You've decided to try UGC for your brand. Great. Now comes the part that's a little less obvious: figuring out what you actually want from the campaign.
Which creators should you work with? How many do you need? What should they make? How much should you budget? And perhaps most importantly, how do you make sure you don't end up with a folder full of videos that all say the same thing?
Having a rough plan will help you spend your budget wisely and, more importantly, give you something to learn from.
Let's walk through how to put a UGC campaign together, starting with the decisions that matter most.
1. Figure out what you want the campaign to do
Before you start hunting for creators, answer one question:
What do you want this content to do for you?
Maybe you need fresh videos for Meta ads. Maybe you're launching a new product and want people to see it being used by actual humans. Maybe your social feed desperately needs something other than polished product shots.
You could be looking for:
- Paid ad creative
- Organic social content
- Product demonstrations
- Testimonials
- Unboxing videos
- Product-page content
- Content for a product launch
- Different creative angles to test
There's no wrong answer here. But it does matter what you pick.
If you're making UGC for paid ads, for example, you probably don't want five creators making essentially the same video. You'd get much more out of different hooks, opening lines, creator styles, or ways of presenting the same product.
So before asking, "How many videos should we get?", ask:
"What do we need these videos to accomplish?"
That one question will make the rest of the campaign much easier.
2. Decide what you actually want creators to make
Now we get to the fun part.
What should these videos look like?
There are plenty of UGC campaign ideas you can play with. Below are some of the examples.
- A creator trying the product for the first time
- A straightforward review
- An unboxing
- A quick product demo
- A problem-and-solution video
- A tutorial
- A before-and-after
- A "here's how I use this" video
- A day-in-the-life video featuring the product
You don't have to pick one and stick with it.
In fact, having a few different creative directions is usually much more useful.
Let's say you're a coffee brand. Instead of asking 10 creators to "make a video about our coffee," you could have one talk about replacing their expensive coffee-shop habit, another show their morning routine, another do a taste test, and another explain why they switched from their old brand.
Same product. Very different videos.
That's the kind of variety you want.
And this is something worth figuring out before you start looking for creators. First you need to figure out what your campaign would be like before you decide which creator fits that description.
3. How many creators do you actually need?
If this is your first UGC campaign, you probably don't need 20 creators.
Start small.
The first round should really be about testing your ideas and figuring out what kind of content works for your brand. You might have a few different concepts in mind, but until you see them in front of an actual audience, you won't know which ones have legs.
A good starting point could be three to five creators. Give them a few different directions to work with and see what comes back.
Maybe the product demo works better than the testimonial. Maybe a casual, phone-in-hand video feels much more natural than something polished. Maybe one particular hook gets people to stop scrolling.
Now you have something to build on.
You can take the ideas that worked, create more variations, and bring in more creators for the next round. There's not much point in spending a big chunk of your budget producing dozens of videos before you've figured out which direction you want to take.
So when deciding how many creators you need, think about:
- How many ideas you want to test
- How many variations you want to create
- How much you're comfortable spending on the first round
- How much content you'll actually be able to review and use
Think of your first batch as a test run, not the finished campaign. Start with enough creators to learn something, then scale the ideas that prove themselves.
4. Work out your budget before you start recruiting
Nobody likes getting halfway through creator selection and realizing the campaign costs twice what they expected.
So, figure out the budget early.
Your creator fee is obviously part of it, but don't forget about the other bits that can sneak in:
- Product samples
- Shipping
- Number of videos
- Extra revisions
- Raw footage
- Usage rights
- Paid ad usage
- Additional editing
A simple starting point is:
Creator fee × number of creators + other campaign costs = your estimated budget
The actual creator fee can vary quite a bit depending on the creator, the content you're asking for, how much work is involved, and how you plan to use the finished content.
Also, don't make "cheapest creator" your entire selection strategy.
If you pay less upfront but spend three weeks going back and forth on revisions, that bargain isn't looking quite so good anymore.
5. Find creators who make sense for your campaign
Now you can start looking for creators.
And here's something worth remembering: UGC creator selection is not the same thing as influencer selection.
If you're hiring an influencer to post to their audience, their reach is obviously important.
If you're hiring a UGC creator to make content for your brand to use, you're looking at a different set of things.
Take a look at their portfolio and ask:
Do I like how this person communicates?
Not just "Does this video look nice?"
Can they explain something without sounding like they're reading an advertisement?
Can they make a product feel interesting?
Do they seem comfortable on camera?
Can they follow a brief without losing their personality?
You'll also want to consider things like:
- Their content style
- Experience with your category
- Location
- Language
- Demographic fit
- Turnaround time
- The types of videos they've made before
And don't get too hung up on follower count.
