From food and beverage and apparel to health and beauty and hardware to everything in between, ratings and reviews play a crucial role in the customer journey. 

But just how crucial, exactly? And how can businesses extract the most value from them? Let’s find out.

Chapters:

1. The business benefits of ratings and reviews
2. How to make customer ratings and reviews work harder for you
3. Don’t underestimate how important ratings and reviews are for your business

The business benefits of ratings and reviews

At Bazaarvoice, ratings and reviews are the center of our business. With a network of over 12,500 brand and retailer sites to support, we undertake a lot of research to understand the value of reviews for businesses and their customers. 

Here are some of our takeaways that prove the power of ratings and reviews, based on some of our latest research.

Ratings and reviews impact everything from sales to SEO

Shoppers are leaving more reviews now than ever. Across our network in 2021, the number of reviews submitted increased nearly 11% year-over-year. Our 2023 Shopper Experience Index found that when shoppers engaged with reviews, there was a 144% lift in conversion rate.

Not only are shoppers converting more readily on pages with reviews, but they’re also spending more money. The lift in revenue per visitor among shoppers engaging with reviews was 162% in 2023, and the average order value was 13% higher. 

Ratings and reviews creates a great avenue for us to get current content on our site and bring attention to our product. That helps us to rank higher in search results and get found better

UX analyst, CPG

Increasing your sales and profits isn’t the only thing that reviews can improve in your business. Brands and retailers we’ve talked to say that reviews have an impact far beyond the product page. According to those we surveyed for our Shopper Experience Index, over half (52%) said they help increase brand loyalty, 53% cited a positive impact on in-store sales, and 63% said that they improve search engine optimization (SEO).

Global brand Petco, for example, launched a sampling campaign to collect more reviews and improve SEO metrics. The campaign led to a 405% increase in review volume, which meant a:

• 67% increase in number of pages ranked organically
• 140% increase in impressions from organic search
• 80% increase in clicks from organic search
• 48% increase in revenue per visit for sampled products

Ratings and reviews help shoppers make confident purchases

According to our 2023 Shopper Experience Index, two-thirds of consumers (78%) claim that reviews impact their purchase decisions. Our 2022 report also revealed that ratings and reviews are the number one online feature shoppers rely on when making informed product decisions faster, more so than product page descriptions, chatbots, and the website’s search tool.

But consumers aren’t just using them online. According to research commissioned by Bazaarvoice from Deloitte and Touche LLP, a vast majority (82%) of shoppers research products online before going in-store, and over a third read a product’s reviews on their mobile phones while looking at the same product in-store.  

Our research found that shoppers often turn to ratings and reviews when they’re in the final stages of their decision making process to help them choose your product. 70% of shoppers often or always look at available reviews, and in the first 20 seconds of landing on a product page, high-quality reviews are the most likely type of user-generated content  to convince a consumer to buy a product (21%) — followed by average star ratings (19%) and the number of reviews a product has (13%).

We also found that half of shoppers have been influenced by reviews to buy a more expensive product than planned.

You may be surprised to learn that it isn’t just positive reviews that consumers find helpful. Over half (60%) say negative reviews are just as important in their decision to buy. The majority (62%) say it’s because they contain more pros and cons than positive reviews. Shoppers who usually don’t read reviews say they would like to see more reviews from people like them and more customer photos.

Having reviews displayed on your site is a great first step to winning over your customers, but don’t forget step two — responding to reviews. About a third of shoppers expect businesses to publicly respond to their reviews, regardless of whether their review is positive or negative. Almost half (48%) say brands responding to reviews improves their odds of buying the product. 

Reviews improve your brand’s authenticity

Brand trust is one of the most valuable assets a business can have in today’s retail landscape. According to our recent survey of 10,000 global shoppers, 97% of respondents say fake reviews make them lose trust in a brand. One way to build trust is by handing over the mic to their fellow peers to help advocate for your brand. Over three-quarters of shoppers trust reviews, even more than family and friend recommendations.

It’s not as simple as just displaying reviews, you have to ensure that they’re authentic. If shoppers suspect a product to have fake reviews:

• 56% wouldn’t buy the product 
• 25% wouldn’t buy from the website 
• 81% avoid using the brand again 
• 48% leave a negative review 
• 16% post [negatively] about the brand on social media

The number one factor that makes consumers suspicious that a product has fake reviews is seeing multiple reviews with similar wording (56%). That is followed by review content not matching the product (53%), bad grammar/misspellings (36%), and an overwhelming amount of positive/five-star reviews (36%).

As consumers have become more skeptical of marketing and advertising practices as a whole, they’re constantly evaluating product reviews to look for red flags.

Reviews contain insights about products, processes, and purchasers

Ratings and reviews are an invaluable source of customer feedback. Consumer reviews can help surface issues with products, shed light on new use cases, and inform product innovations. Shoppers want to see businesses use their reviews, both positive (25%) and negative (38%), to make product improvements.

We have countless stories from our clients about ways they have improved their products and processes based on the feedback they’ve received from customer reviews. In fact, 72% of our clients use UGC to improve customer service, 66% use UGC to improve products, and 50% use UGC to improve marketing tactics and messaging.

How to make customer ratings and reviews work harder for you 

While impressive, these results won’t manifest out of thin air. The real magic happens when you set in motion a process to collect, distribute, and manage reviews, designed to squeeze the most value out of these pieces of UGC.

Set up a review collection strategy

In order to reap the benefits, you need to plant the seeds — in other words, you need an ongoing strategy that makes it easy for and encourages customers to share feedback about your products. 

You can request ratings and reviews from your customers through a myriad of channels. If you have a physical store, you can go the face-to-face route and have attendants ask shoppers for feedback after they complete a purchase. The attendant can jot down the answers or direct the customer toward a QR code for an even smoother experience. 

Online options are also aplenty. Review request emails are a common practice (Jeanswest saw a 186% lift in review volume using this strategy, for example), but social media channels, push notifications, and SMS texts are also viable approaches.

When requesting reviews through any of these channels, timing is key. Reach out soon after customers interact with your products, when the experience is fresh on their minds, and they can provide more detailed and genuine feedback. And how you ask is just as important as when you ask — use clear and concise messaging, and avoid overwhelming customers with too many requests or specific instructions. 

Provide incentives in exchange for ratings and reviews

Customers might need a little extra push to share their feedback about your products. This is where incentivized reviews come in: you give customers a reward, like a coupon or entry into a giveaway, and in exchange, they write an honest review about a product they bought from your company. 

Incentives can be small, like discount codes, or slightly more elaborate, like product sampling campaigns (offering samples of your product in exchange for reviews.) McPherson’s Consumer Products, for example, found that 20% of new reviews on its brands’ products come from sampling efforts. According to Sharon Bottaro, the company’s Head of Digital, these reviews, “are providing confidence for people to complete their path to purchase.”

To uphold your integrity and safeguard consumer trust, be transparent about your incentive program. Clearly state that the incentive is for leaving a review, regardless of whether it’s positive or negative, and never pay customers to leave reviews.

Encourage customers to add visual UGC 

It’s a visual-driven world out there, especially in the e-commerce industry. Images and videos from customers give shoppers a better sense of what the products look like in action, and, most importantly, in the real world, without the influence of heavy editing. It adds another layer of confidence to purchasing decisions, which explains why 29% of shoppers look for customer reviews with photos or videos.

Fresh, a cosmetics company known for its natural ingredients-based products, tapped into the power of visual UGC in customer reviews. The brand implemented Bazaarvoice’s Photo-First Reviews Display to put customer images and videos front and center of product pages. Overall, Fresh saw a $1.48 million impact from user-generated content.

When requesting reviews from customers, whether through an email or a sampling campaign, make sure you ask for visuals — people might even prefer filming a short video over writing a lengthy review! Don’t make it a non-negotiable (a written review with no visuals is better than no review), but let customers know images and videos are appreciated options.

Reply to both positive and negative reviews

Customers expect brands to engage with them when they take the time to leave a review, especially if it’s negative. As Anna Kim, Senior Advocate Programs Manager at Webroot, explains, “It’s our responsibility (…) to be responsive to shoppers’ questions and reviews. Someone who is vetting us against another brand sees that we interact with our customers, and that’s a big competitive advantage.”

