Different Ways to Editing Your Raw UGC

We all know how powerful video ads can be. But with the average American seeing up to 10,000 adverts every single day, you can’t afford to rest on your laurels! To get the ROI you need, your video ads must both stand out and appeal to your specific target audience.

Enter the value of editing raw UGC.

Done right, you’ll not only end up with more engaging ad creative, but you’ll also be able to test different iterations to see which one delivers the best results.

We ran through the basic principles of effective video editing in our previous article on the topic. Read it here to make sure you understand the concepts of this post. So, today, we’re going to detail how you can generate multiple ad creatives from a single batch of raw content, ready for testing.

Let’s dive in.

The Number of Creators

There are two options when it comes to how many creators you use in an ad:

You can either feature a 

1. Single creator who narrates the entire storyline or incorporate related content from 

2. Multiple creators to produce one cohesive Ad storyline.

As you’d expect, the former option’s the simplest (and requires minimal explanation on our part)! The latter can lead to a more interesting, nuanced end result though. After all, having multiple creators allows you to play around and incorporate different parts of each video in various sequences to see which one works best.

Amount of B-Roll

Using supplemental b-roll footage within the main shot is a great way to a) show your product in action and b) keep the viewer’s attention.

1. No b-roll: But you don’t always need it. Sometimes, simplicity takes precedence. Leaving b-roll out creates a distraction-free ad that lets the storyline shine through as shown in the examples of single/multi creator videos above.

2. B-roll every few seconds: Another option to consider is the standard use of a b-roll, which involves incorporating a new scene every 3-4 seconds to stimulate engagement.

3. Full b-roll: And, finally, you could build your ad entirely out of b-roll footage, using the creator’s storyline as the narration. This might sound like overkill, but don’t dismiss it! 

Design Layouts

Diversity isn’t just the spice of life. It’s also the secret to being able to run meaningful A/B tests! With that in mind, make sure you use various design layouts to account for visual diversity within your ad library.

From there, you can take things to another level by using different combinations of single or multi-creator ads plus your choice of b-roll within each unique layout. 

As always, though, the decisions you make regarding the design layout should hinge on the specific style of video you wish to create- not to mention your individual brand and any pre-established audience preferences.

Ad Lengths

With the layout and content covered, a final method for editing raw UGC is to experiment with varying ad lengths.

Trust us, it’s hard to overstate how much of a difference even slight variations to the video length can make! Play around to see what works best at each stage of your funnel. In general, we recommend either:

• Circa 15-second ads to portray a few powerful excerpts from a bigger ad storyline and/or
• Circa 30-second or longer ads to convey a complete knowledge of your product/service to ad viewers

Start Editing and Testing Video Ads 

Raw UGC usually isn’t good enough to drive results, which makes editing essential to success. However, the nature of those edits makes a difference too! Our clarion call is for video marketers to experiment as much as possible, using the whole spectrum of edits we’ve discussed in this article.

Trust us, these are easy wins that’ll help you get the most out of your content! By playing around with every combination of the number of creators, b-roll, layouts, and lengths, you’ll end up with masses of different meaningful ad versions.

From there, you’ll be able to test them to see exactly what works best for your business. You can then rinse and repeat in your future ads.