User-generated content can be a great way to boost your connection with your audience often without having a huge budget. But, while it can be enormously potent for all kinds of reasons, in order to rate exactly how potent the material put out by UGC creators is, you need to apply some useful metrics.
In this article, we’ll talk about UGC and some of the most important metrics you can use, so you can get a focused conception of ROI for your marketing strategy. Let’s jump in.
What is UGC?
UGC refers to all types of marketing material that are not put together by corporate creatives or marketing professionals. Instead, the key defining characteristic of UGC is that it has been brought into being by customers, or “users”.
UGC works in a pretty simple way. Clients are attracted to the company’s products. The client base enjoys buying and using that company’s products. There might be an element of sharing this enjoyment with others, either just in a face-to-face encounter or perhaps a passing mention via socials.
There’s another step beyond this, though, that some customers may take. This is where a member of a company’s loyal customer community conceives and creates material expressly aimed at promoting a business, either in terms of overall brand or focused on a particular product and what it’s done for that individual. It can also take the form of influencer marketing campaigns.
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What are some benefits of UGC campaigns?
There are plenty of advantages to UGC. Here are three of them.
1. It connects
In an era when consumers have become quite savvy, the conventional approaches taken by marketing professionals can fail to cut through. In contrast, UGC is perceived by an audience as more genuine and can provide relatable social proof for why your products are great,
Take the example below from Ringcentral’s multi line phone system. By using quotes and customer stories RingCentral is able to connect with their audience by highlighting the benefits that other customers have found. Ultimately, adding a much more compelling and relatable side to their brand and product.
Screenshot taken from RingCentral
2. It creates communities
The ability to connect based on the authenticity of the message, then, coalesces communities around the brand. Again, attempts to do this through traditional marketing can look artificial and contrived. UGC creators pull this off with a more natural air.
The clothing brand, Lucy and Yak, are a great example of this. Customers can use the hashtag #InMyYaks to feature on their social media and “Join the Comfort Movement”, creating a whole community of style tips, inspiration and feel good content that engages their audience.
Screenshot taken from Instagram
3. It communicates
UGC is great for communicating product and brand information to other consumers. If a customer’s wondering: “what shoes are hot right now?” or “how do I get a virtual phone number?” a UGC creator can deliver a fresh and novel way of getting this information across.
The best example of this is, of course, Amazon. By allowing customers to ask and answer questions they create a tailored FAQ experience that directly responds to customer pain points and provides objective advice for prospective purchasers.
Screenshot taken from Amazon.co.uk
- 85% of survey respondents believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing, showing a rise from previous years.
- 75% admit to having increased the amount of content they produce and share.
- 60% of those who budget for influencer marketing intend to increase their influencer marketing budget over 2024.
Influencer marketing campaigns are all about creativity, and brands across industries have used them to connect with audiences in unique ways.
For instance, Barbie’s movie campaign kicked off long before the movie’s release. The brand teamed up with influencers, including celebrities like Dua Lipa, to start a global Instagram trend using the “This Barbie is” template. This resulted in over 1.5 million Instagram posts and huge pre-release buzz, making it one of the top-grossing films of 2023.
Read More: 5 Successful Influencer Marketing Campaign Examples To Get Inspired
4 UGC campaign metrics you must track right away
So, now we turn to how you can rate and monitor UGC effectiveness. We’ll look at some of the most telling metrics that you can start using pretty much straight away.
1. Reach metrics
As a first step, you’ll want to work out how many people your UGC post has reached because size matters when it comes to UGC. So, check the number of views and impressions of your post, and figure out whether or not it did manage to gain an audience that gives good impact potential.
2. User engagement metrics
When you’re looking to influence the attitudes and behavior of your customers, engagement is the name of the game. You’re trying to ascertain how much the material interests the audience and the response level it draws from them.
The kind of engagement you’re looking at when it comes to UGC includes the number of likes the piece of content gets, as well as the shares, comments, and retweets.
3. Conversion metrics
If you want people to do something as a result of engaging with the UGC, then you need to assess how many of them came through with the desired behavior. So, keep an eye out for things like click-through rates, conversion rates, and income generated. It’s the difference between talking to a potential customer and dealing with somebody buying something.
