SKIL

SKIL, a well-established brand in the premium power tools space, was seeing diminishing returns from its paid social activity. The issue wasn’t spend — it was relevance. Overly polished, TV-style creatives had started to underperform across Meta placements, leading to a rise in both cost per click (CPC) and cost per acquisition (CPA). At the same time, increasing production costs meant that refreshing the creative suite wasn’t just a performance imperative — it was becoming commercially urgent.

To counter this, SKIL needed a new direction for its ad creative, one that could reduce costs, maintain brand integrity, and drive better performance through increased engagement. The brand was open to innovation and keen to explore how content trends on platforms like TikTok could inform a more natural, authentic paid strategy.

We began with a clear aim: to reframe the creative direction of SKIL’s paid social by leveraging user-generated content (UGC).

We began by identifying UGC-style assets that had already seen success on TikTok, then worked with SKIL to repurpose these for Meta platforms — particularly Stories and Reels, where natural and less polished content tends to outperform. The idea was to introduce a more relatable visual style without sacrificing product focus.

Crucially, the project was set up as a phased test. This gave us the space to experiment without disrupting BAU campaigns and allowed for close control over budget and performance reporting. From the outset, all stakeholders were actively involved, with bi-weekly and monthly performance reviews creating a shared sense of ownership and pace.

The initial deployment focused on testing repurposed UGC-style content in Meta Stories and Reels, with just 10% of the campaign budget allocated to the test group. The objective at this stage was not just performance — it was insight. We were testing creative assumptions, learning what resonated, and gathering real-time data on how these assets compared to SKIL’s usual polished content.

What we saw was immediate uplift.

The test ads outperformed their polished counterparts, especially in engagement and click-through metrics. This early success gave us the confidence to extend the test into Meta’s in-feed placements — a move that allowed the UGC approach to be assessed across the full social funnel. As performance continued to exceed expectations, we progressively reallocated budget, ultimately moving 60% of ad spend to the test variants.

Behind the scenes, we maintained tight feedback loops between Door4 and SKIL stakeholders. Performance updates weren’t just numbers, they were the basis for decision-making on creative production, media buying, and broader brand strategy. That level of collaboration was critical to the speed and scale of the shift.

The test was designed to measure performance on two primary fronts: efficiency and impact.

• Efficiency was measured through cost metrics — primarily CPA and CPC. These were the headline numbers SKIL needed to improve.

• Impact referred to how well the new assets resonated with users: scroll-stopping power, relevance, and the ability to drive action.

The campaign delivered results almost immediately. Within the first month:

• CPC dropped by 73%

• CPA fell by 85%

• Total paid social costs were reduced by 50%

Beyond the immediate numbers, the test helped SKIL re-evaluate what “high-performing creative” looked like. The success of the UGC approach shifted internal expectations and paved the way for a wider adoption of this creative style in future campaigns.

This wasn’t just a one-off performance spike — it was a strategic pivot point.

By challenging creative assumptions and introducing a structured, insight-led testing process, Door4 helped SKIL unlock a new direction for its paid social advertising.

The UGC-driven strategy proved that performance doesn’t require polish; it requires relevance. And when relevance is paired with real-time data and agile budget management, the results can be transformative.

This campaign validated the value of iterative testing, cross-team collaboration, and strategic responsiveness. SKIL’s success has since informed its broader 2025 paid social strategy, with UGC now playing a central role.

For brands facing similar creative fatigue, this project highlights the commercial upside of testing more authentic content styles and the importance of keeping pace with how audiences engage.