The short answer. There are seven: product demo, satisfying showcase, try-on, problem and solution, testimonial, unboxing, and before and after. Pick by what you can shoot, not by what converts in the abstract — try-on, testimonial and before-and-after all need a person on camera, and the other four do not. Single-take formats remake more predictably than multi-shot ones, and on a per-second generator they cost half as much.
Every format we have shot
31/ 31
This one rules formats out rather than ranking them
The format itself
Ranks the shortlist. It never rules anything out.
Thumb-press power-on
Product demo
One take, so it remakes predictably
16 credits · $0.16
Remake thisCounter-top one-hand demo
Product demo
One take, so it remakes predictably
16 credits · $0.16
Remake thisTwo-hand lift and reveal
Product demo
One take, so it remakes predictably
16 credits · $0.16
Remake thisPrices are for one clip on the free plan's model, at one cent a credit. A new account opens with 40 credits and no card, which covers two five-second ads. Full price list
Most lists of formats are sorted by what each one says: this one builds trust, that one interrupts. That ordering is fine to read and useless to act on, because it never mentions the thing that rules most of the options out before you get to choose.
We shot all seven, 31 times, and the split fell out like this: 20 of the 31 need nobody in front of the camera, and 11 do. More usefully, 3 formats have no hands-only version at all. Try-on, testimonial and before-and- after are not harder without a person on camera. They are impossible, because the person is the subject. If you have nobody to film, that is not a style constraint. It closes three of your seven doors before you have picked anything.
The second thing nobody mentions is the cut. 20 of the 31 run as a single take and 11 change shot. A single take remakes far more predictably: there is no second angle to keep your product consistent across, which is exactly where a generated ad tends to fall apart and exactly what you will be re-rolling to fix.
Every format below is a good idea somewhere and a bad idea somewhere else. The second half is the part usually left out, so it is written here first-class rather than as a caveat.
A product demo UGC ad shows the product being used, usually in close-up and usually by a pair of hands, so the viewer sees what it does before anyone claims anything about it.
Best for: Anything whose value is visible in a few seconds of use: kitchen tools, gadgets, pet gear, cleaning products.
Not for: Products whose benefit is invisible or slow, like a supplement or a mattress. There is nothing to watch, and a demo of nothing reads as filler.
A satisfying showcase is a product demo whose subject is texture rather than function: the squeeze, the swatch, the clean single pass, shot close enough that the material is the whole frame.
Best for: Products with a physical texture worth watching, and for cold traffic that will not sit through an explanation.
Not for: Anything you need the viewer to understand rather than feel. It buys attention and spends none of it on what the thing is.
A try-on UGC ad puts the product on a person and moves so it can be seen from more than one angle, which is the only way a garment reads as a garment rather than a flat lay.
Best for: Apparel, accessories and anything worn on the body, where fit and drape are the purchase decision.
Not for: Anything not worn, and any seller with nobody to put on camera. There is no hands-only version of this format.
A problem-and-solution UGC ad opens on the pain rather than the product, then cuts to the product removing it, so the viewer recognises themselves before they are sold to.
Best for: Products bought to stop something: pain relief, clutter, a chore. Works on cold traffic because the hook is the problem, not the brand.
Not for: Categories where the claim is regulated. Showing pain vanishing is an efficacy claim, and ad platforms read it as one.
A testimonial UGC ad is a person speaking to camera about the product, usually with it already in shot, so the whole clip carries a face and a voice rather than a product on a table.
Best for: Considered purchases and anything where trust is the obstacle rather than understanding.
Not for: A brand with nothing true to say yet. A scripted testimonial from a customer who does not exist is the single fastest way to earn a platform review, and it needs a person on camera either way.
An unboxing UGC ad is the arrival: the sealed box, the opening, the first look at what is inside, shot from above or straight on with hands only.
Best for: Gifting, subscriptions, and anything whose packaging is part of what the buyer is paying for.
Not for: Products that ship in a plain mailer. The format is the packaging, so a dull box makes a dull ad.
A before-and-after UGC ad holds the camera in one position across two states, because the comparison only reads if nothing except the subject has changed.
Best for: Visible transformations: cleaning, grooming, organisation, anything where the difference is the product.
Not for: Results you cannot honestly show in one continuous setup, and any claim about a body or a health outcome. It also needs a person for most subjects.
Two things come up constantly from people starting out, and neither reads as a format question. One is not having anyone to film. The other, put plainly in one r/dropshipping thread, is whether it is viable to use existing videos from the internet and clean off the watermarks.
The answer that thread got is the right one: platforms are strict about copyright, and it leads to ad rejection. Removing a watermark changes nothing about who owns the footage. But notice that both questions land in the same place, which is that your format is decided by what you can legitimately put on screen. Solve that and the format follows from it. Guess at the format first and you will pick one you cannot shoot.
Seven cover almost everything sold on short-form video: product demo, satisfying showcase, try-on, problem and solution, testimonial, unboxing, and before and after. They differ less in what they say than in what they need from you, which is why the useful way to choose between them is by what you can actually shoot rather than by what each is called.
Start with the one you can shoot without hiring anyone. If nobody is going on camera, that is a product demo, a satisfying showcase or an unboxing. If you have a person, try-on and testimonial open up and they carry more trust. Start with one format and change one thing at a time; running five formats at once tells you which creative won and nothing about why.
Yes, and it is the more common case. Hands-and-product shooting covers product demos, satisfying showcases, unboxings and some problem-and-solution setups. What it cannot cover is try-on, testimonial and before-and-after, which need a person in frame by definition. That is a real limit rather than a preference, and it is worth knowing before you pick a format rather than after.
No. Ad platforms are strict about footage you do not own, and reused clips get ads rejected and accounts restricted rather than merely underperform. Stripping a watermark does not fix it, because the problem is the rights and not the pixels. Shoot it, license it, or generate it.
Short enough to be one idea. Most of the templates here run four to eight seconds, and a single-take clip in that range is easier to remake predictably than a multi-shot one, because there is nothing to keep consistent across a cut. Length is also money on any generator that bills by the second, so an eight-second clip costs twice a four-second one for the same idea.
On the free plan’s model a clip is four credits a second, so a five-second ad is 20 credits, which is 20 cents. A new account opens with 40 credits and no card, which covers two of them. Longer or higher-fidelity models cost more per second; the full table is on the pricing page.
