User-generated content (UGC) marketing campaigns connect with consumers in an authentic, relatable way. Encouraging genuine customer content creation and even employee-generated content helps brands collect the materials they need to cost-effectively influence purchasing decisions.
By prioritizing authentic content made by real people in addition to branded content made by influencers, this marketing tactic promotes brand trust and can lead to more sales than traditional ads. Emplifi’s 2026 Q1 Social Media Benchmarks report found that UGC led to a 6.73% higher conversion rate than non-UGC content.
Read on to take a deeper look at what user-generated content campaigns are and how you can deploy them. Learn about best practices and real-world examples to develop your own effective UGC campaigns.
What is a UGC campaign?
A UGC campaign is a digital marketing initiative where brands share user-generated content to promote their products or services. Creators produce content describing how a product has improved their lives or why a product is a good fit for people like them. Brands then repurpose that content to advertise products on social media. UGC campaigns can be organic or paid. You can use UGC for several marketing purposes, whether it’s to build trust, add authenticity to your brand, or boost engagement.
For example, Book Box cofounders Kate Blazeska and Carl Matheson describe how their collaboration with a micro-influencer on TikTok produced results that were substantial enough to redistribute the UGC ad as a paid Meta ad. “We worked with a micro-influencer called Jordan, and it was incredible,” Kate says to Shopify. “We would get the Shopify notifications nonstop, and we were blown away.”
After seeing the views the video was gaining, Carl knew it was a good idea to repurpose the ad. “If it’s performing well organically, it will always perform well on paid advertisement because you are promoting it to the right audience,” he says. “We always knew that user-generated content was a strong ad format. So we saw this as an opportunity to utilize it as a good form of UGC.”
Examples of effective UGC campaigns
When you see UGC in action, you can get a clearer perspective of how you might develop your own. Look to these successful user-generated content examples to inspire your own campaigns.
Kopari
In this Instagram video posted by beauty brand Kopari, creator Daniela Casto walks viewers through her process of using the brand’s Sunglaze Sheer body mist and Sun Veil sunscreen to get the perfect shimmer for her nights out.
Despite being shared by Kopari, the video does not appear to be sponsored content. Including a user’s real experience using Kopari products helps engage the brand’s audience with likes and comments—important key performance indicators (KPIs) they can use as benchmarks to gauge the success of the next piece of engaging content.
Heaven Mayhem
Heaven Mayhem sells accessories like earrings, phone cases, and jewelry. In this video, TikTok creator Yhasmina Ferrara recommends two laptop covers from Heaven Mayhem to her audience, explaining what she likes about them and why they make good gift ideas. She describes the textures and the prints, and explains that the reason Heaven Mayhem produces covers only for the top of laptops is that covering the bottom runs the risk of overheating.
Organic UGC like this serves to promote a brand without requiring additional ad spend.
Book Box
In this video, a creator called Jordan does an unboxing of one of Book Box’s book boxes. Before opening the box, Jordan is already filled with excitement and explains how Book Box’s service works. As he presents each of the items included in the box, he points out what he likes about them and why they’re helpful.
According to Book Box’s founders, the video got more than 100,000 views overnight. “It was a huge moment for us, honestly,” Kate says. This swarm of attention was precisely what led to Book Box’s decision to run the video as a paid Meta ad campaign.
Best practices for UGC campaigns
- Repurpose high-performing content on your site and social media
- Capitalize on virality
- Use in-store displays to encourage UGC
- Prioritize authenticity
- Prepare for changing trends
Here are some best practices to use in your own UGC campaigns.
Repurpose high-performing content on your site and social media
Take advantage of helpful, positive content that’s already attracting views. Get permission from content creators to add their video reviews to your testimonial page and post photos on your product pages. Resharing this content allows ecommerce brands to translate their social brand identity to their website in just a few clicks.