Webroot practices what it preaches — the cybersecurity software company replied to 70% of its 38,000 customer reviews on retail sites.

When responding to positive reviews, gratitude is the name of the game. Thank the customer for sharing their opinion, and express happiness that they enjoyed the product. Reference specific points mentioned in the review to make your response more personal and show that you value their input.

Negative reviews are a different beast, but they don’t have to be a scary one. As we explained before, having some negative reviews contributes to authenticity, and they can be a good way to unveil problems you weren’t aware of. What you shouldn’t do is ignore them; instead, act quickly, acknowledge the customer’s experience, and offer a solution to the issue raised in the review. If the problem is too complex, invite them to continue the conversation through a private channel like email or phone.  

Amplify ratings and reviews with syndication

If your brand works with retail partners to sell its products, syndicating reviews to their websites is a must. There’s no guarantee consumers will find and buy your products on your own website — syndication gets consumer eyes on your product reviews whether they’re browsing Walmart or Target.

This strategy also benefits your retail partners since they get quality, conversion-optimized content on their product pages without having to invest in technology to do so.

Bazaarvoice has a network of 1,750 global retailers, and regularly helps brands syndicate their hard-won customer reviews to as many partners as possible. For Andi-Co, 100% of reviews on retailers’ sites come from Bazaarvoice syndication efforts, leading to 690x more UGC on retailer sites.   

Make ratings and reviews a part of your marketing strategy

Displaying reviews on your website is a no-brainer, but why stop there? Incorporating reviews into your offline and digital marketing can significantly enhance its effectiveness — according to our 2022 Shopper Index, almost half (40%) of consumers say UGC makes them more likely to buy a product from an ad. Beyond product pages, here’s where you might consider displaying this rich UGC:

• Social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Social commerce continues to grow as social becomes the new search — over half (58%) of shoppers say they often discover a product or service through social media, and 42% say social media impacts their purchasing decisions. Adding reviews to your posts both amplifies positive content and gets the conversion machine that is user-generated content in front of an audience that’s primed to discover and buy new products

• In-store displays. If you have a brick-and-mortar presence, display reviews and ratings near relevant products to bridge the gap between online and offline experiences and nudge shoppers toward making a purchase
• Emails. Use positive reviews in your email marketing campaigns. For example, when promoting a product, include a customer testimonial that speaks to its benefits. Tailor your emails based on the products customers have purchased and include reviews from similar products to encourage repeat purchases, cross-sells, and up-sells

Don’t underestimate how important ratings and reviews are for your business

While some might think it’s difficult to quantify the importance of ratings and reviews, the above statistics prove their power.

There’s a variety of ways that they are useful, both for businesses and their customers. And not only are ratings and reviews absolutely necessary to today’s consumers during the purchasing process, companies are missing out on sales, profits, and priceless information without them, as our own research below shows.

Learn more about how important ratings and reviews are here. Or get in touch directly below to see how you can get started with Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews.

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Masterclass: The dos and don’ts of review responses

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Experts predict that shoppers may be cooling expenditure this year. Many expect that there could be a short, but mild, recession, and inflation and rising prices mean consumers’ dollars just don’t stretch as far as they used to.

As a small business owner, you already likely have to take a few extra steps to entice shoppers to spend on your products. And that’s before you even think about the looming recession, trying to compete with the mammoth marketing budgets of enterprise competitors, and the ever-changing social media algorithms that make it harder for your fans to find your posts.

All said, 71% of marketers admit that meeting customer expectations is more challenging now than a year ago, according to Salesforce. But don’t worry, it’s not all bad news. Far from it in fact. There’s still plenty of opportunity to stand out and win over shoppers. It just takes that little extra outside the box thinking.

Small business marketing ideas 

Reaching consumers today means providing unforgettable experiences and the right content on the right channels at the right time. 

Try these marketing ideas to supercharge your small business and watch your brand grow.

1. Leverage user-generated content 

If you’re not already working with user-generated content (UGC), put it at the top of your to-do list for 2023. UGC is any content, like reviews, images, videos, etc, created by individual users and brand fans rather than a business. Collecting this content from your communities and displaying it across social media, product pages, and beyond, inspires shopper purchase decisions right across the consumer journey.

Average order values are also 13% higher when shoppers interact with UGC, and adding in visual UGC, including shopper photos and videos, only enhances these benefits. 

Take Feelunique, Europe’s largest online beauty retailer, for example. The brand saw a 140% increase in conversion rate, a 32% lift in average order value, and a 375% higher time on site, leading to a $10 million sales lift when it started using Bazaarvoice Galleries to feature UGC. 

The best part for any small business marketing manager: UGC is free-to-inexpensive to pull off and delivers a hefty ROI. 

2. Content marketing 

E-commerce content marketing is the creation of promotional content that your business uses to inform, educate, and entertain your audience. It’s cost-effective and brings benefits, like boosting brand awareness, building trust, and increasing conversions, and establishing yourself as a thought leader.  

Content improves search engine optimization (SEO), which makes it easier for customers to find you online. Most consumers use search engines to research products, so ensure your content is SEO-optimized by writing about terms shoppers are searching for. Easy ways to get started with content marketing include:

• Start a blog about your niche
• Create stats-heavy infographics
• Publish case studies and let your customers talk for you
• Host a podcast with guest speakers

This will drive people right to your product pages, improve their time on your website, generate leads, and build brand awareness. All with little-to-no expense.

3. Sell on social media

There’s no doubt that social media inspires shoppers. 90% of shoppers purchase from brands they follow on social media. It’s where they turn to learn about the latest trends and new products. 

So, it’s crucial that you make your social media content shoppable, a practice known as social commerce. By 2025, social commerce is predicted to reach about $80 billion and account for 5% of all U.S. e-commerce, according to McKinsey.

The right social commerce platform lets you turn visual UGC into shoppable experiences.

For example, interior design company Bemz saw a whopping $1.65 million revenue increase after using Bazaarvoice Social Commerce tools — along with a 27% increase in time on site and 290% conversion rate lift.

4. Partner with other brands 

These days, all brands are in the same boat when it comes to wooing shoppers. So, why not partner up with fellow SMBs to offer consumers something extra exciting? Retail partnerships help stretch your marketing budget, while reaching new customers, broadening brand awareness, and increasing sales.  

There’s several ways to establish a partnership. You can co-sponsor events, cross-sell products, give social media shout-outs to other brands, offer discounts to each other’s email subscribers, blog swapping, and co-host webinars.

You can also team up for co-marketing campaigns, like Joybird and Sherwin-Williams did recently. The furniture and paint brands collaborated on a line of matching furniture and paint colors, which they advertised on each other’s websites.

It was win-win — the brands interacted with new shoppers, and consumers got some new unique home-decorating tips. 

5. Testimonial ads

This is hardly a groundbreaking small business marketing idea but it’s one that should definitely be part of your brand strategy it isn’t already.

Ratings and reviews are easy and cost-effective to source. Shoppers are already leaving reviews about your products or services, whether on Google, Yelp, or on social media. All you need to do is take those (hopefully positive) words and share them across your different touchpoints:

• Social channels
• In emails
• On product pages
• In-store

Testimonial advertising can even be as simple as a quick Retweet:

89% of shoppers consult reviews before making a purchase. Make their job easier and inspire purchasing decisions by displaying them everywhere your shoppers are.

6. Make short-form videos 

Video is a, if not the, top e-commerce driver. Think about all those silly TikTok videos and Instagram Reels that rack up millions of views. No reason why you can’t do that, too. 

People watch 19 hours of online video a week on average. They’re 2x more likely to share video content with their friends, and 88% have decided to buy a product or service after viewing a brand’s video.

Videos can be very cheap to produce and feature UGC (i.e., other customers using and reviewing your products), behind-the-scenes footage, tutorials for using products, live streams featuring influencers, or advocacy, like the short video we created for our Primal Kitchen case study below:

Short-form video of 60 seconds or less is consumers’ preference. About 90% of marketers are already using short-form videos and plan to increase their investment in the format, and 20% will use it for the first time in 2023. 

