What a text overlay is
A text overlay is any text placed on top of video footage: a headline in the opening frames, captions that transcribe what the creator says, labels that name a product feature, or a closing offer. In UGC ads it does two jobs, carrying the message for people watching on mute and reinforcing the hook so the viewer knows why to keep watching.
Captions and overlays overlap but are not the same thing. Captions follow speech word for word; an overlay is written copy that can say something the creator never said aloud. A video hook often works best as both: spoken in the first second and repeated as a short line of on-screen text.
How brands handle overlays in UGC
Decide who adds the text before the shoot. Native in-app text from the creator looks organic and suits TikTok Spark Ads, where the post stays on the creator's profile. Text added by your editor gives you control and lets you swap lines between test variants without asking the creator to film again.
For testing, ask for a clean file with no burned-in text alongside the posted version. That clean master is what lets a media team run the same footage with three different opening lines and read the result, which is a common way UGC ad accounts find their best hook.
A worked example
A meal kit brand gets a 30 second unboxing from a creator. The editor builds three versions from the clean file: one opens with the overlay 'Dinner in 15 minutes', one with 'Cheaper than takeout?', and one with no opening text at all. Captions run under the speech on all three.
Everything else stays identical, so any gap in early drop-off between the three comes down to the line on screen. The winning line goes back into the next creator brief as the angle to open with. For more structures built around on-screen copy, browse these UGC ad examples.
Common mistakes
Too much text is the usual failure. An overlay that needs two read-throughs competes with the creator instead of supporting them. Keep each line short enough to read in the time it stays on screen, and leave the detail to the voice.
Placement causes the rest. Text near the top or bottom edge can disappear behind the handle, the caption or the call-to-action button, so keep it inside the safe area described under vertical video. Check auto-generated captions too: a misheard product name in a caption is a cheap way to lose trust.
How it's used
Please send the clean export with no text. We'll add the overlays in edit so we can test three opening lines.
The overlay says 'clinically proven' and legal hasn't signed that off. Swap it for 'my skin after two weeks'.