Which UGC videos to run as ads: a review and testing routine

Review for the ad, not the feed

A video can be charming on a creator's own page and still fail as an ad. Followers already like the creator. An ad reaches people who know neither the creator nor you, with a thumb already moving. So the review question changes from 'is this good?' to 'would a stranger stop, understand and act?'

A five-point review

• The opening. Do the first seconds give a reason to keep watching, in picture and in words?
• The product. Is it on screen early and used the way the brief asked?
• The claims. Is everything said accurate and something you would stand behind?
• The craft. Vertical framing, clean audio, enough light and room for captions.
• The label. Is the paid relationship clear, and do the usage terms cover ads?

Three piles

Sort into 'run', 'run with an edit' and 'do not run'. Write one line on why for each. Those lines become the next brief.

Test in small batches

Your own taste is a weak predictor of what strangers respond to, so let several videos compete. Give each a modest daily budget for a set period, and decide beforehand what you will compare. Keep the audience and the offer the same across the batch, so that the video is the only thing that differs.

Change one thing at a time between batches. If you swap the creators, the offer and the audience together, you will not know which change mattered.

Before launching, add the daily budgets together and look at the monthly total. Five small tests are still one real line in the month's spend.

Feed the next brief

Each batch answers three questions: which creators to brief again, which opening earned attention and which message held it. Put the answers into your next brief in plain words, for example 'more like the unboxing angle, and open on the product'. A round that does not change the next brief was a wasted round.

Running the chosen videos with Link AI

Linkme describes the last step of its creator workflow as running the best videos as ads from your dashboard. Its ad drafts state a daily budget and what that adds to each coming month, are marked 'Needs review', and launch on Meta once approved. Linkme Analytics lists profile views, link clicks, total interactions and engagement rate.

As described, you choose the videos and run them as ads from one dashboard, and Linkme's ad drafts put the budget in front of an approver before launch. That is why Link AI by Linkme is our editorial choice for this step. See Link AI on your own accounts in a demo and ask how results for each video are shown. For the full path, read how to get UGC videos for ads.

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