Table of Contents
🤳 What Even Is UGC?
UGC = User Generated Content—videos, photos, reviews, memes, and testimonials created by actual customers or creators, not ad agencies.
Think:
- A selfie with your product in terrible lighting
- A 12-second “Why I love this” voice note turned Reel
- A chaotic unboxing filmed one-handed
- A genuine “this changed my life” Tweet
Messy? Yes.
Authentic? Absolutely.
Effective? You better believe it.
I used to work with a brand called Perfora, and we went all in—we churned out one UGC every single day. Not kidding. We’d then test each one as a paid ad, and whichever version performed best? Boom—we scaled it. It was like a content-testing bootcamp, and spoiler: the authentic, unpolished videos almost always won. Turns out, people trust people more than they trust perfect campaigns.
🧠 Why Does UGC Work So Well?
Because people trust people. Not brands. Not even the sparkly ones.
Here’s the psychology:
- It’s relatable – Real faces, real voices, real bathrooms
- It’s believable – There’s no script, no studio, no overly-produced vibe
- It’s peer-driven – Feels like a recommendation, not a pitch
In fact, studies show that 92% of consumers trust UGC more than traditional ads.
(That’s basically everyone except your one skeptical uncle.)
🔥 What We Did at Perfora (That You Can Steal)
At Perfora, we turned UGC into a full-blown growth engine:
- One UGC per day – From creators, customers, or DIY content
- Test them all in Meta ads with small budgets
- Scale the winners – The top-performing videos would then be amplified with serious ad spend
No fancy agency. No big shoots. Just raw content that made people say “huh… I kinda want that.”
Pro tip: The best-performing ones were almost always low-fi, unscripted, and felt like they came straight from someone’s camera roll.
😎 UGC Is Evolving (And That’s a Good Thing)
It’s not just selfies anymore. The new wave of UGC includes:
- TikTok-style explainers
- “3 reasons I love this” storytelling
- Unfiltered testimonials
- Voiceover + B-roll mashups
The bar for quality is still low, but the bar for authenticity? Sky high.
Brands that get this are the ones going viral without trying too hard. (Because trying too hard is… cringe. And Gen Z can smell it.)
UGC isn’t going anywhere. If anything, it’s taking over—and that’s a good thing.
Because in a world of bots, filters, and AI-made influencers, real people with real voices are now your most valuable marketing channel.
So hand them the mic.
Let them film sideways.
And trust that a messy unboxing might just outsell your polished brand video.
Till next scroll,
— Your UGC-obsessed friend (who still has UGC drafts in their camera roll)
P.S. If your product can survive the front cam test, it can survive anything.