12 Best Strategies to Collect UGC Content for eCommerce Brands (2025)

💬 UGC can be incredibly helpful for various campaigns and assets across the funnel, but where brands/marketers can struggle with is around collecting content generated by customers/influencers.

So, this is a tactical checklist of areas/ways you can try to collect more UGC cost-effectively.

Sharing various low-cost initiatives for UGC collection to help fuel TOF/MOF eCommerce acquisition

💬 With many of the below, I also share great examples I like, as well as UGC software to check out which can help with collecting user generated content from customers/influencers (or anyone who loves/advocates the brand).

There are many platform solutions out there that can help with UGC content collection, but it becomes even more effective when combining with review collection.

With the platform, you can collect UGC content with reviews and have them embedded automatically on your store (awesome integration if you're on Shopify).

The embeds look amazing and huge CRO trigger (social proof) to help convince more customers to buy - simply the best content format for accelerating trust/credibility.  

Then, you can distribute your reviews through the likes of the ads platforms.

Make sure to check out Okendo here

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I've talked about it in a few checklists about the power and huge value loyalty/rewards programs can bring to eCommerce businesses (for LTV/AOV, etc), and it becomes even more powerful when it comes to engaging customers to share experiences and content.

Naturally, consumers are motivated for "easily obtainable" rewards like sharing content online (no brainer to incl. as an incentive), which can lead to awesome network effects and referral virality.

One of the best examples I've come across from a brand as part of their rewards/loyalty program is Coco & Eve (see page here).

• You can see in the middle of the page under "ways to earn points" that they have various incentive options to earn points - with 3 in particular great for UGC, especially video and photo reviews. Kudos to the Coco & Eve team for this as I'm sure they're seeing good results. :)

One of my fave content formats are viral comps, which can be a huge strategy initiative when done right for eComm brands.

I recommend checking out platforms like Upviral, Gleam and Vyper, which are specialised software for setting up points/entry-based systems for special competitions.

You can even check out some of the case studies both platforms have - and you can see some brands have some pretty epic results.

• One of the platforms of choice Gleam is quite nice in terms of UX I've found.
• Great embed feature (which looks really good)
• Lots of various rewards incentives you can setup as part of a campaign (with key social proof submissions being one of them - i.e. post on IG, submit photo, etc.)
• Verify actions via social networks (pretty good feature)

Gotta make sure to test out Gleam if you're considering doing comps!

One of the "hottest" content formats to collect UGC on at scale has to be TikTok videos - obvious for huge reach potential as a channel, but also the sheer quality of creative by TikTok users via video is awesome. Certainly some of the best video content for brands on socials I've seen is on this platform.

And the big brands can see the potential too!

Easily setup a branded hashtag challenge, where you ask users to create content about a product/service, and then tag your profile.

If you're looking/researching for different competition tools (which incl. Tiktok capabilities) for your eComm brand, check out this free guide I put together with viral comp software.

Another hashtag challenge idea is to promote via stories, or even run a UGC submission process via IG stories - of course, still do promotion via the feed too!

I love IG stories especially because of the engagement format.

In relation to submission idea or "enter to win" type comps, simply create 'stitch-type' videos of different examples of top content that can help motivate users to submit content via a LP.

You don't always have to run a competition in order to collect good quality UGC content.

Whilst it can certainly help with having incentives for motivation, just ensuring your dedicated branded hashtag is top of mind can go a long way to getting customers to share content.

Simply ask them to share content via your branded hashtag by highlighting if often via your social accounts (like your bio and as part of your core hashtags for feed-based posts), and even sharing it on the likes of email automation flows and newsletters.

You can see this below from Pretty Little Thing (see profile here).

Relating to the previous points, utilise embed tools (or do a custom embed) of your top content shared via TikTok and Instagram (or even the likes of Pinterest).

It's incredibly helpful for storytelling to new potential customers and for social proof (trust/credibility).

Place embeds on the likes of your homepage, but also key pages like your product pages, collection pages, specific-campaign landing pages. Plus, if possible, have an embed via your email service provider as a widget.

A good software option is EmbedSocial (here's an example of an IG feed embed).

And with EmbedSocial, you can even do embeds for your Instagram Shop, like this below (view more info here).

One of the best ways to collect lots of UGC content is through events, where you can specifically ask/request and encourage attendees to share content at the event.

One strategy to consider for optimising resources and impact if running a general brand contest in conjunction with a wider-scale event.

Tip: using QR codes is a great idea to encourage submission (especially tying in some sort of offer like "go in the draw to win X", or "receive an instant $10 gift card").

A no brainer this one and in many ways stating the obvious here, but create lots of awesome content with influencers you work with.

This becomes a really effective strategy when you have a solid workflow and resources for repurposing content for things like video mashups and other image/video-based edits to share on ads platforms, website/landing pages, and other channels.

Another event-type initiative for collecting content is through engagement-based events like Q&A. Simply remind users to share questions and collect content as the event unfolds.

Another UGC-related idea I thought about, especially for competitions or special campaigns, are branded 'frames' - like what you see with Snapchat competitions.

Naturally, run these campaigns with the objective that the most creative submissions wins something (so that you can encourage more participation).

We all know of QR codes and how popular they've been used over the years, and the same can apply here for offline marketing activities.

Why not create an offer for those who leave a review/UGC piece of content from their experience? Or combine QR code as part of the entry of an entry into a competition?

In terms of software, check out Taggbox (which does embeds and widgets as well) - learn more about their social wall feature here.

I like the idea of having a social wall, especially during an event. :)