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A Step-by-Step Guide to Crushing it with UGC Style Ads

UGC (User-Generated Content) can be a big winner for your brand. Good UGC is very cost-effective, can be incredibly creative, is fantastic for social proof, and is a brilliant way to boost relationships with your audience.

UGC ad campaigns can bring huge benefits to your brand and your customer relationships. But what, exactly, is a UGC ad, and how can you run the perfect one?

Let’s take a look.

What are UGC ads?

UGC ads incorporate user-generated elements to provide engaging, authentic, and sometimes even dynamic content that potential customers should find both relatable and trustworthy. 

Take kids’ clothing brand Deux Par Deux, for example. If you head to their Instagram page, you’ll find that a lot of their advertising content uses pics sent in by parents of their kids wearing Deux Par Deux clothing. While they do have some modeled content, a significant proportion of their Instagram feed is of ‘real’ customers’ kids combined with brand marketing text.

Using ‘real’ customer photos in addition to staged modeling shots has several benefits for the brand:

  1. Potential customers frequently trust the word of other consumers more than they trust brand messaging. By using UGC, the brand puts this kind of social proof front and center.
  2. Encouraging customers to tag the brand in their pictures is fantastic for boosting engagement and strengthening brand/customer relationships.
  3. It’s free content! While Deux Par Deux does sometimes give out affiliate deals, the majority of its UGC comes in completely free. 

But how do you get UGC ads right?

Let’s take a look, starting with the key elements each UGC ad should have.

Key elements of UGC ads

Below, we explore the key elements that every UGC ad should have.

Core content

Most UGC ad campaigns are built around a certain concept. This helps the brand get the right kind of content coming in and enables marketers to work UGC into the overall content theme.

The central content theme doesn’t have to be complicated. One of the most successful UGC campaigns of all time is Apple’s Shot On iPhone campaign. iPhone owners hashtag pics taken on their iPhones with #ShotOniPhone. The brand can then take its pick of all hashtagged photos to showcase the kind of photography that iPhones are capable of.

Brand elements

Good UGC will clearly incorporate brand elements so that audiences understand what’s being advertised. There are various ways to do this, from adding branded frames and logos to UGC to carefully picking pictures and videos that clearly showcase product logos.

For example, when Starbucks showcases UGC, it almost always picks examples in which its beverages are front and center with the famous logo visible:

Call to Action (CTA)

Make sure that you spell out what you want your customers to do (i.e. buy your product, subscribe to your newsletter, join your loyalty club etc).

For example, makeup brand Sephora adds clear product links to customer posts, allowing potential customers to quickly purchase products they like the look of:

Actionable Prompt

As well as a CTA, it’s also a good idea to prompt users to create and send in their own content. 

Here’s an example from Cadbury’s Worldwide Hide – a virtual Easter Egg hunt in which users ‘hide’ virtual personalized eggs using Google Maps and then send clues to their loved ones to ‘find’ them. This advert clearly and concisely explains the concept to users while simultaneously inviting them to click through to more detailed instructions.

Social Proof

Social proof is one of (if not the!) most important aspects of any UGC campaign. So, try to make sure that your chosen UGC gives clear proof of how much your customers love your offering.

Product Level Video (PLV) involving user reviews and/or user demos is a great way to showcase social proof. You could even treat product reviews as UGC, like Home Ground Cafe have done here:

Your step-by-step guide to creating UGC-style ads

So, now that you know what UGC ads are and the key features they should have, you’re ready to start creating your own.

Here’s our step-by-step guide to creating the perfect UGC ad campaign.

Identify your goals and target audience

The first step is to clearly identify your goals and the target audience that will help you reach those goals.

Try to make your goals as solid and measurable as possible. For example, rather than the vague “We want to get more brand exposure,” be specific. Tweak the goal to something like “We want to increase brand recognition by at least 10% amongst Gen Z in the USA”.

By creating specific goals, you’ll get a much better idea of what you’re aiming for and the kind of content that could help you out. It should also give you a clearer idea of the audience you want to reach.

You should also consider which tools and techniques are needed to reach your goals. Check out some examples of SaaS, to see which platforms are available to help you strategize, create, execute or monitor your campaigns. By considering the tools that you have at your disposal you’ll be better placed to identify achievable goals and plan a successful UGC campaign. 

