User-generated content: what counts, what needs permission, and where it sells
Photos, videos and words from real customers, made without a brief. It's persuasive because it's unpolished, and it's yours to use only once someone says yes.
- 144User-Generated Content (UGC)
- Content created by customers, such as reviews or testimonials, which can be included in emails to build trust.
- Includes
- Customer photos and videos, reviews, social posts that tag you
- Not the same as
- Paid creator content, which is advertising
- Needs
- A clear yes from the customer for every place you'll use it
- Earns its place
- Product pages, abandoned cart emails, the welcome series
Paid creator videos aren't UGC, whatever the invoice calls them
Agencies now sell creator UGC: somebody paid to film themselves using your product, styled to look like a customer. It can be good advertising. It isn't user-generated content. Somebody was paid, so it's an ad.
In the UK that has consequences. The CMA's guidance on social media endorsements says content made in return for payment, a gift or any other incentive has to be clearly labelled as an ad, and everyone involved shares the responsibility for that. Reward customers for posting, and their posts count too.
Where a customer's photo beats your studio shot
Studio photography shows the product at its best. A customer's photo shows it in a normal kitchen, on a normal dog, in bad light. When the doubt is will it look like that at mine, the customer wins.
- Product pages, beside the reviews, for the will-it-suit-me question
- Abandoned cart emails, for the is-it-really-like-that question
- The welcome series, for the do-people-like-me-buy-this question
- Post purchase emails, for the what-do-I-do-with-it-now question
Getting more customer photos, with permission attached
Ask when the product's in use, not when the parcel lands. An email in your post purchase flow, a little after delivery, asking for a photo of it where it lives, will get you more than a hashtag. Be specific: on your desk, in your kitchen, on your walk.
A tag isn't permission. Ask directly, say where the photo will appear, and keep the reply with the picture. The UGC email covers the permissions routine in full. Then crop it to fit and leave the rest alone. Polish it and it stops looking like a customer's.
Related terms
FAQs
Is UGC the same as influencer content?
No. UGC is made by customers who weren't paid or briefed. Influencer and creator content is made for you, in return for money or free product, and it's advertising, so it needs labelling as an ad. Both can work. Only one of them is evidence that ordinary customers like what you sell.
Can I use a customer's Instagram photo on my website?
Not just because they tagged you. Ask them directly, say where it'll be used, and get a yes you can find again in a year's time. If somebody else is in the photo, they need to agree too. Plenty of customers are pleased to be asked, and the ones who say no have saved you a complaint.
How do I use customer photos in emails?
Keep them looking like a customer took them. One or two real photos at a decent size, with the customer's own words underneath, do more than a tidy grid of twelve. Put them where the reader is deciding: the abandoned cart sequence and the welcome series.
Rather we explained it on your own account?
Bring your Klaviyo account to a growth consultation. We'll walk through what this means for your numbers, in plain English, and what we'd fix first.
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