SideShift · B2B · UGC creator marketplace
Once a video format wins, put 90% of creators on it and keep 10% testing
Works well for them; keeps a backup format ready if the winner saturates
What they did
What happened
In their words
Nick Lawton - #1 UGC EXPERT Reveals How To Market Consumer Apps
Nick Lawton… sign for us, and just like even from our own personal experiences, like when I have my campaign launched on SideShift, and I'm checking my analytics tab, and I go to my post page, and I see, "Okay, we finally have some content market fit here. Now it's time to double down." What I'll do is I'll usually just go back to our to the marketplace, and I will source more creators. Or I may go back to my campaign listing and just find existing creators
Nick Lawtonthat maybe were new applicants, or that I had originally just passed over for whatever reason, but I'll usually talk to those people on a 5- to 10-minute call, tell them how the campaign's going, tell them why we're scaling up, then I will assign them to the campaign, add them to the group chat, and then we're kind of off to the races. And this is really where you're just pouring gasoline on the fire. I still have about 90% of the creator cohort posting that new format, and just dragging that into infinity.
Nick LawtonHowever, I will have maybe 10%, which is usually like one to two creators, still testing a couple new formats on the side for one of two reasons: one, I always want to be finding new formats, but two, if my other format gets too saturated, I want to have another one ready to go that I can then just kind of like slot into the chamber and have that cohort continue to rip it.
Joseph ChoiWhat's that percentage of like new formats exploration versus just doubling down on the existing one?
Nick LawtonLike I said, it's probably about 10%. I'm having 10% of the creator cohort finding new formats. Everyone does a little bit differently, but that's what we found to work really well. I don't think like, yes, put all your eggs in one basket, but maybe keep a a slightly smaller basket to the side just in case. You really want to hedge your bets here a little bit. Obviously, I know some people that just run one format and they just run that thing into oblivion. That's not us. We like to hedge a little bit and just be, you know, a little cautious
Nick Lawtonum that we're not saturating our audiences too heavily.
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More from this episode
- Copy what already works for competitors on TikTok, but change it 10-20%Called the easiest route; exact copies on cold accounts often fail
- Pay each creator $600-800 for 30-60 videos plus $1-2 per 1,000 viewsCalled the most fruitful structure for creators seen on the platform
- Call it a fit when 5-6 videos in the campaign pass 10,000 viewsMany quit UGC too early by skipping this step
- Manage all creators in one group chat and share what's workingKeeps creators bought in; one-on-one management called very hard
- Run organic videos with 5%+ engagement as Meta ads, starting at $100 a dayGreat results at $100/day, then scaled up; no numbers given
- Spend 20% on organic creator videos to test, 80% on ads for the winnersPattern seen at big brands; called the biggest organic-only vs organic+paid difference
- Build a warm-up video format from real posts about job-hunt painStill used a year later; warms accounts well but converts poorly
- Run organic TikTok winners as Spark ads to push reach cheaplyCheaper CPMs, but no install button or conversion tracking
Tags: scaling, format-testing, explore-exploit