From Chaos to Creative Machine: The UGC System That Shoots 150 Ads in a Day
The UGC system that shoots 150 ads in a single day.
Hiring more editors won't fix your creative velocity problem
Struggling to scale creative output despite a bigger team? Discover why hiring more editors slows you down—and how AI video review tools can eliminate bottlenecks and boost ad performance.
You didn't get into performance marketing to spend your days double checking subtitles and music choices.
I'm Charles, a creative strategist with 5 years of experience in performance marketing across Simmer Eats, MVF, and the D2C space. I've managed over £3m in ad spend and given feedback on thousands of ads. Understanding the core metrics that drive profitable app growth is crucial, but without quality creative, even perfect metrics won't help you scale.
Today I created an AI ad edit feedback tool - admanage.ai/feedback because I was tired of being a quality control gatekeeper instead of a creative strategist. It all started with a simple realisation: I hated giving feedback. After reviewing 47 ads in a single day, I was leaving the same comments over and over.
- Text bleeding into the safe zones.
- Music that didn't match the actor's tone.
- Wrong fonts for subtitles.
- B-roll missing where it should've been.
- Over-edited UGC that felt more like a short film.
I used to love the creative process, but that joy was replaced by the dread of opening Frame.io and seeing a fresh batch of videos waiting for my review. I wasn’t a strategist anymore; I was a human approval queue.
I was living the false dream of scaling.
The False Dream of Scaling
When I hired my first two editors, I thought we'd finally be pumping out ads without friction. I pictured a world where my briefs would magically turn into a steady stream of high-performing ads. I'd be free to focus on what I did best: finding winning angles, briefing new concepts, and iterating on our creative strategy.
Instead, I found myself doing endless revisions. It was almost as slow as editing them myself. The velocity I'd imagined never materialised. I was spending half my day checking for the same basic changes and the other half trying to catch up on the work I was actually supposed to be doing.
My scaling solution had created an even bigger problem.
👀 Similar Challenge: Just like how negative comments can sabotage your Facebook ads despite having great creative, production bottlenecks can kill your ad performance even with the best strategy.
The Real Pain: You Became the Bottleneck
I brought on editors to free me up for high-leverage work… strategy, iteration, and briefs. But I was still stuck giving feedback on font choices and b-roll cuts. Nothing moved without me. I was the bottleneck.
Every morning, I'd wake up excited to write scripts and brief new concepts. But by 10 AM, I was buried in Frame.io with unlimited comments to leave. No deep work. No creative time. Just reviewing edits.
I was the single point of failure. When feedback lives in your head, and not in systems or tools - your entire team is blocked unless you review. You don’t have a team. You have a queue.
The emotional weight of this was draining. My team was waiting on me, but I was struggling to keep up with the volume. The more we scaled our ad production, the more I became trapped. It felt like I was constantly running on a treadmill, and every time I thought I was getting ahead, another batch of videos would land in my inbox.
Systems That Helped - But Weren’t Enough
I knew I couldn’t continue this way, so I started building systems.
First, I used Notion for timestamped feedback, which was a step up from a shared Google Doc. Then, I moved to Frame.io, which felt like discovering fire. The ability to leave precise, timestamped comments directly on the video was a game-changer. I also built format-specific edit guidelines for UGC, podcast-style ads, and founder-led videos. I trained my editors over three months, a process that was slow and draining but necessary.
I thought I had solved it. I thought these systems would finally automate the basics and free me up.
But despite all that, I still found myself giving the same feedback. Over and over. On things that should have been automatic.
“The subtitles are too close to the edge.”
“This font is not our brand font.”
“The music is too upbeat for this section.”
I was still a bottleneck, just a more organised one.
What Makes Good Feedback (And Where the System Fails)
Before we talk about automation, let's talk about what makes good feedback. Because some feedback is worth your time.
Good feedback is:
- Timestamped: Pinpoint the exact moment you're talking about.
- Specific and Concise: Don’t say, "the pacing is off." Say, "Cut 1.5 seconds between the second and third sentence to speed up the pacing."
- Actionable: Tell them what to do. "Find a b-roll clip of someone smiling and place it here" is better than "Needs b-roll."
- Linked to Examples: If you want a specific style of music or a different transition, link an example.
These best practices helped, but they didn’t solve the fundamental problem: I was still the one giving the feedback on the basics. I was still the gatekeeper of the obvious stuff.
What Can and Can’t Be Automated
This is where the real leverage is. I spent years identifying the types of feedback that were repetitive and could be automated. I realized there’s a clear line between what a tool can handle and what requires human intuition.
✅ What can be automated:
- Subtitle Placement & Font: Is the subtitle within the safe zone? Is it the correct font?
- Pacing: AI can analyse the speed and rhythm of the cuts and flag sections that feel too slow or too fast based on your guidelines.
- Visuals Outside the Safe Zone: Are there any important visuals being cut off?
- Music Tone: Does the music match the emotional tone of the video?
- B-roll Matches the Script: Does the b-roll visually represent the key points being made in the script at that moment?
These are the mechanical, rules-based tasks that eat up your time but are critical to a good ad.
❌ What can't be automated (yet):
- Clip Selection Nuance: Why did you choose that specific clip? Generally this requires a human understanding of storytelling.
- Overall Emotional Rhythm & Gut Feel: Does the ad make you feel something? This is the core of creative direction.
The goal isn't to replace the human element; it’s to remove the mundane tasks that prevent you from focusing on it.
The Solution: Free AI Video Review
I realised that to truly scale my team without becoming the bottleneck, I needed a tool to handle the repetitive feedback for me. That's why I built the Free AI Video Review Tool.
It automatically flags the obvious stuff - the details that ruin an ad when missed but consume hours of your time. This isn't about replacing creative direction. It’s about removing bottlenecks so you can finally focus on the strategic, high-leverage work you were hired to do.
If you’ve ever spent two hours checking edits instead of working on the next winning angle, this tool’s for you.
Visit the tool at https://admanage.ai/feedback
🔗 Continue Your Journey
Now that you've solved your creative production bottleneck:
- Optimize Your App Metrics - Learn which 3 metrics actually matter for scaling profitably (hint: it's not the 20+ most marketers track)
- Protect Your Ad Performance - Discover how to automatically block negative comments that can destroy your social proof and tank conversion rates
Both of these strategies work hand-in-hand with efficient creative production to build a sustainable, scalable advertising system.