7. Don’t sleep on email marketing 

Sometimes email marketing feels like an ancient relic. But actually, email marketing is a cost-effective revenue driver and customer retention booster. And, the ROI potential is huge — for every $1 spent on email marketing, you’ll see a return of $36. 

Email is a fantastic tool for increasing UGC, which brings its own set of benefits. You can contact your customers directly to ask them to review an item or create a video testimonial. Featuring UGC from other shoppers in your emails heightens engagement. 

L’Oreal for example increased its open rates by 6% when it included reviews in its email subject lines. 

8. Be experiential 

Consumers are ready for new and innovative shopping experiences — 98% of consumers value experience over price. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are some ways to do that. Several major brands, like Sephora and Ikea, have already embraced these technologies. Granted it’s not the easiest (or cheapest) technology to implement but VR glasses and AR apps are becoming increasingly affordable marketing tools, so are becoming more accessible for small businesses. 

Shoppers enjoy using the tools to shop for furniture, clothing, and makeup, and they want AR and VR in physical stores, too. Consumers also are interested in using the technology on social media to unlock rewards, shop live, and try on or test out products virtually. 

Areas of opportunity for small businesses include:

1. Use AR or VR in-store to drive traffic to digital channels
2. Foster emotional brand connections with VR storytelling
3. Incorporate AR experiences into product packaging

9. Employee advocacy

Brands are increasingly using their own employees as influencers — 68% of marketers report having an employee advocacy program on social media. And it makes sense.

As a small business you may not have a trove of employees to turn to. But even if you only have five employees, each with 100 followers on LinkedIn or Instagram, that’s another 500 pairs of eyes on your content and branding, at minimum.

It’s not just about promotion, either. According to LinkedIn research, employee content garners twice as much engagement.

10. Merge your physical and digital shelf 

E-commerce has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years. Nowadays, commerce is everywhere. The lines between the physical and digital shelf have blurred.

Most consumers blend online and in-store shopping experiences. When they want to purchase a product online, they turn to the digital shelf for research. But they’ll still head to a store to purchase the item. Or, compare prices on their phones while shopping in the store. 30% of shoppers want brick-and-mortar stores to feature virtual displays of reviews and customer photos and offer QR codes that they can read them right there while they shop. 

Consumers seek more omnichannel experiences that close the gap between the online and offline worlds. Hosting immersive experiences with AR or VR, pop-up events, or other in-store activities will lure shoppers to your stores and encourage more sales.

11. Lean into in social responsibility 

At a time when 80% of shoppers say they have to trust the brands they buy from, investing in social responsibility will help showcase how trustworthy and authentic you are. 

Of the marketers who have socially responsible content plans, 89% plan to increase or maintain that investment in 2023. Social responsibility and transparency matter to consumers, especially younger demographics. About half of millennial and Gen Z consumers want companies to take a stance on social issues, and those stances influence their purchasing decisions. 

Think about Patagonia, the cause marketing specialists, and the amount of good press they (rightfully) received after the CEO donated the company to fight climate change.

Creating a consistent message across all channels, focusing on being more inclusive in your initiatives and offerings, and highlighting your mission and the causes you support will resonate with shoppers. And, don’t forget about incorporating UGC — it’s considered 3x more trustworthy than traditional branded content. 

12. Look into using native ads

Native advertising is a type of paid digital advertising that mimics and blends in with organic content, like social posts or videos. It’s not an in-your-face ad. Many marketers say native ads are their top ROI generators, and the native ad space is projected to grow by 12.5% this year.

A native ad is typically labeled as “sponsored” or “recommended,” and it can come in several forms, like in-feed social media ads, branded editorial content, click-to-watch video ads, recommended content, or programmatic advertising that’s automatically generated in a publisher’s ad space.

Beauty brand Fresh ran shoppable ads on Instagram during Cyber Week, offering 25% off. The ads blended in with their other content and featured images, videos, and Reels tagged with products.

The campaign generated 8x more views per link click and accounted for 32% of its Instagram and Facebook sales. 

13. Ramp up your influencer outreach 

Influencer marketing continues to be an expanding tactic for small businesses. Insider Intelligence predicted that U.S. businesses would spend $5 billion on influencer marketing in 2022 and another $6.2 billion this year. 

The reason is simply because it drives results. Consumers trust content from influencers just as much as recommendations from friends and family, and more so than traditional ads. About 60% of shoppers have purchased something based on an influencer’s recommendation.

Influencers provide informative and inspirational content that resonates with shoppers. You don’t need influencers with millions of followers, either. We’ve found that everyday social media users and nano- and micro-influencers engage audiences and generate ROI, while accommodating smaller marketing budgets.

Reach out to influencers to share authentic UGC because 53% of shoppers say images from real consumers, rather than professional photography, make them feel more confident in purchasing.

One of the best ways to find your brand’s biggest fans is via an influencer community like the Influenster App, a global community of 7 million everyday shoppers.

Cosmetics brand Rimmel used the Influenster App to get new products into the hands of targeted consumers using custom sampling boxes.

The brand has since collected over 1,200 new reviews and nearly 2,500 social media posts, which has led to a 44% sales lift for the business.

Low cost small business marketing ideas

The above ideas are no doubt highly beneficial marketing ideas for your small business (or business of any size really), but most will require you to spend at least some capital, whether that’s money or hours. Even if it’s not a lot, costs can build up.

But what about very low cost, or even free, marketing efforts, for those of you with little-to-no marketing budget? Well there’s plenty of those too.

1. Hashtag contests ask participants to post content on social media with a specific hashtag as their entry into a contest. Not only are they effective for engaging followers, but they also enable you to collect UGC for free
2. Set up a free Google My Business account so that your business will show up on Google Maps and Google Local Search
3. Boost brand credibility and drive sales by applying for business awards and displaying them on your website
4. Post on social media more — this seems obvious but brands often tend to focus only on one channel when they could be doing so much more. Build brand awareness with LinkedIn posts, drive traffic to blogs with Instagram links, jump on the latest TikTok trends, host giveaways on Facebook, to name a few
5. Incentivize current customers to become repeat buyers with a referral program that offers discounts or free gifts in exchange for bringing in new customers

Small business marketing ideas to ramp up in 2023

Today’s e-commerce landscape is one, big connected marketplace where commerce is always-on, and everywhere all at once. To win over shoppers, you’ll need a strong content supply chain packed full of authentic content that demonstrates the value of spending on your products.

That means your 2023 marketing strategy should revolve around user-generated content. Want to know the value UGC can provide your small business and the potential ROI it brings?

Find out for yourself with our UGC value calculator tool.

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How lean marketing teams can get the most out of ratings and reviews

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Historically it’s been difficult to quantify the direct value UGC can have on your business. But not anymore.

We’ve structured this guide to match the four main pillars a marketing ROI calculator focuses on. Feel free to jump to the chapter you’re most interested in. Otherwise, happy reading.

Chapters:

• Collect content
• Drive conversion
• Amplify content
• Optimize strategy

Why use a marketing ROI calculator

You probably already know the impact that user-generated content (UGC) can have on the growth of your company. If you don’t, you really should. But, as is often the case with new initiatives and marketing overhauls, it might take a little work to convince the powers that be.

So when making a case for investing in UGC, use the data that will resonate with executive-level decision-makers: Hard numbers that prove ROI. What you need then, is a marketing ROI calculator.

For example, let’s say Company X is an e-commerce apparel brand. It has:

• 800,000 annual site visits
• $93 average order value (AOV)
• 2.5% conversion rate
• $2 million in online sales. 

By investing in UGC-driven marketing campaigns, Company X could increase its annual revenue upto $550,941 from increased conversions alone. 

Those numbers speak for themselves. But how do you arrive at them? The answer’s by using 12 months of benchmarking data to project what a company can earn by leveraging UGC. Which is exactly what the marketing ROI calculator does. Of course, those impressive numbers don’t happen by themselves. You need to implement the right tactics to maximize your marketing ROI.

Companies that pursue a UGC marketing strategy will increase their revenue, conversion rate, SEO impact, and in-store sales (if applicable). Here’s how to get those results.

