The best ads no longer look or sound like ads. For your startup and audience, the best spokesperson might not be your CEO or a celebrity influencer, but an everyday creator who really connects with the same audience you’re chasing.
Smaller creators make videos that feel native on a feed, then brands run them as paid ads. (These are called “UGC” ads, meaning “user-generated content.”) For many startups, UGC ads form the foundation of their paid social media strategy.
These deals are mostly based on flat fees. A brand pays a creator up front to make a video, then they work out permission to boost it on social platforms as an ad and/or to run as an ad on the creator’s own account.
The problem for brands is that social media algorithms are unpredictable and fickle, even for the MrBeasts of the world, and there are no guarantees for how a certain piece of content will perform. As Hector Serrano, head of content for the AI dictation app Wispr Flow, notes in this extremely helpful X video, a brand might spend thousands of dollars on a single video under this model, only to see it underperform once it’s posted.
