Introduction

As a marketer, your greatest weakness will be thinking you have any idea what type of content is going to resonate with your audience in ads. In this blog post, we'll make a compelling case for embracing user-generated content (UGC) and the value of testing a wide variety of content in your Facebook ad campaigns. Specifically, we'll explore how our agency has adopted a bold approach with many our clients who have a younger, appropriate demographic for maximized UGC, focusing on testing every single social post they're tagged in -  no edits, retouching, or overly restrictive brand guidelines.

The Power of Testing Every UGC Post

For many of our clients with a younger target audience, we've embraced a policy of testing every UGC post, subject to approval. By removing excessive editing and brand guidelines, we open the door to exploring content that we might have otherwise overlooked. Surprisingly, this strategy has yielded some of the most impactful ads we've ever seen.

Unexpected Success Stories

When we put this strategy to the test, the results were astonishing. While the content we anticipated to perform well did succeed, it was the unexpected winners that truly amazed us. We witnessed significant positive responses to seemingly unconventional content, including blurry mirror selfies featuring the product, low-fidelity Instagram Story slides, short 4-second video testimonials, and even GIFs or memes created by our customers.

Breaking Down the Results

The impact on our ad metrics was nothing short of remarkable. Our cost-per-click (CPC) levels reached figures reminiscent of 2013, consistently staying below $1 CPC for substantial spending. It's true that this approach might lead to a decline in conversion rate, but the significant drop in CPC more than compensates for the difference, resulting in massive increases in net return on ad spend (ROAS).