Goal: Collect content

Before you can reap the rewards of UGC, you have to obtain it. Whether that’s by using content your users have already created or inspiring them to make more. Utilizing UGC for marketing material is a more cost effective way to execute your marketing strategy, because it provides lifetime value. There’s three core consumer needs when it comes to UGC:

1. Show me. Content that shows what a product actually looks like. This has been done well for years. Go to any e-commerce site and you can see a product in detail on a neutral background. You’re shown exactly what you’re going to buy.
2. Convince me. As we narrow in on making a purchase, we ask ourselves, “is this product good and does it meet my needs?” And that’s where the “convince me” content, like ratings and reviews, excels. It helps us understand if we’re about to make the right purchase.
3. Inspire me. When you’re in that early discovery phase of shopping, this highly engaging emerging style of content — “inspire me” content — is really becoming essential. The idea is that you need inspiring content that helps consumers discover something that they never knew they needed in their lives.

Today, e-commerce is heavily optimized towards these first two need-states. The key to e-commerce success is additionally tapping into UGC for the third need.

You can source images and videos from users on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest who tag and mention your brand or use a hashtag associated with your brand.

Note: Copyright permissions aren’t an issue with the built-in content permissions capabilities that come with Bazaarvoice’s Visual UGC tools.

Engaging with your shoppers and followers on these channels is key to building brand loyalty and growing your community. The UGC will follow. A hashtag campaign or contest is a clear, easy way to engage with your social networks with the goal of producing UGC. This method prompts website visitors and social media followers to share visual UGC with a designated hashtag for a chance to be featured or to win some kind of reward.

Another option is sampling, which does require some financial investment, but yields virtually guaranteed results. A targeted sampling program ensures you get select products in the hands of valuable and prospective customers. As a result, the sampling recipients often review, recommend, or purchase the product, if not all three.

Incentives are another great way to get customers to enthusiastically take action. By offering rewards like promo codes, discounts, exclusive perks, gift cards, and elevated status, you can entice shoppers to leave a review or share their purchases on social media in exchange.

Everyone likes games, especially these days. Gamifying UGC creation can attract customers with a fun way to interact with your brand and win something in return. Whether that’s an actual prize, champion badge, or anything in between. Gamification, in this case, could mean winning the title of “elite contributor” by writing a certain number of reviews or sharing visual content. In return, these “players” could get access to exclusive products, early releases, free products or experiences, etc. Another example is hosting a sweepstakes for UGC in which each content creator is entered to win.

Review request emails provide an additional opportunity to capture UGC. After a customer completes a purchase or when their purchase ships for delivery, send a review request email. Include a call to action (CTA) to leave a review, upload a photo or video to your website, or share content on social media. Be sure to include your brand’s profile and hashtag in social media-specific CTAs so the customer can tag you.

The marketing ROI

The marketing ROI of acquiring UGC is primarily around strengthening brand awareness and building community connections, which leads to brand loyalty and customer retention.

The process of procuring, sourcing, and building UGC requires engagement with your online audience. This is an opportunity for them to get to know your brand better, engage with content, and of course, share UGC in the form of reviews and visual content.

Sampling has an array of benefits. Based on a Bazaarvoice survey of over 6,000 Influenster members included in sampling campaigns, 63% purchased the sampled product, and of those, 97% purchased at least one additional product from the same brand. Furthermore, 87% recommended the product to friends and family, 50% adopted the product as a personal staple, and 50% followed the brand on social media.

Sampling also ensures a successful product launch instead of risking an expensive flop. Launching a sampling campaign ahead of, or in tandem with, bringing a new product to market will provide confidence and assurance that it will gain traction. 

Brand example: T2

By collecting UGC, Bazaarvoice customer and global tea brand T2 was able to build and strengthen their customer community. T2’s Head of Digital, Sally Lenox, said their partnership with Bazaarvoice on a sampling campaign played “an integral role in building that community. It’s a way to embrace our customers. To hear their unique perspective, to hear their voice. More recently it’s being able to use that UGC for us to be able to display on our digital screens.”

Normally, T2 has brew bars in different locations so customers can try out new products, but that wasn’t possible during pandemic lockdowns. “We understood that there was a hesitation from our customers to want to try something that was new that no one else was talking about yet,” said Lenox. In response, T2 decided to send samples to some of their most loyal customers in various global markets. “We saw an overwhelming response.”

They timed it with an online product launch and saw an immediate increase in review volume. “That led to other customers having the confidence to buy those teas.” They also received an increase in sales compared to what they would normally have without the additional reviews.

Retailer example: Walmart Canada

As a result of this partnership, the retailer saw an 80% life in review volume, leading to an increase in revenue across products from brands that syndicate content.

Goal: Drive conversion

For those consumers in shopping or discovery mode, UGC is often an add-to-cart conductor. Because 41% of consumers find out about new products on social media, social commerce, the merging of social media and e-commerce, should be a priority to drive conversions. By uploading your product catalog to Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and now even Tiktok, you can activate shoppable images right there on each app. Today, many shoppers expect to click on an image with a featured product and be sent to the product page or even purchase within the app.

With visual UGC tools like Bazaarvoice Galleries, you can take that same UGC sourced from social media to create a full omnichannel experience. Displaying this UGC on your product pages, separate gallery pages, your home page, or any other location on your website drives omnichannel revenue at every point of sale.

Take Oliver Bonas for example. The British fashion brand encourages customers to share photos on Instagram and tag the brand. It then features this UGC on a gallery page.

Also showcase visual UGC and reviews in any and all advertising and branding materials, including email campaigns, banner ads, and packaging. In our own research we found that 64% of consumers prefer a customer’s own photo to brand photography.

Reviews are how 75% of shoppers discover and consider products, so they can be very persuasive. Display reviews on product pages, emails, and social media.

The marketing ROI

Implementing a social commerce strategy could mean a big boost in revenue since active social media users spend triple the amount as everyone else. Sales from social commerce across the globe are climbing. In 2020, social commerce accounted for approximately $474.8 billion and is projected to reach $3,370 billion by 2028, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) increase of 28%.

Visual UGC has a big impact potential for your website. E-commerce companies that leverage galleries see up to a 150% increase in conversions. Additionally, a Photoslurp report found that e-commerce website images with UGC are 5x more likely to produce conversions compared to professional content. Specifically, 18 top brands using the Photoslurp platform achieved an average of 85.09 conversions from UGC images compared to 17 conversions from professionally branded images.

Reviews don’t just benefit your SEO. They’re also conversion catalysts. Customers who interact with reviews are twice as likely to convert. (And that conversion percentage goes up to 3.5% for e-commerce companies that use Bazaarvoice’s Review Highlights tool, by the way.) So it pays handsomely to collect more reviews for your business.

Nowadays consumers don’t just do research for online shopping. They check reviews before visiting a store, or research whilst in-store. So reviews are no longer online business only. Consumers are using them to inspire confidence in buying in physical locations. With the marketing ROI calculator, you can calculate the impact UGC can have on your in-store sales too. This is called research online, buy offline (ROBO).

Using our example from the introduction, Company X has:

• 800,000 annual site visits
• $93 average order value
• 2.5% conversion rate
• $2 million in online sales

Which means Company X’s ROBO is up by a potential $1,195,542 in sales. 

Brand example: Takeya

Water bottle and pitcher company Takeya leveraged Bazaarvoice’s Review tools and social commerce tools with great success. By growing their reviews and visual UGC, then featuring it across their e-commerce site, they increased conversions by 58% and average order value by 40%. As well as significantly improving their SEO.

Retailer example: Home Depot Canada

For a prime example on how a retailer can increase conversion on its site, look no further than Home Depot Canada. The retail giant partnered with Bazaarvoice to increase UGC on its product pages.

“UGC is becoming increasingly important,” said Gabriela da Silva, Senior Brand Advocate Analyst at Home Depot Canada. “It’s no longer a ‘nice to have’ it’s a necessity.” 

Out of this partnership came the Seeds Sampling program. Seeds Sampling is a review-seeding program that puts a brand’s high-priority products in the hands of Home Depot Canada’s most loyal shoppers, in exchange for honest reviews on HomeDepot.ca. Since the program’s inception, Home Depot Canada has already seen a 2x increase in conversion.

