ran paid social for a mid-size dtc skincare brand for 3 years. last spring our CMO greenlit a $42k studio shoot in lisbon. full crew, two-day rental, a director who did a perfume campaign in 2019 and would not stop mentioning it. 6 hero cuts, 14 fifteen-second variants. she presented it in QBR like the strategic pillar of Q3. i ran the studio cuts and 9 ugc clips through the same meta account, same audiences, daily budget split 50/50 for 17 days. studio: $38.40 CPA, 1.42 ROAS, hook rate 11%. ugc: $14.90 CPA, 3.10 ROAS, hook rate 27%. one ugc clip, shot by a 23 year old in her kitchen in valencia, did $61k in attributed revenue on its own in 11 days. the studio's best cut did $9.2k and cratered into ad fatigue by day 9. total ugc spend for those 9 clips was $2,180. the catering invoice from the lisbon shoot was $2,640. i pulled both receipts side by side and stared at them for a long time. i brought the numbers to the CMO.…