Using UGC in email and Klaviyo flows
Customer photos and video outperform studio creative in email because they read as real. Put cleared UGC across welcome, abandonment, post-purchase and win-back flows.
The brand's Klaviyo welcome flow ran three emails and zero customer photos. Drop one customer photo into each email and click-through jumped by a margin the email team had stopped expecting. The photo did not need to be perfect. It needed to be real.
In this article
Email is still one of the highest-return channels in ecommerce, and most of it is filled with brand-made creative. Swap some of that for customer content and the same flows tend to do more, because a customer photo reads as real where a studio banner reads as an ad.
Why does UGC lift email performance?
An inbox is a sceptical place. Polished brand creative announces itself as marketing. A real customer photo or video does not. It carries the same credibility it has on the product page, and it makes the email feel like a recommendation rather than a push. The mechanism is the same one that lifts the PDP, documented in how UGC lifts conversion: evidence beats assertion, and the email inherits that effect.
Where does UGC fit across the Klaviyo flows?
- Welcome flow: a wall of happy customers as first-impression proof the brand is trusted.
- Browse and cart abandonment: UGC of the exact product the shopper looked at, answering the doubt that stalled them.
- Post-purchase: customer content that reassures the new buyer and prompts them to create their own.
- Win-back: real customer results as a reason for a lapsed customer to look again.
| Flow | UGC to use | Job it does |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome | A grid of varied customer photos | First-impression proof the brand is real and used |
| Browse / cart abandonment | UGC of the exact product viewed | Answers the doubt that stalled the purchase |
| Post-purchase | How-they-use-it clips, a prompt to post | Reassures the new buyer; seeds fresh UGC |
| Win-back | Recent results from real customers | A concrete reason to look again |
Doing it well
- 1Use only cleared content: your licence must cover marketing use, not just on-site.
- 2Keep it relevant: the UGC should show the product the email is actually about.
- 3Keep images light: heavy email images hurt deliverability and load.
- 4Link it back: the customer content should lead to the product page, which carries more of the same.
The licence point is the one that trips brands up: content cleared for your website is not automatically cleared for email or ads, so scope rights per use the way the UGC rights and permissions guide sets out.
Sources & notes
- 1Klaviyo, lifecycle flow benchmarks · Flow structure and creative performance.
- 2Bazaarvoice, UGC in marketing channels · UGC creative versus studio creative.
- 3Nosto, Consumer UGC research · Shopper trust and purchase influence of UGC.
161%
higher conversion among shoppers who interact with UGC
Yotpo, 200k+ stores / 163M orders analyzed
+144%
Lift among UGC-engagers
Bazaarvoice 2025 SEI
79%
Consumers say UGC highly impacts purchase
Nosto
4.1x
video reviews convert vs text-only
PowerReviews, 2023 baseline
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