Winning UGC ad scan by Refs — guide skill for ads & UGC
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Paste a product link: Refs finds its competitors' winning UGC ads and what wins in the category.
- Type: Guide · Ads & UGC
- Slug:
refs-ugc-scan - Status: live
- Publisher: Refs (vendor)
- License: Refs: proprietary hosted service (free search, Pro for the rest)
- Source: https://refs.video/connect
- Works in: Claude.ai, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Any MCP client
- Requires: Refs Pro (3 scans a month), Refs MCP (ugc_scan, get_ugc_scan)
- Cost: search_videos is free with no key or account (about 30 searches an hour without one). Everything else needs Refs Pro, $16 a month or $120 a year, with 3,000 credits a month: get_blueprint 5, get_frames 5, get_formula 5, plan_video 10, check_render 2, the rest 0. Library ($6 a month) opens every film on the site. varg credits are only spent on what you generate on varg.
What it does
ugc_scan is a two-step Refs MCP tool (Pro, 3 scans a month). Step 1: paste the product's page; Refs reads it and suggests competitors. Step 2: confirm or edit the list, and Refs finds their winning UGC ads. get_ugc_scan returns the scan's progress, then the board: competitors' winning UGC ads by signal and what wins in your category, and with film it returns one ad's blueprint, ready for plan_video. Meta ads link to Meta's Ad Library. Make the new ad with varg's UGC skills (AI creators, product shots, captions).
Use when
- Before making AI UGC ads: what already wins against you
- A creative brief built on the category's winning hooks and formats
- Turning a competitor's winning ad structure into your own original ad
Not for
- Copying a competitor's ad: transfer the structure into your own footage and script
- Products without a public page
Install
- Claude Code:
claude mcp add --transport http refs https://refs.video/mcp - Claude.ai:
Customize → Connectors → Add custom connector → https://refs.video/mcp - Codex:
codex mcp add refs --url https://refs.video/mcp - Any MCP client:
https://refs.video/mcp - Any agent, with the vargai CLI:
vargai install refs-ugc-scan
Example output
https://s3.varg.ai/files/4325c578-378d-4c43-ae53-3cc3218df1ea/file_d4e326ddfc50.mp4 — 5.5 s cut from Refs' film: the archive wall of measured films (Refs' film shows the archive; the scan board is private to each user). (credit: Refs, the Refs film (refs.video/film.mp4), https://refs.video)
More ads & UGC skills
- Ecommerce video ad skills for Claude Code and AI agents: Product videos that sell on TikTok, TikTok Shop, Reels and Meta: angle, hook, format, script, rules, variants.
- Turn a product into scroll-stopping video hooks: The first 3 seconds of a product video: frame, line and text that agree, from a 70-line hook bank.
- Open-source alternative to Arcads: AI UGC ads: AI UGC ads with an AI actor holding your real product: face, voice and label locked, labelled.
- Turn one winning ad into a creative testing plan: How many ads to test, what to change, when to judge, kill or scale — concepts Meta sees as different.
- Turn a product into a dropshipping guide reel: The faceless "comment GUIDE" reel: product hook, a marker pointing at cost and price on a laptop, a skyline ending.
- Turn product photos into a viral product hook: Find a hook that already sells, then remake it with your product as phone or security-cam footage on Seedance 2.5.