How to Make an AI UGC Video Ad: A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Start from one product and good photos

   The video is drawn from your product's photos, so the photos set the ceiling.

   • One product per video. A bundle or a range confuses the picture and the script.
   • A clean packshot first: the whole product, plain background, label facing the camera, sharp enough to read every word printed on it.
   • Two or three more photos if you have them: in a hand, in use, from the back. They help the product keep its shape when it turns.
   • Read your own product page. Every fact the presenter says has to be on it. If the page does not say the mug holds 380 ml, the video cannot say it either.1

2. Pick one angle

   An angle is the one reason this video gives to care. Pick one per video and make several videos rather than one that says everything.

   Angles that work for a short video:

   • Problem, then the product: the small annoyance it removes, shown in a real moment.
   • The objection: the doubt a buyer has, met head on.
   • The detail nobody mentions: one thing you only notice using it.
   • Unboxing or first use: the first minute of having it.
   • A routine: the product inside something the person does anyway.

3. Write the script around a moment

   A 15 second video is about 5 shots of about 3 seconds each. That is room for one small story, not a list of features.

   • Start from a moment in a real day, before any line: what the person is doing anyway, and why. A script that starts from the product reads as an ad. One that starts from a moment reads as somebody filming their morning.
   • One action per shot, each with its own reason in that moment, none staged for the camera.
   • Lines react, never narrate. The picture already shows what they are doing. The line is what they would say while it happens: to the camera, to themselves, half finished.
   • Put the reason to watch first. TikTok's own guidance: Introduce your content proposition in the first 3 seconds for better recall and awareness, and Prioritize your hook in the first 6 seconds.2
   • Say how each line is said, in a few words, as a director marks a script: wincing mid-swallow, warm sigh after the sip.
   • Leave the price and the call to action out of the presenter's mouth. Put them in the caption, the ad's text or an end card.

   We wrote more on this, with a worked example shot by shot: How to write a 15 second UGC script.

4. Choose the presenter, the voice and the language

   • Match the presenter to who buys, and keep one presenter across a set if you want the ads to feel like one person's series, or change them to test who lands.
   • Say it in your buyer's language, and in their dialect where it matters. A line written for Paris and a line written for Montreal are not the same line.
   • Keep the voice natural. Plain, a little informal, the way people talk to their phone.

5. Make it, then watch every video before it runs

   Generated video gets a lot right and still gets things wrong. Watch each video start to end, with sound, and keep only the ones that pass:

   • The face is the same person throughout, at every angle.
   • The product keeps its shape and colour, and is one product: no second mug appearing, no handle switching sides.
   • The label reads as it does on your packshot, every letter, whenever it faces the camera.
   • Hands have the right number of fingers and hold things the way hands do.
   • Every line is said as written, in order, and the mouth matches the words.
   • Nothing added that is not in your world: no extra product, no writing drawn over the picture.

   We throw away videos that fail any of these. One of our first videos of the mug drew a second mug in its last shot, and it is not on our site.

6. Finish it for the feed

   • Vertical, 9:16. Meta: Reels is a full screen environment.3 TikTok recommends orienting vertically at 9:16 and shooting at least 720P resolution.2
   • Sound on, captions too. In a post of 7 November 2024, Meta says Over 75% of Reels views on Instagram are sound on, so the voice matters.3 Captions carry it for everyone else; TikTok recommends 5-10 words per second for text.2
   • Keep words out of the edges. Each app draws its own buttons and text over the bottom and sides of a vertical video. Keep your captions and anything you need read inside the safe zone the ad tool shows you.
   • Make the other sizes from the finished video, 4:5 and 1:1 for feeds, 16:9 for YouTube, rather than cropping by hand.

7. Label it, and keep it honest

   The presenter is generated, and is not a customer. Two things follow.

   • No past with the product. The presenter may enjoy using it on camera, but cannot claim to have used it for months, to have bought it, or that it changed their skin. In the US, the FTC's rule on fake reviews and testimonials (16 CFR § 465.2) forbids a testimonial that materially misrepresents that the person used or otherwise had experience with the product.4
   • Say it was made with AI. Meta, TikTok and YouTube each have their own label or setting for AI-made ads, and in the European Union Article 50 of the AI Act asks the person running the ad to disclose it where it would pass for real.5 We wrote down what each one asks and where the switch is: How to label an AI UGC video ad on Meta, TikTok and YouTube.

8. Test, read, make more

   • Run several angles at once, each its own ad, rather than one video and a hope.
   • Change one thing at a time when you test a winner: the opening line, the presenter, the language.
   • Judge on what you are paying for, purchases or the cost of one, not on likes, and give each ad enough spend to tell.
   • Remake the winner, not the loser: same angle, new opening, new face, before the audience tires of it.

Mistakes we see most

• A script that lists features instead of living one moment.
• Lines that describe what the picture already shows.
• A presenter who has used it for years.
• A product photo with the label turned away or blurred.
• One video carrying every message.
• Running a video nobody watched to the end.

Where Say It Again fits

Paste your store link and Say It Again reads your products, your logo, your colours and the way you write. It writes up to 3 scripts for you to read and change before anything is made. Then it makes the AI UGC video with a generated presenter speaking your lines, and makes the other sizes from it for free. You can try it on your own store with a free trial.

How Say It Again makes an AI UGC video, and what it checks before you pay, is in An AI UGC video, made from your store link.

Sources

1. Naseem, The everyday mug, read on 27 October 2026.
2. TikTok Business Help Centre, Creative best practices for performance ads, read on 27 October 2026.
3. Meta for Developers, Unlock the Power of Reels Ads: Boosting Brand Awareness and Engagement, read on 27 October 2026.
4. Fake or false consumer reviews, consumer testimonials, or celebrity testimonials (Cornell Legal Information Institute), read on 27 October 2026.
5. AI Act Service Desk, Article 50: Transparency obligations for providers and deployers of certain AI systems, read on 27 October 2026.

A text copy of each page, as it read that day, is kept with this page's records.