand, drive more leads, and increase sales.
Put differently: when it comes to UGC ads, never test for the sake of testing. Instead, use the results gained from those tests to make tangible changes to your strategy and future production.
We’ve found this iteration process is vital to consistent growth as it will help create learnings about your audience preferences that can inform future briefs and scripts for creators. In fact, these same learnings may just be relevant for all of your marketing efforts, not just user-generated content.
It all starts with creating UGC ads that reliably convert.
You also need to make sure that your UGC ads testing is set up appropriately.
You might even have gathered some initial learnings on what does and doesn’t drive the best possible ad and brand performance.
But that’s just the beginning. Now is the time to use the data you’ve gained to heighten the performance of your next rounds of UGC ads production. This is perhaps the most important piece of any testing: any time you plan an additional round of UGC production, the data from your previous round has to inform your next round in order to improve your results.
How do you get there? Glad you asked. The framework we’re about to share has driven significant success for our clients, and we continue to use it effectively to iterate beyond the first round of UGC production. It consists of three types of productions:
-
- Reimaginings
- Remakes
- Sequels
Let’s dive into each of these elements in more detail.
FREE GUIDE
How to Create UGC Ads That Convert
Our guide explains what user generated content is and what makes it good for ads.
1. Reimagine Your Storyboard
As you work with creators, you will get continuous intel into the types of shots that are and aren’t working in terms of delivering against your conversion goals. Over time, you can use these insights to optimize your content in sometimes unexpected ways.
We’ve seen this happen in real-time with one of our beauty clients, who had seen 77% of sales generated through UGC come from ads that focused on the application of the product in the opening–not ads that opened with before and after shots. One takeaway might have been to scrap the ads showing before and after shots but for us, this was a sign to iterate on learnings.
So instead, we rewrote and refined the storyboard for new creators showcasing the same product that began with an application of the product, but finished in an after shot. The result was a continued increase in performance, combining the best of both worlds.
Using data to reimagine your storyboard takes at least some creativity and willingness to take risks. But the rewards can be immense, bringing with them the ability to continually refine your scripts based on the shots that are and aren’t working.
2. Remake Great Content With New Creators
At its best, UGC relies on the ability to continuously provide new faces to promote your brand. Over time, using the same creator over and over again will fatigue your audience and, through closer brand association, cuts out one of the major advantages this strategy is designed to possess: authentic voices from customers talking about your product from their perspective.
As a result, finding new creators that can talk about your product is an ongoing priority, even if they might follow the same storyboard. And alongside this finding more creators who align to the ones who have been most successful in promoting your products.
That means understanding exactly what has made your best UGC creators so successful. It might be their looks, appealing to a target audience that sees themselves in them. Or it might be their personality, with a type of humor or quirks that appeal to your audience in other ways. Build a persona of your best-performing creators, then find others who fit that same persona.
The same concept also works in the other direction. UGC may not perform well for a specific audience because of a content creator’s looks, style, or personality. That’s why every now and then, switching up the creator personas you’re working with for a given storyboard can help you find new opportunities for improvement that you can then iterate on.
To illustrate this below are two examples from a CPG client where we kept the same storyboard but used a different creator so in the first version we used a female millennial with a playful tone of voice, and in the second version we used a male millennial with a playful tone of voice.