If your UGC creator has come up with a banging campaign on something that’s really ringing, from your company’s new multi line phone system to the most delectable donut in creation, you can do more than just enjoy it for the fine piece of work it is. You can (and should) also be rating it for its ability to produce sales.
4. Qualitative measures
Quantitative empirical measures are, of course, invaluable. But to get a fully rounded idea of the success of the UGC campaign, you should also include a qualitative aspect in your analysis. For instance, you can use techniques such as NLP algorithm application to assess the sentiment of a piece of UGC.
You can also employ the same approach to monitor the language that customers use, as well as post-campaign exposure. Positive responses are what you want, as they show that customers have liked what they’ve encountered. Negative responses tell a different story, wherein the campaign has failed to engage with the target audience.
The more you can monitor customer communications following a campaign, the more useful it will be to you. To stay on top of these, you can use social listening tools provided by keyhole.co. These give sentiment analysis as well as more quantitative measures.
Also, pay attention to direct feedback from customers. It will tell you where a campaign has succeeded, and will also tell you, crucially, where it’s failed and, in all likelihood, why.
For this kind of analysis, it’s also good to connect as many information sources as possible to give you a fully-rounded picture of the traffic out there. Link up with databases using API integration, for instance. It’s a way of connecting different apps and programs so that they can talk to each other.
UGC metrics for different channels
From websites to socials, UGC creators can use a wide range of channels to reach customers, and you’ll find that different metrics work best for each type of content.
Websites
Here’s what you should be monitoring when it comes to website UGC:
- Dwell time – how long do visitors stick around on the site, experiencing the UGC?
- Bounce rate – how many visitors take one look, then leave straight away?
- CTA CTR – is the UGC encouraging people to click on the CTA?
Mobile ecommerce
These metrics are especially applicable to mobile ecommerce UGC:
- Conversion rate – what proportion of the visitors end up buying?
- Churn rate – how many buyers are dropping off over a given period?
- Cart abandonment rate – how many customers are leaving the process prematurely?
Email remains a very popular means of reaching customers with UGC, and here are the key metrics for this approach:
- Opening rate – did the email even get opened?
- CTR – of those that got opened, how many resulted in a customer following a link within?
- Unsubscribe rate – how many recipients elected not to receive any more emails?
OOH displays
Digital displays are a high-profile medium for UGC creators to show their stuff, and these metrics can be used to assess success:
- Engagement rate – often, OOH displays will invite interaction via a QR code, and this metric will tell you how many responded.
- Customer acquisition – simply, how many customers the OOH display delivered. This is easier to discern the more specifically focussed the display.
- Inspired content – great displays give large-scale social proof, and encourage further content from other UGC creators, creating a brand community.
Social media
This is probably the area with the most input from user-generated content creators, so it’s important to make sure you’re using the right metrics. Thankfully, for all social media platforms, from X analysis to Insta insights, there are some great keyhole.co tools available:
- Profile visits and impressions – how many people who saw the content went on to view the profile?
- Growth in follower count – how many extra followers did the campaign deliver?
- Hashtag reach – how widely is your hashtag being used (some sites such as keyhole.co give you hashtag analysis tools)?
- Content resharing – how many people shared your content with their followers?
Measuring up
UGC creators can produce some truly outstanding work in the form of high-quality content that cuts through and really performs. They can also produce ostensibly clever and creative content that’s fun to watch but somehow misses the mark. You now have the tools at your disposal so that you can tell the difference.
Using the tools provided by keyhole.co, you’ll be in a great position to discern which UGC campaign materials are working optimally.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How often should I analyze UGC campaign metrics?
Ideally, you should try to review these metrics bi-weekly during active campaigns to monitor performance and implement timely adjustments. On the other hand, for ongoing content strategies, monthly reviews can provide a good balance between timely insights and significant data accumulation.
2. What tools should I use to measure and interpret these UGC metrics?
Use analytics tools such as Google Analytics for reach and conversions, social media platforms' native analytics for engagement, and sentiment analysis software, like Keyhole, to gauge audience emotions. These tools help in collecting data efficiently and provide actionable insights to optimize your UGC strategy.
3. Why is user sentiment analysis valuable in UGC campaigns?
Sentiment analysis helps measure the emotional tone of user comments and feedback, providing insights into how your audience perceives your brand and content. Positive sentiments can bolster brand loyalty, while negative sentiments offer a chance to address concerns and improve future campaigns.
