UGC Style Video for Meta Ads: Formats and Creative Briefs

A UGC style video looks like real-person product content, with direct speech and an everyday setting, as described by Noovid. For your e-commerce store, choose a product demo or unboxing and brief the footage around your product and intended placements.

UGC style video for your e-commerce store

User-generated content, or UGC, includes videos, photos, and written statements that social media users make to promote or review products or services. Shopify describes its makers as customers and social media users, and also discusses paid UGC creators.

Identify whether the presenter is a customer sharing their experience or a paid creator before writing the brief.

Key characteristics of UGC style for authenticity include handheld phone filming, conversational speech, real settings, and simple editing, according to Noovid. To film one in this style, start with those production choices, then review the recording for clear speech and visible product use. Use this checklist for production and footage approval:

• Film with a phone held in your hand rather than a cinema camera on a tripod or gimbal.
• Choose an everyday setting, such as a kitchen or bedroom, and use natural light.
• Ask for speech that sounds like a conversation instead of a memorized commercial.
• For a product demo, show the presenter using the product on camera.

Illustrative demo line you can adapt: "Here is what comes in the box, and here is how I use it." This gives the presenter a clear subject without inventing a customer history or product result.

Why use UGC in your marketing?

Use UGC in your marketing to explain product use and experience or answer purchase doubts through demonstrations and reviews, as Noovid suggests.

A product demo shows how something works in practice. An objection-led video takes a question that stalls a purchase and answers it by showing. A review lets the speaker discuss their product experience and who they would recommend it to.

For your store, choose the information the shopper needs before choosing the personality or setting. A product that needs explanation calls for visible use. A question about the contents of a purchase calls for footage of the package and what is inside.

Treat the format as a creative option to test. Compare the phone-shot concept with your current creative using the comparison metric selected for your test. Do not assume the real-person look makes an unclear offer convincing.

For broader guidance on the message behind the footage, see Facebook ad creative and copy.

Types of UGC videos for your product

According to Noovid, types of UGC videos include testimonials or reviews, unboxings, product demos, routines, objection answers, and before-and-after comparisons.

Choose the format around the information you need to communicate, using Noovid's descriptions below. These are content approaches, not evidence that a particular ad will perform well for your store.

Keep objection-led wording focused on the product. Meta's personal attributes policy prohibits ads that share or ask for users' private information or assert or imply the viewer's personal attributes, such as race, age, or physical or mental health, including medical conditions.

Meta also prohibits questions and alternative wording that assert or imply personal attributes. You may use "you" or "your" when the ad does not mention prohibited personal attributes and complies with Meta's Advertising Standards.

Reviews and endorsements need genuine experience and disclosure

Under the FTC's consumer reviews and testimonials rule, businesses must not write, create, or sell consumer reviews, consumer testimonials, or celebrity testimonials that materially misrepresent whether the person exists, used or experienced the subject, or had the experience described, expressly or by implication. The subject can be a business, product, or service.

Businesses also must not purchase a consumer review, or disseminate or cause dissemination of a consumer or celebrity testimonial, when they knew or should have known it materially misrepresented those things, expressly or by implication.

For UK marketing communications, the CAP Code requires documentary evidence that a testimonial or endorsement is genuine, unless obviously fictitious, and contact details for the person or organization giving it. Marketing communications must not feature a testimonial without permission; exceptions are normally made for accurate statements taken from a published source, quotations from a publication or references to a test, trial, professional endorsement, research facility or professional journal, which may be acceptable without express permission.

Under the FTC's Endorsement Guides, disclose a connection between the endorser and seller clearly and conspicuously, meaning difficult to miss and easily understandable by ordinary consumers, when it might materially affect an endorsement's weight or credibility and the audience would not reasonably expect it.

Under the FTC's guides, these connections can arise from business ties, family ties, or personal relationships, as well as payment or products given free or at a discount, including products unrelated to the endorsed product, whether or not the advertiser asks for an endorsement in return.

Customers, paid creators, and influencer videos

A UGC creator's video is for a brand's channels; an influencer video is posted to the influencer's own audience, according to Influee. An influencer's value includes audience reach and follower trust, alongside the content itself.

Shopify distinguishes everyday customers who make content about their experience without prompting, brand advocates who frequently promote a brand, and paid UGC creators. For your brief, identify which relationship applies before deciding what the person should say.

