As brands invest millions in influencer marketing, Aleks Velev identified a critical gap: substantial investments weren’t generating sufficient conversions. This observation led him to co-found The UGC Agency, transforming how brands create social content by leveraging user-generated content (UGC) at scale.

Building a Foundation in Creator Marketing

Originally from Bulgaria and now based in London, Aleks’ experience in the creator economy began with a student marketing venture. 

“I created a website that featured student deals at bars on different days of the week. It was kind of like an affiliate platform,” he recalls. “That failed miserably, to be honest. I was trying to juggle too much social life and the business.”

This initial setback proved valuable. After gaining experience at the Australian micro-influencer marketplace Tribe, Aleks spent two and a half years at MG Empower, advancing from coordinator to manager while collaborating with notable brands like Snapchat, Deliveroo, and Bumble.

His subsequent position as Head of Influencer Marketing at Engage Hub provided essential insights. “I managed a team of seven people and was responsible for influencer marketing alongside the company director,” he explains. “There, I worked with brands like H&M and Gorillas, a grocery delivery service.”

The decisive moment arrived during his role at fintech startup Shares. “I was the first hire dealing with creators, affiliates, and any partnerships,” Aleks says. “I was brought in to develop their strategy worldwide, not just in the UK, but also in territories such as Germany, Spain, and Poland.”

The Strategic Advantage of UGC

The UGC Agency emerged from a clear market observation: traditional influencer marketing wasn’t achieving the desired outcomes. 

“Every client would ask us, ‘Where are the conversions? Impressions and brand awareness are great, but where’s the traction? Where are the sales?'” Aleks explains. “We didn’t like it. We saw conversions, but they weren’t as high as the investment into large influencers would be.”

UGC distinguishes itself through its combination of authenticity and performance. 

“If you run UGC, people know you’re running an ad,” Aleks explains. “But if we try to entertain within that ad and create something attention-grabbing, that hooks the audience and provides value, then that’s going first to entertain the audience… It’s going to add value, it’s going to be targeted, and it’s going to look similar to relatable everyday consumer content.”

He contrasts this approach with conventional influencer marketing: “It comes as an interruption, but it’s an expected interruption. Whereas influencer content comes packaged as authentic, it’s not because it’s just a person holding a product and promoting a product and a discount code.”

A Strategic Approach to Content Creation

The UGC Agency stands out through its carefully curated approach emphasizing strategic planning over volume production. 

“I think there are a lot of platforms out there, and I think a lot of those platforms have creators in the space,” Aleks acknowledges. “But I think the main thing is we take the approach of UGC, but we incorporated into what we’ve learned through the influencer marketing space of really coming up with a creative strategy, really being bespoke.”

The company’s global reach strengthens its market position. “We’ve run campaigns in the U.S., the UK, Europe, Asia, and India,” Aleks explains. “We can execute this across the board and create creative that sticks out.”

Strong client and creator relationships form the foundation of their methodology. 

“One thing that I’ve learned working in the agency space is I obsess over client success and like account management,” he adds. “One thing that makes us different is we are hands-on with our clients… if someone contacts us, they will get a response within a few hours.”

This commitment extends to their creator network: “We build really strong relationships with the creators by communicating with them effectively, seeing who performs well, and reusing them for campaigns for some of our largest clients, too,” Aleks says. 

“It’s creating that ambassadorship, creating content that you see ads with similar faces to create familiarity and processing payments on time with the creators and ensuring that everything is done by the book,” he adds.

Their diverse client portfolio includes major brands through direct relationships and agency partnerships. 

“We have clients in the finance space, from forex trading, forex brokers, crypto exchange platforms, and stock trading platforms,” Aleks notes. They also collaborate with consumer-facing brands like Bumble “across multiple campaigns in multiple markets” and Indeed “to create UGC for their socials.”

The agency has become a trusted resource for other agencies expanding their UGC capabilities. 

“We work with many agencies to help their clients dive into UGC because many of the large influencer agencies or social agencies can’t execute UGC on their own because they have a lot of other services,” Aleks explains. “We partner up and help them with the creation, like tapping into the UGC space.”

The UGC Agency excels in adapting content across platforms while maintaining quality. “We can create content for YouTube, TikTok, and Meta across the board,” Aleks says.

A Structured Production Process

The UGC Agency implements a methodical yet adaptable content-creation process that starts with comprehensive research. 

“To describe the process normally, it starts with the discoverability call, understanding the client’s needs, what product or service they are promoting, and then understanding their demographic,” Aleks explains.

Their strategy development relies on data and analysis. 

“The team and I build a strategy that kind of shows first the creatives that we’re going to explore, why those creatives work, what the main target audience that we’re trying to reach with those creatives is, and which platforms would be right for that creative,” Aleks details.

Creator selection follows specific criteria. 

“First in that deck, what we do is identify different archetypes of creators,” says Aleks. “So there would be different archetypes that are going to be tapping into the different audiences, and we provide a creator list based on those archetypes for the client to review and sign off on.”

The agency prioritizes genuine connections in creator matching. 

“For example, if we’re promoting Bumble and we’re promoting a success story for their brand, we’re going to look at couples that have met on the dating app, ideally, and they can create content that jumps out and feels authentic,” Aleks explains. “If we’re promoting a trading company, we’re going to work with creators who are traders and who understand the space and can speak to the audience most authentically.”

Content production maintains a balance between creativity and strategic objectives. 

“We like to give the creators some freedom to produce the content, but we will sign off on main talking points and things to be incorporated in the content of the creators that the client has chosen,” Aleks notes.

Quality assurance integrates into each phase. 

“The client normally has two rounds of approval reviewing the content like seeing if they like it, seeing what comments they have and us actioning those comments and ensuring that the content is ready to be delivered,” Aleks explains.

UGC For the Win

According to Aleks, the creator economy shows significant changes ahead. 

“I think we’re seeing that follower count doesn’t matter anymore,” he observes. “I think we’re seeing a lot more about content that is high quality, fun, engaging, and native to which platform performs the best.”

Brands increasingly seek alternatives to celebrity partnerships: “We’ve seen many brands get into huge trouble using creators with a sketchy history. I think using UGC and smaller creators is what brands should focus on.”

As The UGC Agency expands, Aleks maintains a clear vision: “Where I see the agency going in the next few years is just continuing to partner with leading brands in the tech space and helping them develop their UGC strategy and scale that across multiple markets while also layering it across influencers and combining things to execute a 360-degree strategy.”