Yoke UGCs’ insights with Jide Maduako | Appvertiser Chats #9
Hello there! Welcome to another Appvertiser Chat 🎙
As usual, your go-to series for the hottest app-marketing discussions brings together industry experts to deep dive into their products, and share their insights on the industry, and predictions for the future of it.
In times where the content is still the king, we cannot avoid talking about creativity. And what’s the best example to address it in mobile industry? Of course, UGCs!
So this time our friends from Yoke Network will be joining us, represented by one of their co-founders (and a social media rockstar! 🎸), Jide Maduako. Let’s jump in!
Before we start, do you prefer to watch or listen?
▶ Youtube: https://youtu.be/fyjkinVvLmQ
Q: Hi Jide! Thank you for joining us today in Appvertiser Chats. I know you’re an expert in this field, but I want you to introduce yourself a little bit before we start with this episode.
A: Hi, my name is Jide Maduako. I’m one of the Co-founders at Yoke Network, a leading user acquisition agency. We help advertisers reduce their customer acquisition costs through creator-led content. So we’ve been doing it for six years now.
We’ve helped to drive over 15 million installs, developed over 25,000 unique creator-led videos, and yeah, we’ve been in the game for quite a while. So it’s good to be here today.
Q: I will start with one question, a little bit personal. What’s your go-to app these days?
A: My favorite app now is TikTok, actually. I’m always learning about it just because it’s the hub of culture. It’s where we – it was like the birth of short-form video content. So I’m always looking at it in terms of the trends and the different kinds of things that pop up on my For You page or on my various accounts.
Q: Okay, so to go to the UGC’s creatives. Have you noticed more requests from clients for UGC’s lately? How’s that shaping your take on what the market’s after?
A: I found out recently there have been quite a few more requests from clients for UGC, and it’s mainly just because I think across 2023 a lot of clients were trying to understand it, so they were doing a lot of testing. But a lot of clients are now integrating UGC into their core app marketing functions, and it’s probably the best-performing content across Google Ads and Facebook.
TikTok obviously is native there. So we’re seeing the birth of UGC, and we’re even seeing some of our advertisers get the content and utilize it in places such as App Loving and other video ad networks. It’s a very, very powerful tool for storytelling, so that’s why we’re seeing a lot of demand for it and a lot of requests.
Q: In your experience, do you have a specific industry that is using more UGCs… Gaming, travel, finance, or maybe others?
A: I think traditionally UGC obviously started with more e-commerce, and now it’s moved into every sector. For gaming, it has been one that advertisers are trying to crack UGC, and depending on the title or the category of game or subcategory of game, UGC performs a lot better. For more adventure games and games where you have to build out your own world, UGC is a very powerful tool. For casual and idle games, it’s also crucial as they try to find the best-performing content, and it’s competitive. But in those more hardcore games, that’s where UGC has been a lot more prominent for gaming.
With finance, obviously for social validation, having UGC showing people budgets and tips has been really important because finance has a huge barrier to entry. And then obviously travel – visually, it’s native to that category. We’re seeing a lot of travel adverts showing picturesque views of bucket list places that are always best told by a person. So it’s been powerful there too.
Q: When a client comes to you and asks you for UGCs, what’s your plan from the beginning to the end? How is the process for them to understand how it works to generate these creatives?
A: As a growth marketing agency, we manage the full funnel. And depending on the partner, we may take the full funnel or less of that; they may come to us with scripts, or they may come to us with already fully-fledged concepts, and we just do the execution side. However, the majority of clients come to us because they want that external creative expertise. The main reason is they want us to help them execute and build on some of the foundations of learnings and ideas. Therefore, we do everything in terms of the full funnel.
Let’s imagine a customer comes to us initially. We will essentially get a brief from them or pitch our UGC strategy, which is a more hand-in-glove type of delivery process. Once we do that, we agree to concepts. Once we agree to concepts, we begin the content creation process. And then, we do everything along that funnel as well.
Q: Do you feel like working with you is different from working maybe with other companies? What’s your special touch on the creatives?
A: Well, there are a few things in terms of our network. We’ve been making TikTok videos since before TikTok had an ads platform. So we’ve been in the game for the longest period of time.