Goal: Amplify content

Collecting the content is the first step. Then, you need to amplify your message to spread it as far and wide as possible. You should promote your UGC on every one of your marketing channels, although each offers a different ROI.

With so many syndication locations, it’s a lot to keep up with. So these tools tell you how your content is performing compared to competitors and alert you when you need to respond to a customer inquiry on a third-party website.

Besides Google’s preference for e-commerce websites with reviews, reviews on your website and third-party retail sites also help your SEO. How? Because they provide more content that includes mentions of your products. Crafting blog content around UGC, like a list of the best paint colors for your guest room based on UGC examples, is also prime SEO fuel.

For individual brands who sell through a retailer, UGC enables you to rank higher on the retailer’s website. Think of it as SEO, but instead of ranking in Google you’re ranking on your retailer’s site. And higher ranking means higher traffic. Which means higher sales.

Social media channels are premium spaces to extend the reach of your UGC, especially since that’s the source of a lot of visual UGC. Feature and share reviews, photos, videos, Reels, Stories, and any other relevant UGC as part of your social content. Tag the user not only to give them credit but also to send a signal to Instagram to show your content to their followers. And also so they may also share the tagged content.

Influencers are very helpful when it comes to getting the word out because they have large followings, and people pay attention to and trust what they say. According to the Bazaarvoice Social Media Manager’s Guide to UGC ebook, 63% of consumers trust influencer content over that from brands.

Partner with influencers to create UGC or attract them with the prospect of sharing their content or sending them special offers. When influencers post content, they’re both creating more content for you to use and promoting it at the same time.

The marketing ROI

Amplifying the reach of your UGC will increase brand awareness, engagement, interactions, website traffic, and ultimately, conversions and sales. Why does this work? Because consumers perceive UGC as honest and authentic. 

If your website is populated with customer reviews, that creates more searchable content and long tail keywords for Google to rank. These long tail keywords can be specific to your products, like “vitamin c serum” for skincare brands. And according to Trustpilot, websites with UGC increase time on site by up to 90% and return visitors by 20%.

Retail syndication increases your review volume across a wide range of retail sites, which drives more traffic to those websites and places a lot of backlinks to your main e-commerce site. Bazaarvoice customers who leverage retail syndication experienced a 20x increase in shopper traffic.

A Forbes survey of over 6,000 respondents revealed that two-thirds use social media as part of their online shopping journey. The survey also found that a third of respondents seek out influencers to learn about products. Organic social content with UGC and influencer partnerships is pivotal to many online shoppers.

Social media ads containing UGC outperform those without it. According to Salesforce, social media ads incorporating UGC receive 5-times greater click through rates (CTR).

Brand example: Primal Kitchen

Food and condiment brand Primal Kitchen grew their review volume by 130x with review syndication to retail sites. On Target.com alone, the brand increased their reviews from a few hundred to over 20,000. With visual review syndication capabilities, Primal Kitchen is able to seamlessly integrate the visual content from their product pages on the Target website.

“Our product pages look so beautiful now across all of e-commerce, not just our own site. It’s so nice having the ability to tag particular photos with particular products and then send that off via the Bazaarvoice Visual Syndication Network to Target.com,” said Anna Simon, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Primal Kitchen.

Retailer example: La Redoute

For a prime example of retail syndication in action, look no further than French home & fashion retailer, La Redoute. The retailer wanted to continue rapid growth and increase sales. So it naturally turned to Bazaarvoice to implement a UGC program, in the form of review collection. To increase reviews on site, it tapped into the Bazaarvoice Network to collect reviews already written on brand sites.

Doing this meant that of the 800k+ reviews on La Redoute’s website, 30% came from syndicated reviews collected from the Bazaarvoice Network. This influx of reviews directly led to higher customer engagement and retail sales.

Goal: Optimize strategy

After collecting content, amplifying its reach, and driving conversion, you then need to measure your content’s success. Keeping an accurate read of your audience and how they’re interacting with the UGC you’re promoting is instrumental in finding what to keep doing and what to stop or change.

Using insights and analytics tools to run reports on your marketing performance, you can pinpoint what tactics are producing website traffic, conversions, and revenue. For example, maybe videos are more popular than static posts. Instagram is more effective than Pinterest. Or reviews result in higher conversions than visual UGC. You can show that information to your internal stakeholders and recommend what to continue focusing on.

Beyond business KPIs, you can use the content of UGC to identify pain points for customers and learn how to improve their experience with your brand. By analyzing sentiment and questions found in reviews, social media mentions, or any other online discussions, you can understand any unmet needs or expectations.

Be sure to align your UGC strategy and investment with your areas of opportunity. Connect the marketing ROI with your objectives. If you have a large reach but low conversions, focus on how UGC can drive conversions. If you need help meeting multiple goals, take a more comprehensive approach.

The marketing ROI

Optimizing strategy can improve your marketing messaging and identify areas of opportunity. It can also reduce your overall marketing spend because you’re not pouring money into channels and types of content that aren’t working.

By concentrating your analytics in one place, like Bazaarvoice’s Insights, you can track the performance of your UGC across your website and all social channels, including what produces revenue and how much. This streamlines your analytics process and makes it more efficient and convenient.

Brand example: Calego

Bazaarvoice’s Premium Network Insights provided more than one revelation for luggage brand, Calego.

“We see in the Insights dashboard that despite having less than 2% product share in the luggage category at Walmart, we have over 80% review share. The discrepancy is enormous,” said David Rapps, President and Chief Strategy Officer.

The brand was also able to find areas for improvement by digging into their review data. It noticed that one of its top-selling products had one of their lower review rating averages. And by analyzing individual reviews that the product needed structural improvements, it was able to effectively problem-solve.

Retailer example: Vertbaudet

Leading European clothing retailer Vertbaudet uses UGC to provide insights into customer opinion of it’s products. To collect this UGC, the retailer sends out a post-interaction email asking for reviews. It then analyzes these reviews for feedback and responds appropriately. In one case, it saw multiple customers comment that a dress, whilst pretty, was way too small. Vertbaudet responded by fixing the cut, in turn improving the product for future customers. Doing so has already led to a 12% sales increase.

Find out how UGC impacts your company with our marketing ROI calculator

With a wide range of customers, a vast network of retailers, and Influenster, a community of over 6 million shoppers, Bazaarvoice has mountains of data that lets us estimate the ROI of UGC for your company. From all that knowledge, the marketing ROI calculator for UGC was born. Using 12 months of benchmark data, our marketing ROI calculator can project the revenue companies can gain by investing in a UGC program.

Discover your own potential marketing ROI by plugging some basic information about your company into the calculator, and it will give you something concrete — not to mention impressive — to sell your team on the value of UGC. 

FEATURED RESOURCE

5 Ways to Maximize the ROI of a UGC Program

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An end-to-end UGC platform does all the heavily lifting for you. But more than that, the right platform is the difference between barely surviving an economic downturn, and being profitable in a downturn.

Chapters:

1. What is a UGC platform?
2. The 10 ways a UGC platform drives business growth
3. Work with the best UGC platform

Just about everything is more expensive these days — whether it’s clothing, household items, makeup, or anything else people buy. So, you have to work a little harder than usual to attract customers and get them to spend their increasingly limited budgets on your products and services.

Business growth depends on building brand awareness, generating leads, and creating a following of loyal shoppers — all things that are more challenging than ever. Brands today continue dealing with a litany of issues, from supply chain problems to inflation to high costs and labor shortages to increased competition for shoppers’ attention and a share of their shopping budgets. 

What is a UGC platform?

In such periods of downturn, growth can be difficult to come by. Traditional marketing is one way to leave an impression on consumers, but it can be incredibly expensive. An end-to-end user-generated content (UGC) platform is more cost-effective and can be just what your business needs to grow during tough times. 

UGC refers to content about your brand that’s created by real people — your shoppers, employees, followers, or anyone else. It can include written ratings and reviews, videos, photos, and audio. The content depicts your products in real-life, everyday situations, and it’s usually shared across social media and other digital platforms. 