A commissioned demonstration and a customer's account of product use serve different purposes. If you need the product action explained, brief the demonstration. If you need someone's experience, let that experience determine the wording.

Blanka Beauty suggests liking, commenting on, and reposting existing audience content to engage customers and encourage sharing. Its customer-content advice is a useful starting point for conversations, not permission to use someone's footage in paid advertising.

For creator posts, Meta's Branded Content Policies define branded content as creator or publisher content featuring or influenced by a business partner in exchange for value, including payment or free gifts. Branded content may only be posted using the branded content tool, and creators must use that tool to tag the featured third-party product, brand, or business partner with that partner's prior permission.

Put the intended publication, paid-ad usage, deliverables, and agreed usage period into the creator brief. Specify whether you are buying footage for your store's ads, a post to the creator's audience, or both.

A product brief for placement-ready footage

A useful creator brief names the product action, the intended placements, the required framing, and the message that must remain readable.

Gethookd describes a UGC ad structure consisting of a relatable hook, an honest demonstration, and a call to action that sounds like a recommendation. Use its UGC ad structure as a planning prompt: the hook is the opening idea, and the call to action tells the viewer what to do next.

Placement ratios and technical durations

Meta lists the following design recommendations and technical duration requirements for video ads. Technical duration requirements describe accepted running times; choose your creative's running time around the explanation and demonstration it needs.

For Instagram Stories, Meta recommends considering roughly 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom, and 6% on each side free from text, logos, or other key creative elements to avoid cropping or interface coverage. For Instagram Reels, Meta recommends leaving at least 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom, and 6% on each side free from text, logos, or other important creative elements.

The safe zone is the area where your important elements stay clear of placement interface coverage. In its text-overlay guidance, Meta recommends a modern, clean font, sufficiently large type, and a contrasting hue. It also advises keeping text within the safe zone, avoiding obstruction of visuals, and limiting messages because ads usually have one call to action.

Include these requirements in the brief as deliverables:

• Product footage: the specific action and details that must remain visible.
• Placement versions: the intended placements and their recommended ratios.
• Text space: room for readable wording without covering the demonstration or entering interface areas.
• Closing request: the action you want the viewer to take after seeing the product.

Keep attention with speed and create for Stories-first. Apply its Stories creative guidance by removing introductions that delay the product explanation.

If you are choosing video placements, see Reels versus in-stream video ads. Request a framing check with the planned text before approving the footage.

Set up a creative test in Meta Ads Manager

Meta's creative testing can compare up to 7 creative variants, with delivery provided to new test ads inside an existing campaign.

Choose the question your test should answer before selecting the footage. For a hook test, keep the product demonstration and offer consistent while changing the opening idea. For a presentation test, compare the real-person concept with the alternative presentation you already use.

To set up a creative test in Ads Manager, use these steps from Meta:

1. Go to Ads Manager.
2. Select an existing campaign. Note: Creative testing is supported in campaigns using the Highest volume bid strategy only. To run a creative test, switch your bid strategy to Highest volume.
3. Go to the ad level and scroll down to the Creative test section. Click Set up test.
4. Choose the number of copies you’d like to make of this ad to create your test ads. You can create 2 to 7 copies. Note: You can update the creative for each test ad after you confirm your test setup.
5. Choose the amount of your existing campaign or ad set budget you’d like to spend across test ads. Meta suggests using no more than 20% of your existing budget to help reduce the potential of impacting your overall campaign performance during the test. Meta will aim to spend that amount per day on test ads. If your campaign or ad set doesn’t include any other active ads aside from test ads, they may receive more of the daily budget during the test.
6. Set your test duration and the metric you want to use to compare test ads. Click Confirm.
7. To make changes, click Edit test settings, which appears on the right. Note: Your test ads will start running on their ad set schedule when you publish them, even if you adjust the test schedule. The test schedule only determines when results are measured.
8. When you're ready, click Publish.

Use the comparison metric selected for the test to identify the version that performs best on that measure. For a store seeking purchases, assess the test against that goal rather than reactions to the video alone.

If a version gets little engagement, use the next test to examine its opening or demonstration. Try showing the product action earlier, or replace an abstract opening with a direct explanation. Change the element connected to your question so the next result is easier to interpret.

High-performing ads can remain active in the campaign used for the test, retaining the delivery system's learnings. There is no need to merge them into another campaign, where those learnings would reset.

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