# 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.

By Rohin Aggarwal · 2026-03-13

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.

**Quick answer**

- UGC tends to outperform polished studio creative in email: it reads as real, so it gets trusted.
- It earns a place across the lifecycle: welcome, browse and cart abandonment, post-purchase, win-back.
- The job in email is the same as on-site: replace a brand claim with customer evidence.
- Use cleared content, keep it relevant to the email’s product, and keep the images light.

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](/blog/ugc-conversion-rate-boost): 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](/blog/reducing-cart-abandonment-with-social-proof): UGC of the exact product the shopper looked at, answering the doubt that stalled them.
- [Post-purchase](/blog/post-purchase-and-thank-you-page-ugc): 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 |

_Which UGC to drop into which flow._

## Doing it well

1. Use only cleared content: your licence must cover marketing use, not just on-site.
2. Keep it relevant: the UGC should show the product the email is actually about.
3. Keep images light: heavy email images hurt deliverability and load.
4. Link 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](/blog/ugc-rights-and-permissions-guide) sets out.

**The email rule:** In email, as on-site, replace the brand claim with customer evidence. The flows you already run will quietly do more.

> **How Idukki helps:** Idukki gives you a cleared, tagged library of customer photos and videos, so it is easy to pull the right rights-safe piece into a Klaviyo flow instead of reaching for another studio banner.

### Sources & notes
- [Klaviyo, lifecycle flow benchmarks](https://www.klaviyo.com/marketing-resources) — Flow structure and creative performance.
- [Bazaarvoice, UGC in marketing channels](https://www.bazaarvoice.com/resources/) — UGC creative versus studio creative.
- [Nosto, Consumer UGC research](https://www.nosto.com/) — Shopper trust and purchase influence of UGC.

- **+18%** — Median PDP CVR lift (Idukki dataset, 2,400+ brands)
- **+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)

_UGC conversion benchmarks (cross-vertical)._

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Canonical: https://idukki.io/blog/ugc-in-email-and-klaviyo-flows
Tags: ugc, email, klaviyo, lifecycle