Imagine this: You’re scrolling through LinkedIn or Facebook, and something catches your attention. You click, engage, and maybe even share it. But why? Because it looks like something a friend or colleague might have posted – not a traditional, polished ad.
In a time when users are constantly exposed to advertisements, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to create content that captures attention and drives engagement. Traditional, polished ads are often overlooked or perceived as less trustworthy, leading to lower interaction rates and, in some cases, fewer conversions. So, how do we create ads that stand out in the feed without being perceived as typical advertisements?
This is a question we frequently ask ourselves when setting up new campaigns for our clients. Can more authentic, unpolished content boost engagement and CTR? And are there specific platforms where this content strategy works better than others?
At Iternum Digital, we love data. To address this challenge, we conducted a series of general split tests across selected campaigns for different clients and industries. The goal? To investigate whether more authentic and organic content could drive higher engagement and better performance compared to traditional, polished ads.
The tests were conducted on Meta and LinkedIn, two platforms with different user behaviors and expectations for content. The objective was to identify common trends and best practices that could be used to optimize digital advertising across industries.
For our tests, we created two versions of nearly identical ads. Same text, same target audience, and budget, but two different images:
Version A: A traditional ad – well-designed, professionally produced, with clear branding elements in high quality.
Version B: Authentic content with a stronger UGC look – raw images taken with an iPhone, unedited, and more everyday-like. Designed to look more like an organic post than an ad.
We ran these tests across Meta (Facebook & Instagram) and LinkedIn to observe user reactions to the different formats and analyze differences in engagement, click-through rate (CTR), and overall performance.
Authentic content generated significantly better results across both platforms. On Meta, the difference in performance was especially noticeable in Stories and Reels, where informal content blended more seamlessly with users’ organic content. On LinkedIn, authentic content appeared more credible and sparked more discussion and interaction in the feed, as it resembled personal posts from users.
The numbers speak for themselves:
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Users responded far more positively to ads that didn’t look like ads. They were more likely to engage, click, and interact with content that felt more genuine and human.
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Ask yourself: Would your ads perform better if they didn’t look like ads? There’s only one way to find out – test it!
If you’re still relying solely on traditional, polished ads, you might be missing out on a huge opportunity. We almost always recommend testing UGC-style content in your campaigns.
Try experimenting with more natural images, informal text, and a less “salesy” approach – it can be just as effective as professionally produced content. Plus, it has the added benefit of being cheaper, faster, and easier to produce!
Instead of allocating large budgets to professional shoots and post-production, brands can quickly and easily create new content using mobile footage or behind-the-scenes material, allowing them to keep up with the fast-paced nature of social media.
Additionally, we recommend that brands continuously test different forms of authentic content – variations in format, tone, camera angle, and storytelling – to identify what works best for their specific audience. This ensures constant performance optimization while making it easier to maintain a continuous flow of fresh and engaging content without long production timelines. Less staged, more real – and far better performance!
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A professional digital marketing agency that provides services in optimizing digital marketing channels.
Iternum ApS
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2000 Frederiksberg

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