The Recipe for the Perfect UGC Ad (Facebook Ads & TikTok Ads) transcript

what's up marketers in this video i'm gonna show you how to make the perfect ugc ad first things first why should you trust me my name is darya denny and i'm the director of performance creative at the agency thesis where i work with the top direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands every single day on their paid social advertising strategy and a big part of that is sourcing creators for them every single day i'm actually working with creative directors to make the briefs and the scripts that our creators are acting out on and we've figured out the exact type of recipe that converts so in this video i'm going to show you the exact recipe and script that you can use to get people to buy on facebook ads and tick tock ads this is a great video for anyone who wants to be a ugc content creator seriously if you can make content like this and speak to this type of script you're gonna get hired again and again by brands and agencies and if you're a brand that just wants to create content for yourself this is how you get on the right path i'm gonna dive deep on the thesis process to getting this type of content made the exact recipe of a performing ad and the metrics you can track to create better creative again and again so first things first i want to give you a bird's eye view to the actual process that we use at thesis to source and work with content creators and ultimately create the type of content that converts and first things first we do tons and tons of research with our clients to develop that initial creative strategy so this includes things like reputation research so we're looking at the types of press they have looking at their social media accounts seeing how they're interacting with their customers and their users and also doing competitor research so we're looking inside of ads libraries of those competitors and seeing what types of creative strategies they're running we also take a look at their top performing ads based on the amount of purchases that are coming through those assets as well as the amount that's being spent on those assets at the end of the day i work in performance marketing so my clients need to make sure that they're getting a positive roi on their investment for creative so things like organic engagement like follows likes or even brand awareness or reach these things aren't really that important to my clients the other thing that we're doing is we're doing a hook and hold rate analysis across the entire ad account to see what type of imagery and messaging has done the best job at hooking initial users and also what types of editing styles and messaging is being used to retain viewership once we've done all of that research and yeah we're still on step number one which is kind of crazy we're gonna actually be writing out the brief and we're going to be writing out the brief using the formula i'm going to tell you in a little bit after that brief is written out we already tend to have a pretty good idea of what type of creators and what type of demographics we should be sourcing so we actually go and we source those creators i have a video that's all about how you can source ugc content creators right here and the next few steps are pretty simple to talk about but it does take a lot of time and coordination essentially we're going to coordinate with the content creators and sign the contracts and make sure that they're getting paid what they want to get paid then we're going to get the content once we've agreed to a contract with the content creator then we're going to edit those assets then we're going to go through an approval process with our clients and then finally we're going to launch so this is our entire package process from a bird's eye view but if you're interested in learning about how we're developing that initial creative strategy i also have a video that's all about exactly how we do that thesis right up here so next up as promised the recipe of the perfect ugc ad seriously if all content creators should just shoot their ads in these type of modules or batches i would probably work with these people over and over again now the first part of the perfect ugc ad is also the most important which is the hook the hook is so important because this is where you're actually getting people to stop and listen and be interested in your ads so if you can't even get users to stop you've already lost the hook is so important i made an entire video about how to make good hooks and really the things that you have to think about when developing your hooks is number one you have to think about the imagery now the type of imagery that works best in the hook is often things that are the most surprising the most oddly satisfying or even the most relatable stop popping your pimples i was so close to chopping off all of my hair until i found pros three ways you're incorrectly treating your blackheads the type of messaging that also tends to work here are things like tick-tock trends like tick-tock made me buy it what i ordered versus what i got or even problem statements that begin with an eye when thinking about the hook this is where i encourage creators to think like big time advertisers they have to really think about what is going to get people to stop to want to pay attention sometimes it's shocking sometimes it's surprising sometimes it might seem a little disgusting at first but then when you actually pay attention and realize what the rest of that is about you're like oh i get it these kind of things make good hooks oftentimes when i work with creators i request that they film anywhere from three to six individual hooks for the same ad that's how important this is so after the hook is the problem agitator so if you mention the type of problem that you have in the hook the next part has to be agitating that problem you don't want to go into the solution right away because you haven't quite become as relatable or as reliable yet in the eyes of your user you have to let them know that hey you know what you're in the right place this is not clickbait next up you have to present your product or service as the solution to that problem after that you can dive into some specific benefits or features of the product then offer an authentic testimonial and then close out with a catchy cta now i like to think of all these different parts as modules and some of them can be mixed and matched as well some other types of modules that you can include when developing content for ads are social proof competitor comparisons if you're familiar with the competitor of that brand a how-to or tutorial on how to use the product and also details on shipping and details on shipping especially if they have super fast shipping it's often very important to consumers including myself so now i actually want to go through what i think is an example of the perfect ad so that you could actually see these modules broken down in action how shrooms changed my life so number one that is a really effective hook how shrooms change my life someone is going to stop to learn more about that because you know i don't got to say it it sort of sounds like how someone has taken psychedelic mushrooms to change their life and i'm very interested in that and i also think the angle top down is very unique and interesting i used to drink a lot of coffee problems i got honest with myself coffee often made me feel anxious and hectic agitators it's highly addictive so it makes people wait in line funnier agitators like this i knew i wanted out so i turned to an amazing alternative product introduction it's got lion's mane for focus cordyceps for energy and chaga and when he's going through those ingredients and those different things that's an example of showing features and benefits of the ingredients that are actually inside of this product it's important i feel