Because UGC doesn’t feel like an ad, it’s a lot more powerful than traditional marketing. And, it’s just as, if not more, influential than word-of-mouth marketing.

We have found that customers trust the opinions of other customers more than advertising claims

Head of E-Commerce, GANT

It’s also what shoppers want to see. Consumers don’t want branded content, they want to see authentic UGC from their fellow consumers and across every channel — we’re living in an influence economy and a UGC platform lets your shoppers do the selling for you.

How a UGC platform grows your business

UGC generates a high ROI. To find out how high, we recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct an independent Total Economic Impact (TEI) Study to demonstrate how it all works in practice. We were especially in the impact it has in tough economic times we’re facing.

Here’s the 10 takeaways from the study that demonstrate how a UGC platform can support your business growth in a downturn.

1. Boost sales and accelerate conversion rates

UGC inspires people to buy things. Just think about it — when you see a photo of a real person wearing a dress you’ve had your eye on or read a review about how much someone’s dog loved his new fluffy bed, don’t you feel more confident that the product will meet your needs? Of course you do. There’s multiple types of UGC, each boosting conversion rates in their own right.

Possibly the most popular type of UGC is ratings and reviews, which inspire shoppers across all channels.

Incorporating visual UGC increases these benefits. When shoppers engage with on-site photo galleries, conversion rates rise 145%, and average order values increase 22%. Most shoppers say that photos from fellow consumers increase the likelihood that they’ll buy a product. Featuring questions and answers, where you engage directly with shoppers, can also increase conversion rates by 127% and bring order values up by 10% 

In reality, some brands see much higher conversion rates too. Apparel brand Tuckernuck, for instance, saw conversions soar by 190% after it added a UGC gallery on its product pages and wider website. 

2. Grow advocates and conversion rates with sampling

People love to try new things. So, when you give consumers free products, they’ll appreciate the opportunity to tell you what they think. A product sampling campaign managed by your UGC platform effortlessly trades free product samples in exchange for authentic feedback in the form of customer reviews and imagery. 

Whether you’re trying to generate buzz ahead of a product launch or source fresh content for core SKUs, you can see a 300% boost in conversion rates when shoppers engage with sampling campaign content. Just make sure your sampling partner can cover everything you need.

To test the effectiveness of sampling, we recently surveyed 6,000 Influenster members who had recently taken part in a sampling campaign. Most people (63%) bought the products that they sampled — and 97% even bought more products from the brand. Another 87% recommended the product to friends and family. Sampling doesn’t just drive sales, it turns community members into customers, brand loyalists, and even advocates.

Global retailer Kraft Heinz for example activated the Influenster community ahead of new product launches by sending product samples in exchange for reviews. The campaign was an overwhelming success, leading to:

• 369,000 new posts, shares, likes, comments, and follows
• 20,000 new reviews
• $1.9million earned media value

3. Streamline content collection and governance

From creating new products, maintaining quality and consistency, and generally running your business, handling UGC collection and analyzing the data that comes along with it can be a slog. Working with the right UGC platform streamlines content collection and uses it in meaningful and informed ways that drive growth. 

Streamlining content collection across every channel — social media, product pages, and other websites where you sell your products — also helps you reach shoppers at every stage of their journey, from product research and browsing to checkout. 

A UGC platform also enables you to increase sales of your core products and beat your competitors to remain top of the market. You can also support new product launches with shopper content, which increases the likelihood of the launch’s success. 

The content that you collect and the metrics that you glean from it can help you better understand your customers and what they want. This can help drive product innovations and help you successfully enter new markets. 

4. Display content across the shopper journey

We’ve mentioned UGC in all stages of the buying process, and for good reason. Since customers who interact with UGC are 2x more likely to convert, it’s crucial to display this content across all stages of the shopper journey. This will instill confidence in consumers at every touchpoint where they may find inspiration and click to buy something. Nearly 70% of consumers say social media has inspired them to make a purchase.

We find that user-generated content outperforms any other content that we put out there. On Instagram, Facebook, and email channels, we see engagement, click-through rates, and open rates are higher

Anna Simon, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Primal Kitchen

Your digital marketing teams are busy! Studies show working with an end-to-end UGC platform can improve content operations productivity by 30%. This relieves some of the stress from your shoulders. After all, time is money.

Also, you can experience a 3x boost in content coverage of products syndicated across retail and social channels. For instance, review request emails, which are sent after someone makes a purchase, combined with content syndication offers numerous benefits, like higher content volumes, better quality product ratings and reviews, and increased conversion rates and order values. 

5. Easily report on the ROI of your UGC platform

Return on investment (ROI) is everything, especially to marketing managers. It’s how you justify every $1 spent. User-generated content can teach you a lot. Insights from shopper content give you a chance to learn about your customers and drive growth for your brand. This content featured on brand websites can increase visitors’ time on the site by up to 90% and return visitors by 20%, according to Trustpilot. 

The ROI of a UGC platform centers on strengthening your brand awareness and building connections with consumers, which translates to loyalty and customer retention.

And the right insights and analytics tools will help you identify where your biggest opportunities are and optimize and measure content for discovery, conversion, and revenue across channels, including social media, search, websites, and retail.

You can also easily collect content from review request emails, sampling, and more. All of this will improve user experience and drive conversions — and, revenue. 

6. Boost in-store sales

The pandemic changed the way we shop. People still shop online, but also enjoy browsing in person in stores, too. These days, 64% of consumers say a hybrid approach — combining online and in-store shopping — is their preference. 

Wherever they end up actually purchasing products, most consumers start their shopping journey online. Shoppers use content, including reviews, photos, and videos, to research items and find inspiration. When they find something they love or need, it’s likely they’ll head to the store to buy it. According to data from our clients:

For every $1 of revenue influenced online, UGC influences nearly $4 in-store

Of the revenue brands generate with Bazaarvoice, 21% is in-store sales. You can survey customers after they buy something in-store to track the performance of content syndication. For example, an electronics brand’s in-store spending jumped almost 4x after shoppers interacted with content, including reviews, questions and answers, and customer photos. 

7. Drive traffic to product pages

As we said before, shopping sessions start online, and UGC is a great way to bring shoppers to your website. 69% of consumers research products online before purchasing, and 64% use a web browser to do this research. 

One of the biggest business benefits of user-generated content is that it improves search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. A consistent flow of fresh content — which reviews provide — is a huge factor in Google’s search ranking criteria. 63% of companies rely on ratings and reviews to achieve their SEO goals. 

Ratings and reviews creates a great avenue for us to get current content on our site and bring attention to our product. That helps us to rank higher in search results and get found better 

UX Analyst, a consumer packaged goods brand

The more reviews you have, the higher you’ll rank — a UGC platform can increase website traffic 3x and drive a 100% conversion lift rate. 

Shopper content also contains specific keywords, which means your website will rank higher, given that organic search is the main driver of e-commerce traffic. 

Visual UGC, like photos and videos, can improve SEO rankings, too. Website visitors also spend 90% more time on product pages with visual UGC. From Google’s standpoint, websites that users spend significant time on are considered high quality and high value, which boosts their SEO ranking. Visual and social content improves conversion rates by 200%, which increases profits by 8%.

8. Reduce return rates 

The dreaded product return. Chances are, customers will return items from time to time. Returns are costly to deal with, which can affect your bottom line. While you’ll probably always have some returns, UGC can lower return rates which translates to better profit margins. 

Growing your volume of UGC and ensuring the content is high-quality help consumers shop with confidence. They appreciate having the perspectives of real people at their fingertips and seeing photos of the product being used in real settings. The more information shoppers have before purchasing, the less likely they’ll return something. 

Fashion icon GANT for example worked on a content program to encourage customers to leave more feedback, which reduced return rates by 5%.

Products with low star ratings and potentially high return rates, we look at what key problems are coming up with the product so we can work on fixing the products or messaging

A global lead social and consumer content engagement expert, electronics brand

Reviews and other UGC can also identify issues with products, so that you can correct them quickly and encourage accurate purchases first time. 4% of reviews discuss product flaws, 2% mention product improvements, and 1% state improvements that should be made to product descriptions, according to our data. 