Source high-quality UGC that is brand-relevant

Arguably, the largest and hardest part of your UGC ad campaign will be getting the content in the first place.

It can take a while for hashtags to take off and for user content to come in, so remember to support your UGC ad with Google Analytics and SEO strategies. This holistic approach will direct more users to engage with your brand and provide you with the data you need to plan and adjust your campaign. 

Some brands launch UGC campaigns by running competitions, like this example from UK clothing brand Snag:

One of the easiest ways to make sure that the UGC you get is brand relevant is to launch hashtags and UGC campaigns that naturally incorporate your branding/product. The classic example of this is the famous #ShareACoke campaign. 

The concept was simple: Coca-Cola put a range of names on coke bottles and invited people to find their own name, snap it, and share the pic with the hashtag #ShareACoke.

Through this simple UGC tactic, Coca-Cola got its branding in front of billions of eyes while simultaneously creating a fun experience for customers.

Obtain ample permission and usage rights

Using UGC in an ad campaign involves using other people’s content. As such, it’s important that you get clear and plentiful usage permissions. By that, we mean explicitly asking your contributors for clear and conscious consent to use their content.

If you want to save time by putting consent in terms and conditions, make it very clear to your audience that this is what you’re doing by stating so in a clear and upfront way. 

As a general rule, people who’ve participated in a UGC campaign will have done so in the hope that the brand will notice their content. As such, they’ll be more than happy to fill in a quick consent form and let you use their content. They may even proudly share the finished ad far and wide. But do be careful to ask first. 

Curate compelling ad designs to go with UGC

UGC adverts combine UGC with branded marketing. For example, a brand may create a carousel of user pictures of their product and run marketing text, a CTA, and/or a link to buy alongside the pictures. 

Here’s an example from Aeva Beauty. First, the brand introduces the core concept (promoting its new palette) and then segues into sharing customer photos of their makeup looks using Aeva’s products:

The overall look of the advert combines enticing ad creatives that show the product to its best advantage and UGC that shows how the product looks on ‘real people’.

To get the best possible impact from your chosen UGC, make sure that your advert template shows both your product and the UGC off to its best advantage, while simultaneously leaving plenty of space for copy, CTAs, and so on.

Craft engaging copy relevant to UGC

The next step is to write engaging ad copy. Make sure that your copy is:

  • Relevant to the UGC. For example, it should ideally credit the UGC creator and highlight the social proof aspects of the UGC.
  • Engaging. The tone and content that you use to engage your audience will depend a lot on your brand persona and values. Make sure that anything you write is consistent with your branding.
  • Clear. Your audience shouldn’t struggle to work out the next steps you’d like them to take. Be very clear about what you’re promoting and how you’d like interested customers to convert.

Test and optimize UGC ad performance

Having created your UGC ad, make sure it’s truly ready to hit your marketing channels by testing and optimizing it.

Most social media platforms have plenty of testing options. The most commonly used type of ad performance test is A/B or split testing. This involves running two versions of an ad in front of a mirrored audience and seeing which one performs best. This kind of testing allows you to fine-tune and fully optimize your ads before releasing them to the wider public.

For more about testing on Meta platforms, check out this blog.

Leverage UGC across multiple channels

So, you’ve run a UGC campaign, got plenty of great content from your users, crafted it into an ad, and tested and optimized that ad. Now, it’s time to launch your advert into the world.

If you’re struggling to get your ads in front of the right eyes, it can help to do things like:

  • Tagging your UGC creators so that they will share your content with their own audiences.
  • Using multiple channels, and optimizing your ad for each channel.
  • Personalize your ads for your target audiences as much as possible.
  • Collaborating with relevant influencers.

Measure campaign success and gather feedback

The best way to get better and more successful with each new campaign is to measure consistently and gather as much feedback as you can.

Monitor your campaign’s performance on an ongoing basis while it’s live, and step in to make changes where necessary. Then, at the end of the campaign, take all your campaign and conversion data and analyze it carefully.

You can then put the insights you gain to good use when designing and running your next UGC campaign.

Use UGC-style ads to boost customer relationships and pull in new followers

There’s really nothing not to like about UGC. It builds customer relationships by getting your customers more involved with your brand, it’s unbeatable for providing social proof, and it gets you a ton of top-tier content pretty much for free.

We hope that this guide helps you crush your own UGC ad campaigns and pull in a ton of new followers and customers.