In an effort to offset the drop in performance of influencer marketing, DR SMILE has achieved amazing results with UGC Ads. Compared to previous influencer activations, UGC Ads have generated twice as many sessions for DR SMILE and reduced the cost per booking by 20%.

Difficulties of influencer marketing

Saturation of the market

DR SMILE was founded in 2017 and has grown very strongly through influencer marketing, especially in the first few years. However, the German influencer market has become highly saturated in recent years. DR SMILE had to contend with inconsistent influencers who often did not complete the dental treatment, which lasts several months.

Increase in influencer prices

Influencer prices have also risen sharply, despite often months of negotiations. Coupled with the content created and its views, the costs were no longer sustainable or profitable, because as a result the bookings (registrations) of the brand and book-to-shows (conversions) were no longer in relation to what was spent on the influencers. DR SMILE was therefore faced with the challenge: "How can we achieve our goals without influencer marketing?"

Strategy

Due to the new challenges, DR SMILE plans to phase out its last influencer collaborations and focus on user-generated content as a channel to generate bookings for appointments. Since the beginning of March, the brand has commissioned 79 videos from 37 creators to be used for its performance ads on Meta and TikTok.

Creative Brief

Explaining the sample box

For the first angle, the creators received the sample box to demonstrate exactly how the various components such as aligners, chewies and softeners look and are used. This is the box that the customer also receives when they start a DR SMILE treatment.

Integration into everyday life

In another creative brief, the creators were tasked with showing how easy it is to integrate the aligners into routine. The aim was to address and refute potential customers' objections that the product would interfere with their everyday lives.

Comprehensive treatment

Some selected Creators are currently going through the entire treatment process of 4-9 months (average treatment duration) and documenting each step in corresponding video ads. In this way, DR SMILE can illustrate not only its physical product, but also the entire service experience, including a visit to one of the many DR SMILE partner clinics throughout Germany.

UGC in comparison

Thanks to the different types of creative briefs and the large number of creators who have implemented them, DR SMILE has built up a large library of UGC ads with various angles in a very short time. These can be used and tested flexibly in the different funnel stages. With this approach, DR SMILE has managed to reduce CPR by 20% and increase clicks by 200%. The time spent waiting for influencers has also come to an end, as DR SMILE has been able to commission the first creator via Speekly on average 40 hours after the order was created and accept the creator's finished video in an average of 6.5 days after the order was placed.

Leah Bell
Team Lead Marketing Strategy at DR SMILE

Through Speekly we were able to successfully steer our content strategy into a new direction, scaling it to new proportions and achieving even greater performance than we had before.