Clothing retailer Vertbaudet did this when they fixed the cut of a maternity line after noticing repeat feedback in product reviews that it was too small, leading to an increase in customer loyalty and sales.

9. Secure your reputation with authentic content 

Keeping it real appeals to shoppers. They appreciate the authenticity of UGC, and expect brands to ensure that the content is honest, relevant, and high-quality. Shopper content is considered quality when it’s created by real, unpaid users and meets your brand and community’s guidelines and audience expectations.

40% of consumers will stop engaging with a brand after viewing one piece of fake content. And once they lose trust, 81% of consumers will avoid using that brand ever again. Fake reviews might feature grainy photos, misspelled words, references to competitors, and wording that’s not in line with your brand. 

Content moderation tools ensure that your content remains top quality by removing instances of vulgar language, overreaching claims, and pricing. This keeps content in check with your brand guidelines and empowers shoppers to make informed decisions. A UGC platform with fraud detection technology not only ensures the authenticity of content, but also safeguards your reputation. 

Another way to up the authenticity factor is to feature and respond to negative reviews. Shoppers expect to see some negative reviews, and when they do, they perceive you as more trustworthy and authentic. 60% of shoppers view negative reviews as just as valuable as positive ones in helping them decide what to purchase.

Consumers also like to see you respond to negative reviews, as it signals to them that you care about quality and customer service.

10. Reap the rewards in a more cost-effective way 

Traditional marketing campaigns can be pricey, to say the least. A UGC platform alleviates this spend. It’s much more cost-effective and still achieves amazing results. That’s more important than ever, as you’re striving for growth while still dealing with issues like inflation and supply chain snags. 

Because UGC is considered less ad-like, in the traditional sense of the word, consumers respond well. They’re more likely to engage with the content and feel confident shopping with you. It’s also what shoppers want — 53% say UGC makes them more confident in their purchase decisions. More confidence, more purchases, more revenue.

To put that into numerical value, the Forrester Study found that brands that work with Bazaarvoice see an average 400% return on investment. Put another way, you can earn $4 for every $1 spent — and within just three months. 

Work with the best UGC platform

Shoppers have almost unlimited choices, and their budgets are shrinking as prices go up. They’re more cautious than ever when it comes to purchasing decisions, and in the consumer-to-consumer economy we live in they’re relying on authentic UGC to convince them to buy.

A UGC platform will help you stand out from competitors and make consumers feel confident buying from you at every step of the buying process. Bazaarvoice can be a supportive partner in helping you build your content strategy. 

But whether you choose to go with Bazaarvoice or another provider, a UGC platform is how you’ll survive (and thrive) in these economic times. And if you are going to choose a UGC platform to work with, why not choose the platform that’s been voted the #1 in UGC by G2 for six consecutive quarters.

Read the full Forrester Report to learn more about the ROI of working with Bazaarvoice. Or feel free to get in touch below and get started.

LEARN MORE ABOUT UGC

7 UGC examples and why they work

Learn more here

Enter Bazaarvoice — an industry-leading user-generated content (UGC) platform.

Working with Bazaarvoice can improve productivity on content operations by 30%. How do we know? Because we recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct an independent Total Economic Impact (TEI) Study of Bazaarvoice. And that was one of the results.

A total economic impact is, by definition, a methodology developed by Forrester that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes. It assists vendors in communicating the value proposition of their products and services to clients.

The aim of this particular study was to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) and benefits that brands and retailers can see when they partner with Bazaarvoice. Forrester interviewed 10 decision-makers at nine brands and retailers who use Bazaarvoice and combined the results into a single composite organization to get a better sense of the benefits, costs, and risks of investing in working with us.

There’s a few headlines from the total economic impact study that we’re especially proud of, including:

• 400% return on investment ($4 return for every $1 spent)
• 3-month payback period
• 4x increase in conversion rates 
• 2.71% contribution to total revenue 

But let’s take a closer look at the impact and benefits for both brands and retailers and how they can apply to you.

Total Economic Impact for brands 

Bazaarvoice can help supercharge any brand’s commerce efforts through content, communities, and experiences. 

Here’s how brands can tap into the biggest economic opportunities possible by leveraging the full Bazaarvoice platform. 

Spotlight core products — and build excitement for new ones

Who doesn’t love getting freebies? Sampling campaigns help brands showcase products and generate UGC — either for new products or existing ones that need a fresh slate of content. Our sampling campaigns generate authentic feedback on products and increase the volume of product photos and videos on social media. 

Brands see a 300% jump in conversion rates when shoppers engage with content from sampling campaigns. This translates to $3.3 million in extra revenue in the first year of working with Bazaarvoice. 

Two brands noted that sampling programs improved product star ratings by half a star, averaging between 4.2 and 4.3 stars, according to the Forrester study. And when consumers interact with content from Bazaarvoice product sampling programs, conversion rates reach 8%. 

As one global lead of social and consumer content engagement for an electronics brand noted, “We did a small sampling campaign with 200 people participating. It generated 4.5 million social media impressions and more than 120 unique reviews. And it’s not so much content volume; it’s the impressions that count and $50k earned media value that came from one campaign.”

Increase product page conversion rates with visual content from social

Real content from real customers resonates with shoppers. UGC is perceived as more authentic, as it shows how products fit real customers or work in everyday situations. 

And the more customer content brands collect, the bigger the result — whether it’s reviews or consumer photos and videos. Conversion rates improve 200% with visual and social content. This can increase profits by 8%. 

Bazaarvoice offers the capability and workflow for brands to include visual content from customers’ and influencers’ social media accounts to show off products. 

This is a great way for us to gather photos from customers wearing our clothes without having to go to studios or without having to get big photo shoots to do it. Customers are wearing our products that show how much they loved it, and we can get that sentiment across. It’s very much seen as improving our online experience as a whole 

site optimization manager, retailer

Conversion rates increase to 6% when shoppers engage with visual and social content alongside other types of customer content.

Drive traffic with authentic content syndication to retailers 

Bazaarvoice helps brands syndicate UGC across 1,750 global retailers. Brands can increase content syndication 10x when they work with us. 

A senior manager of omnichannel, CPG at a nutrition brand touted the benefits of content syndication: “A lot of people don’t leave reviews on big-box retailer sites for our products, so it was huge to be able to syndicate reviews from our native site out to retailers. Customers could really see what other people were saying about the product.”

Content syndication leads to a 3x increase in webpage traffic and a 100% conversion rate lift.

But it’s not just about getting content in more places. The authenticity of that content matters too. Whether they’re shopping on a brand’s website or with a major retailer, consumers want the content they use to make a buying decision to be real, honest, and highly relevant. 

We ensure the authenticity of content via industry-leading fraud detection technology, which safeguards and grows brand equity. Plus, our moderation capabilities remove content containing vulgar language, overreaching claims, and pricing — all to ensure it meets brand guidelines while empowering consumers to make confident purchasing decisions.

Total Economic Impact for retailers 

While online shopping is the go-to for most consumers, they still enjoy shopping in-store. To help you become a top choice for shoppers in all environments, there’s several strategies to embrace to maximize economic impact. 

Collect and display user-generated content across the shopper journey

Collecting and displaying quality user-generated content (UGC) enables you to inspire confidence at various stages of the shopping journey. Working with Bazaarvoice improves productivity on content operations by 30%.

We help retailers collect content at each touchpoint. We offer email templates for outreach, authentication services, sampling campaigns, and moderation filters. This relieves many of the pain points for retailers’ digital marketing teams. 

Retailers also see a 3x increase in content coverage of products syndicated across retail and social channels. Review request email outreach combined with content syndication across Bazaarvoice’s retail network grows content volumes and the quality of products’ ratings and reviews. This also increases conversion rates and order values.

Optimize product pages — for both search and conversions

Standing out in search is crucial for grabbing customers’ attention and beating the competition. Ensuring that your product pages feature enhanced search engine optimization (SEO) increases visibility. 

A continuous flow of high-quality, new content on product pages improves search rankings. Retailers working with Bazaarvoice can see a 3x increase in webpage traffic. This enables marketing teams to shift their search marketing spend to other areas. 