You can boost that content on social channels too. For example, when Book Box’s collaboration with Jordan took off, it built on that momentum. “We knew we could put a bit of funds back into it and then get success out of it that way as well,” Kate says, describing Book Box’s decision to redistribute the popular TikTok video as a Meta ad.
Take your best-performing organic UGC campaigns and run each piece of content as a targeted ad. You’ve already got social proof that the content drives engagement with your brand, so putting some money behind it can drive that content to more people in your target audience.
Capitalize on virality
After TikTok creator Becca Bloom went viral for purchasing a new laptop that was just the right size for a Heaven Mayhem laptop case, the brand responded by sending her custom-fitted cases for her original laptop size and expanding their catalog to offer that size to others. As a way to promote the new size availability, Heaven Mayhem collaborated on a giveaway to award one of Becca’s followers five different laptop cases.
On an episode of Shopify Masters, founder and creative director Pia Mance shares Heaven Mayhem’s experience working with Becca and how the laptop cases have remained a popular item since. “We jumped on it and did a giveaway,” Pia says. “It just blew them up, and we honestly still can’t keep them in stock.”
If someone goes viral talking about your product, be ready to meet that moment and let your audience know you’re paying attention. Identify what can be solved and find a solution that will keep that attention going.
Use in-store displays to encourage UGC
Toral Patel, Kopari’s VP of marketing, shares how a photoshoot with creator Ella Halikas snowballed into a collaborative social media contest that boosted in-store traffic as well. “We did a photo shoot with Ella last year and ended up using one of her images as an in-store display,” Toral says on Shopify Masters. “She was so excited about it that she had a contest where people were going into the store and capturing that display and tagging her and tagging Kopari.”
Toral expressed that an important part of Kopari’s marketing strategy is considering how materials can be used beyond their initial purpose. “When we’re thinking about a shoot, we’re not just thinking about it in a silo,” she says. “I think it’s really important that we are thinking about it across channels.”
When running your UGC campaigns, think of ways you can stretch collaborations further. Consider the places your UGC can drive viewer attention and participation beyond your social media posts, product pages, or own website.
Prioritize authenticity
While partnering with well-known creators can help you gain visibility, it’s also important that your collaborators have a genuine appreciation for your brand. Rosie Johnston, founder of fragrance brand By Rosie Jane, points this out on an episode of Shopify Masters. “UGC seems like an easy model, but if there’s no substance behind it, the average consumer is smart, and they know,” she says. This is why By Rosie Jane exclusively partners with creators who have organically expressed an appreciation for the brand.
Prepare for changing trends
What is trending now might not be the same months, weeks, or even days from today. “I can’t tell you what works for UGC today that will be applicable in a month,” Unbound Merino CEO Dan Demsky says on Shopify Masters. “It’s constantly changing and shifting, and you have to be on top of it.” You have to be prepared to tweak your UGC strategy to adapt to what viewers want.
Set aside time to regularly conduct market research and lean on tools like Google Analytics and Google Trends to keep tabs on which topics, questions, and products are rising in popularity.
UGC campaigns FAQ
What is an example of a UGC campaign?
One example of a UGC campaign is an unboxing video. In an unboxing video from Book Box, a micro-influencer unboxes a package and gives live reactions to the contents. Unboxing videos use their subject’s authentic excitement and brand loyalty to inspire interest from potential customers.
How much does a UGC campaign cost?
UGC campaign costs vary depending on how you source the user content and what marketing channels you post on. For example, getting permission to take content created by a customer and sharing it on your own social media channels may cost nothing at all. But if your social media strategy requires you to hire UGC creators to create content and reach your target audience, you’ll incur costs for the production, as well as the distribution of the ads. This is known as influencer marketing.
What is a UGC platform?
YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram are common platforms for visual UGC content, while X, Facebook, and Pinterest are more commonly used for written forms of UGC. Depending on your approach and focus, you can use each of these social media platforms to source and promote UGC advertising campaigns.