If the content is what you're buying, the quality and fit of the content matter a lot more than whether the creator has 2,000 or 20,000 followers.
You can search for creators yourself, work through applications, or use a creator marketplace like Aveoreach to find people based on the requirements of your campaign.
6. Give creators a brief they can actually work with
This is where brands can go wrong in two completely opposite ways.
Some briefs say: "Make a fun video about our product!"
And that's it.
Others are basically a screenplay. Every line is written out, every shot is prescribed, and the creator is left with approximately zero room to sound like themselves.
Neither is particularly helpful.
A good UGC campaign brief gives the creator the information they need without trying to do their job for them.
At a minimum, tell them:
What are we trying to achieve? Give them the bigger picture.
Who are we talking to? A creator will approach a video differently if they're speaking to people who are new to running versus marathon runners.
What's the product? Give them enough information to actually understand what they're talking about.
What's the main message? If they only remember one thing about the product, what should it be?
What kind of content are we looking for? Give them the concept, format, and general direction.
Are there specific talking points? Mention anything that needs to be included.
Any do's and don'ts? Especially important if there are claims or messaging the creator shouldn't improvise.
What are the deliverables? Don't leave this vague.
When is it due? Always worth spelling out.
What are the usage rights? We'll come back to this one.
A simple UGC campaign brief template
You don't need a 10-page document. Something like this can be enough:
Campaign: [Campaign name]
Goal: [What are we trying to achieve?]
Audience: [Who is this for?]
Product: [What is the creator promoting?]
Main message: [What should viewers take away?]
Creative direction: [What kind of video are we looking for?]
Talking points: [Anything that must be mentioned]
Deliverables: [Exactly what the creator needs to submit]
Requirements: [Length, format, aspect ratio, etc.]
Deadline: [Date]
Usage: [Where the brand can use the content]
Revisions: [How many rounds are included]
That's enough to give someone direction without turning their phone into a teleprompter.
7. Be very clear about what you're paying for
"Can you make us a UGC video?" sounds straightforward until you realize that everyone has a slightly different idea of what "a UGC video" means.
Does that mean 15 seconds? 60 seconds?
Does it include B-roll?
Do you get the raw footage?
Can you ask for another hook?
Can you use it in an ad?
For how long?
Sort all of that out before the creator starts.
A deliverable might look like:
- 2 × 30-second videos
- 3 hook variations
- 5 raw B-roll clips
- 1 revision
- 9:16 format
- Paid social usage for 90 days
Much better.
And then there's usage rights, which are particularly easy to forget.
If you're planning to use the content on Instagram, your website, and paid ads, make sure you've agreed to those uses. If you want raw footage or longer-term advertising rights, agree on that upfront too.
Nobody wants to have the "Oh, we thought we could use this in ads" conversation after the video is already finished.
8. Run the campaign, then see what actually works
Once you've picked your creators, the process is pretty straightforward.
Select creators → agree on terms → send the product and brief → create → review → revise → approve → collect the final files.
The important part is keeping track of everything.
Who has received the product? Who's filming this week? Who needs revisions? Which videos are approved? Where are the final files?
If you're working with several creators, trying to keep all of that in your email inbox can get messy surprisingly quickly.
Once the content is ready, don't just post everything and call it a day.
Test it.
Try different hooks. Try different creators. Try different ways of talking about the product.
If one video performs particularly well, don't just celebrate it and move on. Ask what made it work. Was it the opening? The creator? The angle? The way the product was demonstrated?
Then make more versions around what you've learned.
That's where a UGC campaign becomes more than a content order. You're not just collecting videos. You're figuring out what kind of creativity your audience responds to.
What should you measure?
That depends on what you wanted the campaign to do.
For paid ads, you might look at:
- Click-through rate
- Cost per click
- Conversion rate
- Cost per acquisition
- ROAS
For organic content:
- Views
- Watch time
- Shares
- Saves
- Engagement
And there are a few campaign-level numbers worth keeping an eye on too, such as cost per usable asset, approval rate, and revision rate.
Because sometimes the lesson from a UGC campaign isn't "this video got a great CTR."
It might be "we got 20 pieces of content and only six were actually usable."
That's useful information too.
UGC campaign checklist
Before you launch, make sure you've got these sorted:
- Campaign goal
- Content concepts
- Creator count
- Budget
- Creator selection criteria
- Creators
- Campaign brief
- Deliverables
- Usage rights
- Deadlines
- Review process
- Testing plan
- Performance metrics
A good UGC campaign doesn't need to be complicated. You just need to know what you're trying to get out of it before you start sending products to creators.
Once the goal, creative direction, creators, brief, and deliverables are clear, you're already most of the way there.