“We rely on Bazaarvoice for search equity. User-generated content creates a great avenue for us to get current content on our site and bring attention to our product. That helps us to rank higher in search results and get found better,” a UX analyst for a food brand said. 

Our Question & Answer tools also give product pages a boost. Q&A content helps increase conversions by 150%. Customers can leave questions about products and for customer teams. Responses from brands and retailers are syndicated across every channel where products appear. This helps shoppers find the information they need no matter where they shop.

This additional information about products instills confidence in shoppers and can boost conversions by 20%. 

“When you think about the impact, that’s 700 fewer calls or emails coming through to our customer service team. It’s time and money saved, so the impact is significant,” said Kristina Rapljenovic, Website Manager at Nestlé Canada. The CPG retailer has utilized UGC to listen and engage with consumers, leading to higher customer satisfaction, increased engagement, and insights for data-driven decision-making. 

Boost in-store sales

Most shopping sessions start online, even if consumers end up buying products in stores. Shoppers often use customer content syndicated by Bazaarvoice to research items online and buy them offline. 

21% of the revenue generated with Bazaarvoice is in-store sales. Retailers can track the performance of content syndication by surveying customers after they make an in-store purchase. 

An electronics brand saw in-store spending increase 3.76x after shoppers interacted with content like reviews, Q&A, or customer photos. 

Reduce return rates 

Returns are one of the biggest challenges for retailers. Receiving and processing returns is incredibly costly and high return rates reduce profit margins. In the apparel sector, return rates can be as high as 40%. 

While it’s impossible to fully eliminate returns, increasing the quality and volume of user-generated content can help dramatically reduce return rates. The more information consumers have before making a purchase, the more successful the experience will be. 

Visual social content from fellow shoppers is the most powerful way to instill buyer confidence. Seeing products modeled on real people or being used in real settings gives consumers a better sense of what they’re buying, so they’re less likely to submit a return. 

Premium fashion brand GANT teamed up with Bazaarvoice on a content strategy that encourages customers to offer more feedback. The program, which included featuring product reviews on its website, helped the brand reduce return rates by 5% and increase its profit margins. 

Bazaarvoice is with retailers and brands every step of the way 

Achieving the highest total economic impact and standing out in both brick-and-mortar and online shopping spaces is crucial for brands and retailers today. But, you don’t have to go it alone. 

The decision-makers interviewed for the Forrester study we commissioned emphasized what a supportive partner Bazaarvoice has been in building their content strategies. These leaders said they were able to get questions answered quickly and receive guidance about increasing ratings and performance of products, while boosting the variety of content they feature. 

As a senior manager, omnichannel, at a nutrition CPG brand put it, “What I love about Bazaarvoice is they are always working with companies to optimize their UGC strategy, bringing new ideas to the table. Every month I ask our insights manager, ‘What’s new with Bazaarvoice?’” 

As brands and retailers add different Bazaarvoice products, they’ll see the magic of how the pieces fit together to influence consumers’ shopping behaviors. The cumulative impact of our products for content collection and syndication significantly boosts conversion rates. 

To recap what retailers and brands can experience when they work with us, according to the total economic impact study: 

• Conversion rates increase 200% with visual and social content 
• Conversion rates jump 300% when shoppers engage with content collected from product sampling campaigns
• Productivity in content operations improves by 30%
• Questions and answers boost conversions by 150% 

Ready to learn more about the ROI of partnering with Bazaarvoice? Read the full Forrester study here. 

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Why Bazaarvoice is the #1 user-generated content platform according to G2

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Dopamine is a neurotransmitter made in the brain that gets released every time your brain expects a reward. It washes over us any time we hear our favorite song, smell freshly baked cookies, or experience anything we associate with pleasure.

It also happens when we see visuals. In today’s digital world, that translates into hundreds of dopamine releases a day. We can help you turn those dopamine releases into something strategic for your brand. Let’s walk through how to tap into consumer psychology and apply visual UGC to your marketing tools to reach audiences on a deeper level that results in discovery, and ultimately, purchasing.

Let authenticity guide your visual UGC strategy

We’re going to let you in on a little secret ­— your followers and customers speak to each other about your brand. This is actually a good thing. Authenticity is integral to connecting with consumers because people trust people like them.

UGC helps personalize shoppers’ experiences. This personal connection makes shoppers then feel inclined to purchase. In a global study, 93% of respondents said that friends and family are the most trusted sources of information on brands and services. To be clear, “friends and family” extends to online and social media communities. Because in today’s digital landscape, it’s easier than ever to connect with people, especially trusted voices who are just like them.

How to spot the best visual UGC

With so many people eager to capture and share photos, that doesn’t mean all of them are necessarily something you want to re-purpose for your brand marketing efforts. It may seem overwhelming, but all it takes to choosing the best visual UGC is understanding a few basic photographic principles. These are the golden rules when choosing and creating visual UGC that’s a cut above the rest:

1. Lights, camera, action! Beautiful, natural light adds an overall feeling of warmth, with can help elicit positive feelings about your brand. But don’t let your photos get washed out! Find the sweet spot for your lighting – in the morning or golden hour (usually 4 p.m.) is preferred
2. Focus and clarity. When assessing photos, make sure the product is in focus and that no competing products are in the shot. Photos shouldn’t look blurry or grainy
3. Stay in the spotlight! This is a biggie. Products in the shot should be recognizable as your own. In the case of apparel, that could be a popular item from your seasonal line, or a long-term best-seller. In terms of consumer products, your logo or easily identifiable packaging elements or product features should be clearly visible

Repurpose UGC to strengthen your brand’s e-commerce experience

Brands can and should repurpose visual UGC to strengthen their marketing materials and e-commerce experience. Ratings and reviews, for example, are essential to motivate confident purchases. In addition to your products being discovered, a positive review can drive purchase — especially when that review includes a photo.

According to a survey conducted by our friends at Influenster, 53% of consumers say they consider reviews with photos more credible than those without.

On behalf of our clients, we conducted research that highlights the power of adding visual UGC to their websites, and they’re pleased with the results:

Not only this, but a recent Total Economic Impact Study of Bazaarvoice by Forrester Consulting revealed that conversion rates increase 200% with visual UGC.

UGC is meant to be a social experience

One of the most obvious places to consider finding, leveraging, and amplifying visual UGC is social media. According to one study, 90% of consumers will buy products from a brand they follow on social media, and 75% will increase their spending with that brand. This can be especially potent on a highly visual platform such as Instagram, which has a potential advertising reach of a billion users.

This is a great way for us to gather photos from customers wearing our clothes without having to go to studios or without having to get big photo shoots to do it. Customers are wearing our products that show how much they loved it and we can get that sentiment across. It’s very much seen as improving our online experience as a whole

Site Optimization Manager, retailer

Here’s the bottom line. UGC drives awareness and builds customer loyalty. When a product feels personal to consumers, aka seeing someone like them using a product, that personal experience can drive purchase. Trust in content created by people like them — with the power of the brain’s response to visual content, and you have a winning case for visual UGC as a powerful brand-building tool.

Tips to help you start upping your visual UGC strategy

• Find consumers who are already posting imagery about your products. You can search your brand handle or a hashtag, or work with us to start collecting and curating them for you. After all, what else are friends for?
• Encourage consumers to try your new products and share their authentic photos in your marketing materials, on your social channels, and at e-commerce point-of-sale
• Keep yourself educated and up-to-speed. For example, TikTok and Twitch are wonderful emerging platforms where you can get a real taste of consumers are engaging and talking about brands
• Be inclusive in terms of the influencers and voices you feature, as well as the types of photos. Unedited content is more relatable than perfectly poised pictures, and consumers can tell the difference. Diversity “behind the camera” — that is, amongst those you entrust with helping to select great photos — will help ensure those photos are truly authentic

If you want to talk more about trust in authentic voices, visual UGC, or how to create and customize campaigns that connect with shoppers, Bazaarvoice can help. A recent Forrester Total Economic Impact Study of Bazaarvoice revealed when shoppers engage with visual UGC, the conversion rate rises to 6% for the composite organization (based on nine Bazaarvoice clients).

Learn more here. Or request a free demo below to get started.