more clarity and sustained energy so this part right here is better life realized it's showing ultimately the benefits and then it's going to it tastes like chocolate and chai put all kinds of stuff in it give it a try you might love it close out with a unique cta give it a try you might love it so even though this isn't using all the modules that you have as a ugc creator it's still a really effective ad and i know for a fact that they've been running this ad on tick tock and on facebook and instagram for a long time so i assume that it's performing well and so much of it comes down to that really interesting and unique hook those problem agitators that start off as kind of serious but then end up being a little funny and then we have the product introduction and then we have some features and benefits and then we close out with a catchy cta it really is just about getting those core modules right that will create the perfect utc app in addition to working with creators at thesis i also develop ugc content myself for several brands and often time when i'm filming these i actually just go through and film all these modules oftentimes i'll create a script that goes through all these modules and then i'll add things like a sentence on shipping a sentence on a competitor comparison and a few different modules on social proof like if i saw them in a specific magazine or publication or if i've seen that a whole bunch of other people have been talking about this brand and finally the metrics that you should be tracking to make sure that you're continuously improving your ugc content so this is going to be really important particularly for the agencies and the brands that are directly hiring these ugc content creators but a reason why i'm actually able to charge quite a bit more money as a ugc content creator is because i actually combine that service with a little bit of creative strategy so i actually go inside of my clients ads accounts and take a look at these metrics so that i can create content that's actually building off of previous learnings because all of these creatives will not mean anything unless you're continuously improving and learning about what's actually sticking with your users so the first thing that i always look at is i always take a look at which creatives have the best cost per purchase the highest amount of purchases and ultimately they had the most amount spent in the ad account because this tells me that this is what is performing best all three of these things because again at the end of the day if you're creating content for ads likely your main goal is to generate sales so that's what i like to keep in mind and that's why i like to dive into ad accounts and see what type of content has actually been converting in dollar amounts for those clients the next thing you're going to want to look at is your hook rate so this is going to be your impressions divided by three second video views now this is a custom metric that you have to add in to your facebook ad account yourself but it's still really really important to track and essentially what this is saying is out of everyone who's viewed this ad what percentage of those users actually stopped to watch the first three seconds now the reason why this is so important again because if you can't stop them you've already lost but also we've actually seen that if you are increasing your hook rates you're very often times increasing your conversion rates and what's really fascinating about that is i don't see the same thing with click-through rate so even though click-through rate is somewhat important to track i have seen super low click-through rates on top performing ads that did a great job of actually converting people behind the scenes but for whatever reason i see a much bigger correlation with hook rate so the higher the hook rate tends to be the higher the conversion rate which is really interesting and again what i'm looking at here is what type of messaging and imagery thus far has done the best job of actually converting users and i use that to inform what type of hooks i'm going to be using as selects for my clients and the last metric i'm tracking which is really similar to hook rate is the hold rate so this is the amount of people that are actually retaining and viewing the rest of your ad and what this is telling me is it telling me number one what type of editing styles are doing the best to retain these users as well as what type of imagery and messaging is doing the best type to retain those users so this is actually where it becomes really interesting when we start creating content that's following this perfect ugc ad recipe we'll actually start moving some of the modules around and taking a look at which hold rates are longer so sometimes what we'll do is we'll add in some social proof or a competitor comparison right after the problem agitator to see oh does this do better than if we put in a how-to guide instead what's really moving the needle here or maybe hey we're actually seeing that these benefits and features work a lot better than these benefits and features so while we're creating new content with other creators these are the benefits and features that we should be focusing on to be honest it's a ton of work but when creators actually follow this step-by-step guide when creating their content it actually makes it so much easier when my editors then go in to make this type of content and turn them into ads and i also find that the creators like it because it gives them a really good framework for them to still allow to put their personal creative touches on it and to be honest it works so i also find that like when creators are really jazzed about this type of process and they really find it really puts them in their flow state and it drives well with their type of personality those are the creators that we end up working with again and again also something really important to note about when you're writing your script you have to talk in the voice of your customers that's why doing a lot of this initial creative research is so so important i'll often find creators saying things like this product has been an absolute game changer or everyone is obsessed with this product and customers are like starting to realize that this is all bs so even though i feel like in this video particularly i glossed over the importance of doing creative research it is such a necessary part of the step for both ugc creators and for the brands that are actually sourcing that content at a bare minimum both parties need to be conducting reputation research so looking at the press hits that the brand has gathered looking at their social media profiles getting an understanding of how they're communicating with their audiences on those platforms and also digging into competitor research so looking to see what their competitors are doing what type of ads they're actually running the strategies what type of ugc content and the creators that they're working with and what seems to be working the best and yes we don't actually ever know exactly how our competitor's ads are doing but the idea is is that the longer that they've actually been running as shown in their facebook ads library very likely the better that they are performing also tick tock ads library does a really good job of being able to show different performance metrics so you can actually sort through top ads to get an understanding of which ones are actually doing the best job at getting those conversions which ones are actually doing the best job of getting those three second and six second video views so i would be sure to go through and take a look at what type of content is actually doing the best on tick tock whether or not you're creating that content for tick tock and that's it if you think i missed anything for this perfect ugc ad recipe let me know in the comments below i'll see you guys soon bye