3 Reasons to Test UGC in Your Performance Marketing Campaigns

Every performance marketer should plan to include user-generated content in their 2023 creative testing strategy.

Here are 3 reasons why...

1. Consumers are sceptical

Ads are confusing; they’re everywhere we look and they’re all competing for our time and money. 

More frequently, consumers are looking for social proof before they’ll consider interrupting their valuable scrolling time to make a download. Providing evidence that others have found value in your game - whether that’s through relaxation, challenge or thrill - is a valuable tool which should not be overlooked.

To do this, testimonial videos can be added to your ads; clips of real people describing what they love about playing your game. Talk to players, look on Facebook groups or have a read through your app store reviews to get an idea of why players are coming back each time. Then create a few different UGC testimonials which focus on these different selling points and combine them with new or existing ads. Our ready-made testimonial videos are grouped into themes to help you find something suitable for your game. We recommend testing two or three to begin with.

Hearing a compelling review from a friendly face can build an instant rapport with your ad viewers. Authenticity is key!

Key consideration: It’s important to take representation into account when testing UGC. Don’t focus solely on your core audience: make your ads more diverse by testing creators from a range of ages, genders, races and body types. This not only promotes a sentiment of positivity and inclusion, but can also increase engagement within groups of users who might otherwise feel underrepresented.

2. It camouflages your ads

Scrollable short-form video has rapidly become the most popular way to consume content on a mobile device, with monthly active users of TikTok, Instagram Reels, Snapchat and YouTube Shorts all now in the billions.

It’s very common for native videos on these platforms to feature the creators themselves - either full screen or superimposed over a background - explaining, narrating or reacting to different content. Users expect to come across these types of homemade clips and will stop to watch them, whereas highly-polished animated videos are rarely seen outside of ads and are often skipped.

By incorporating UGC into your video ads, you can create a much more natural look and feel that mirrors the content users are used to watching on these platforms. This helps draw more attention to your ad and encourages users to view it for longer, increasing its chances of being effective.

Design your performance marketing videos with this in mind and you could significantly boost engagement rates compared to ads which look like… ads.

Key consideration: the most successful short-form videos are snappy and engaging, so try to test some explosive, high-energy ads. Ask your designers to chop the UGC content into chunks and splice it back together, only keeping the most relevant phrases and minimising pauses. Try increasing the speed by 20-30% whilst you’re at it (and use pitch correction, or not!).

3. It’s easier than you think

Testing creator-made content in your ads used to be a pain. Sourcing footage from influencers can be expensive and time-consuming, and the do-it-yourself approach can be a real hassle. Not to mention, neither of these methods are scalable - at least for any affordable price - and it can take weeks to get hold of the right content.

It’s now easier than ever to test UGC in your performance marketing creatives, with sites like Babblestock offering hundreds of royalty-free stock videos. Here you can quickly filter through a library of creator-made testimonial, reaction and commentary videos and download them instantly for royalty-free use in your UA creatives.

This allows for easy testing at scale in a way which enables you to find the creator, theme and execution that delivers the best results for your performance marketing campaigns. If this video featuring Christy is achieving a strong CPI, you could try other creators’ videos from the Expertise theme, or test Christy reading some scripts from other themes.

Many of our UGC videos are shot using green-screen backgrounds which allow designers to effortlessly place the creator over a totally different background. For videos where a green background hasn’t been used, you can use AI-powered background removal software such as Unscreen.com to achieve a similar result, or simply leave the background in place to show the creator in their home setting.

Key consideration: any performance marketer who’s A/B tested creative elements such as characters, gameplay sequences and themes knows that it can take a number of attempts before a new winning combination is found. Testing UGC is no different, and both the creator, script and execution style used can have a huge impact on performance. Test as many variations as possible!

Summary

Testing UGC in your performance marketing campaigns makes sense now more than ever. It can help you build ads which viewers will relate to and trust, although if done well enough it should take them a moment to realise they’re even watching an ad. Babblestock has made it easy to access high-quality creator-made content which can be effortlessly integrated into your creative marketing strategy.