We’re always focused on mobile app marketing and performance with that. But then, we’ve done a lot of organic content building, and the organic informs the page. We build pages out to more than 4 million followers. Also, internally we have a few content creators, including myself. So I create content on TikTok as well and have an audience there, and so do some of the members of the team. And finally, we have our own platform. So we are very, very data-driven.
What we actually have is that we’re able to get access to the data to execute campaigns and execute strategies based on actual historical learnings and insights because we’re always A-B testing. We’re even looking at which fonts perform the best. So for us, I think everything coupled together makes us a very powerful force and differentiates us because I don’t really know any other partners that have the experience and level of understanding of the product as we do.
Q: What are your thoughts on the UGCs and how it fits into your overall strategy?
A: For us, in terms of my vision of UGC content, I have a further forward-thinking approach than I think most do.
I think content will continue to evolve towards more storytelling and deeper resonance for the user. If you look at a lot of the tools we have available now, it’s becoming a lot easier to craft deeper stories and reach deeper and further audiences. Years ago, it used to be just very data-driven, and content wasn’t as important because it was so deep down the funnel.
But now, coupled with data and understanding audience behavior based on different elements in the content, it’s going to lead to deeper storytelling and more creative concepts. Every product is going to have to be a media product. It’s going to have to have its own media arm.
Q: How is it different from being a UGC creator or an influencer? What do you recommend for the companies?
A: That is a very good question. With UGC content, creativity, and influence, you’re buying the audience. I think they are two different things.
When you’re an influencer, you already have your barrier to entry – it’s like your face and your IP. Your audience is familiar with you, your face, your emotions, or your content in some way. You’ve already been positioned as a thought leader in that category. For that reason, if an advertiser reaches out to you and you have an audience that resonates with you or you can drive traffic as an influencer, then your markup is the access to that and your credibility. With UGC, it’s all about creativity.
There are a lot of people who are making good money being UGC creators because they’re making good content to tell the story of the brand or the product. That’s what advertisers are buying with UGC: they’re buying the testimonials, the short storytelling, the editing.
That’s completely different from someone who’s actually an influencer with audience resonance. If you’re an influencer, the brand can partner with you even if you’re not good at creating content, but they can still get conversions because there’s recognition. But if you’re a UGC creator, you have to be really good at making content or else your content’s not going to convert because nobody knows you.
Q: And if you have to give a piece of advice to a company that is doing this type of ads for the first time. What would you recommend: to invest first, influencers or UGC creators?
A: It depends on their budget. If you’re a company and a massive gaming studio, I would definitely leverage influencers and UGC creators. If you’re a massive gaming studio, you’d probably already have an influencer to lead the campaign and UGC to amplify the message.
But if you’re a small creator, a small brand, or a small app, there’s a lot of risk in partnering with a big creator because you need to make it work. Also, you won’t be able to tap into the world-class ones who will have a superpower effect for your product. The best option for someone with a smaller budget is UGC because you can tap into the creativity, learn quickly, beta test, get the story told, and use them for ideation. As you start to build up that audience and traction, you can then look at working with influencers who best fit your product.
But not just any influencer; you want to partner with people who actually stand for your brand and are thought leaders in that space. It’s a mix of both.
Q: Do you have any extra thing that you would like to share if a company in this field is watching? Something that you recommend them or an extra tip for the audience…
A: If you’re just a company in general, a key tip is to always be very open to new ideas and creativity. Also, UGC and creative content don’t just have to be used for social. You can scale it across many different channels, such as ad networks, in-app explainers, and landing pages on your website. There are many use cases for it, but a lot of advertisers bracket it as the best performing ad format. Really and truly, it’s a very transferable content format. It’s not just the ad you can use it for.
Q: Thank you so much for everything that you shared today. I feel like this is going to be so useful for so many people.
Yoke is a data-focused network that has been disrupting the influencer marketing scenario for more than six years now.
Empowering creators and helping advertisers to build their app’s user base, drive installs, and hit CPA targets, the network’s core is driving long-term results using historical data, tangible insights, and consistent testing. With a team of creative experts and the driving force of originality, it achieved a reach of over 4,000 influencers and results like over 10 million downloads and 2 billion TikTok views.
Are you up to the challenge with UGCs?🤳
Let’s team up to boost your app ads’ conversions and engagement with the most original creator-lead content. If you had in mind an out of the box-thinking creative partner, we’re definitely what you’re looking for.
Find us right here and go book a call!
