Lumen had a category-leading product but refused to run before/after creative — and rightly so, given Meta's ad policy crackdown. They needed a hook that worked in beauty without resorting to transformation tropes.
Beauty ads without before/after = mostly polished brand shots. Polished brand shots don't convert cold traffic. We needed UGC that felt honest, not staged.
Built a 9-creator UGC pipeline. Each creator did one 'first impression' video on their own face, unfiltered, day-of-receipt. We shipped 18 variations in two weeks, with hooks ranging from 'I hate skincare ads but…' to 'this isn't sponsored yet'.
CTR climbed from 0.8% to 3.1%. CPA dropped 41%. We're now the brand's exclusive paid creative partner.
“PAUSE got UGC working for us without the cringe. Our CPA is the lowest it's ever been.”