How to measure UGC ROI: key metrics and real examples

UGC is not an expense—repeat this 50 times. Like Bart Simpson.

It’s an investment with measurable returns in sales, leads and trust. If you haven’t tried it yet, at HICARI you can publish your brief today and start measuring your ROI within a matter of days.

UGC has become the driving force behind many digital strategies. Its authenticity builds trust, reduces purchase friction and multiplies conversions in social ads, landing pages and PDPs. But one key question arises: how do we measure UGC ROI?

Then we find LinkedIn full of gurus like Andrés saying it’s worse than advertising and doesn’t sell. Of course, a copywriter who creates static creatives feels threatened by it, ahem, ahem.

In this article, I’ll show you the most important metrics, how to calculate the return and practical examples so you can demonstrate the real value of UGC to your team or client (if you create UGC videos at an agency).

Return on investment (ROI) measures whether what you spend creating or purchasing UGC generates more revenue than it costs. The classic formula:

ROI = (Revenue generated – Investment cost) / Investment cost x 100

With UGC, revenue can come from:

• Direct conversions in paid media campaigns (Social Ads: Meta, TikTok; Google Ads…)
• Sales attributed to landing pages with UGC videos.
• Increased CTR and engagement that improves overall campaign performance.

• Conversion rate (CVR): the percentage of users who purchase after seeing a UGC ad.
• CPA (Cost per acquisition): how much it costs to acquire a customer using UGC compared with another type of ad.

• CTR (Click Through Rate): UGC ads tend to have a CTR up to 3x higher than corporate ads, although we have seen figures as high as 5x for some HICARI clients.
• ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): how much you earn for every euro invested in UGC ads. If you’re going to measure the actual return of paid campaigns, this is the true KPI you need to consider.

We define KPIs such as:

• Video watch time.
• Interactions (likes, comments, shares).
• Save rate (on Instagram or TikTok).

And yes… it can be a brand campaign where the objectives aren’t sales, but KPIs related to reach, awareness or simply the impressions generated by promoted UGC content.

• Time on page: users stay longer when UGC is present. It’s simple: they watch a video that showcases the service or product, or explains its benefits or use (UGC benefits).
• Bounce rate: it decreases when real testimonials or reviews are shown.
• Conversions on PDPs/landing pages with UGC vs. without UGC. It answers questions and conveys trust and authenticity.

• Customers who trust UGC tend to make repeat purchases. That’s why HICARI offers video packs that help you save on the cost per video.
• LTV (Lifetime Value) measures how much a customer spends throughout their relationship with a brand. It’s extremely difficult to attribute this to “a creative” in a paid campaign, whether it’s a static image or a UGC video.

1. Define the total cost of UGC. Production (e.g. package on the HICARI UGC platform: €399 for 3–6 videos). Distribution: paid media investment.
2. Measure the results generated: Direct revenue attributed to UGC campaigns. Increase in landing page conversions. Improvement in CTR and reduction in CPA.
3. Apply the ROI formula

Example:

• Monthly investment: €350 in videos + €2,000 in ads = €2,350.
• Revenue generated: €7,000.
• ROI = (7,000 – 2,350) / 2,350 x 100 = 198%

• Fashion ecommerce: adding customer video reviews to PDPs increased conversion by 27%.
• SaaS startup: used “quick testimonial” UGC videos in Facebook Ads, reducing its CPA by 35%.
• Cosmetics brand: with UGC unboxing videos in TikTok Ads, achieved a 4x ROAS compared with campaigns using corporate creatives.
• Online course company: creating a testimonial video explaining the career opportunities provided by the course increased the course purchase conversion rate by 12%.
• Tourism company: uses UGC videos monthly on its social media to create valuable content, entertain its audience and attract new followers, achieving +300% reach on Instagram.

1. Define clear objectives before launching campaigns (sales, leads, awareness).
2. Tag UGC vs corporate campaigns to compare results. In other words, test corporate creatives against UGC videos.
3. Measure CPA, CTR and ROAS separately.
4. Run A/B tests with landing pages with and without UGC.
5. Calculate the impact on CAC and LTV.

UGC content on organic social media does not always translate into immediate sales, but it does generate visibility, community and trust, which then feed the funnel.

• Reach: how many people see UGC compared with corporate content.
• Engagement rate (ER): (likes + comments + shares) / reach x 100.
• Community growth: increase in followers after UGC campaigns.
• Web traffic from social: visits reaching the website from UGC posts.
• Leads captured: registrations or direct interactions (e.g. forms, downloads, subscriptions). Yes, social media also drives sales, no matter how much your content creation agency tells you that it is not the main objective.

• Cost: €350 in UGC per month (3–6 videos/month)
• Results after 30 days:
  • +200 Instagram followers.
  • 1,200 website visits from organic social.
  • 10 qualified leads generated.
  • 1 direct sale
• Estimated lead value: €10/lead → €3,000.
• ROI = (3,000 – 350) / 350 x 100 = 757%

Let’s look at an example of pure sales ROI based on an investment (NOT an expense) of €350 in the 3–6 videos:

→ How to do SEO with videos

UGC in SEO can take the form of:

• Videos embedded in landing pages or PDPs (learn here: using UGC in ecommerce)
• Videos uploaded to platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and ranked in Google’s SERP.
• Review and testimonial content indexed for “{brand} reviews”.
• Optimized YouTube videos that generate organic traffic. You can check in the analytics whether the video has received SEO traffic from Google (under “direct traffic” in YouTube analytics options).

• Incremental organic traffic: new visits after adding UGC videos to PDPs or the blog. Associated with an increase in average time spent on the website (both KPIs should increase).
• Organic conversion rate: % of users who convert from pages with UGC vs. without UGC.
• CTR in Google/YouTube results: if the video appears in the SERP, it attracts more clicks.
• Backlinks and shares generated by the content.
• Revenue attributed to organic traffic with UGC.

• Cost: €756 (HICARI's Performance Plan) for UGC (10 videos for PDPs).
• Results after 3 months: +25% organic traffic on optimized pages.
• ROI = (60,000 – 1,000) / 1,000 x 100 = 5,900%

And of course, influencers must work better, right? RIGHT?. Influencer VS UGC creator.

Measuring UGC ROI is not limited to paid campaigns: it can and should also be calculated for organic social media and SEO, where the impact can be enormous in the medium and long term.

• In organic, UGC increases reach, engagement and qualified lead generation.
• In SEO, it strengthens authority, improves CTR on Google and multiplies conversions on landing pages and PDPs.

The key is to define measurable objectives (followers, leads, traffic, sales) and assign a monetary value to each one. If you want to test it, start small: try a set of UGC videos on your social media and PDPs and monitor performance for 30-90 days. The results speak for themselves.