Month: February 2023

Especially urgent in an uncertain economic climate, brands must minimize production costs while creating a high enough volume of social media videos to identify the creative elements that resonate most with target audiences.

“Budgets are being heavily scrutinized, and people are looking very closely at what they’re spending their dollars on,” said Catharine Meketa, managing vice president at QuickFrame by MNTN. “Social media generates the greatest ROI, but how do we figure out what’s going to resonate the most with the target audience? From a production standpoint, by capturing as much content as possible, you’re later able to look at different variables to determine the overall campaign effectiveness.”

To maximize their budgets and hit those volume goals, brands are enlisting partners to support their video production. They are working with creator marketplaces to take pressure off in-house teams and freelance video production partners to create low-cost UGC-style videos.

As brands and their partners create their libraries of social media videos, they’re then implementing advanced testing strategies to determine which creative variables perform best at meeting the brand’s goals. One example of this approach comes from a video campaign with CookUnity.

How CookUnity fueled 86 videos from a single video shoot

Meal subscription service CookUnity partnered with QuickFrame by MNTN to develop and execute its new video strategy on Facebook and Instagram.

Since CookUnity had not used video ads previously and needed more production experience, QuickFrame by MNTN created a comprehensive video production plan. The goal was to ensure a single video shoot could be used to capture a wide variety of footage for different platforms and creative concepts. 

“From a production standpoint, you need multiple concepts, you need multiple lengths, you need multiple opening hooks. That means you need to create a larger volume of content than you’re likely creating today,” Meketa explained. “There’s a big myth that you can’t do this without blowing your budget, but, in fact, it can be more efficient.”

A thorough storyboard helps teams be realistic about production timelines and budgets, but it is crucial for brands to recognize that the more complex a concept is, the more  costly it is likely to be. Further, a comprehensive shot list helps reduce the likelihood of expensive reshoots.

“You want a wide variety of footage. Think things like shooting vertical versus horizontal, different talent depending on your audience reading different scripts and possibly different locations,” Meketa said. “The goal is to have multiple intelligent ways to remix or repurpose the footage for all of your different priority platforms, placements and creative approaches.”

After one production shoot for CookUnity, QuickFrame was able to create 86 different videos throughout the campaign. The videos featured different on-screen talent, video styles, value propositions, shot orders and even meals.

How CookUnity leveraged multivariate testing to optimize UGC videos

Following the initial campaign launch, CookUnity and QuickFrame implemented a testing strategy to determine which creative variables performed best at reducing the brand’s customer acquisition cost and improving the click-through rate on Facebook and Instagram.

Meketa recommends multivariate testing as an effective way for brands like CookUnity to optimize their creative budget, especially for performance marketing campaigns. Unlike A/B testing, which contrasts two variables, multivariate testing allows marketers to examine numerous variables simultaneously. 

The first sets of creative should test high-level concepts before getting more granular as testing progresses, Meketa explained. For each subsequent round of testing, teams identify the highest-performing ads and further optimize those videos by testing new creative variables.

“Throughout the multivariate testing strategy, where we’re consistently deploying new creative, we’re monitoring it, we’re iterating on that new creative, and then we’re repeating it, but always leaving behind what doesn’t work, and introducing new variables,” Meketa said. “So not only are you growing your library of content because, with each round, you’re producing new content from that original footage that you captured. But you’re also growing your library of data, ultimately honing in on what’s resonating most with your audience.” 

For CookUnity, UGC-style testimonials quickly emerged as the highest-performing social media videos. More specific variables were tested over time, including featured meals, on-screen talent, value propositions and shot order.

The campaign resulted in a 30% decrease in CAC and a 22% increase in CTR. Based on the insights from their first performance campaign, CookUnity and QuickFrame launched a second campaign on YouTube.

Combined, the pre-production and multivariate testing plan was an effective strategy for CookUnity to create and test a high volume of videos — generating insights and further maximizing budgets for future campaigns.

“You’re going to want to take all of those insights and learnings and apply them to the next round of production that you do,” Meketa said. “For each round of production, you want to get smarter and smarter.”

Sponsored by QuickFrame by MNTN