Why Customer-Driven Storytelling is Supercharging Shopify Brand Growth with Okendo

Today’s Shopify brands face more competition than ever. Customers aren’t just looking for products—they’re seeking trustworthy brands with authentic stories. That’s why mid-market DTC companies are turning to Okendo, a customer marketing platform designed specifically for Shopify, to harness the power of user-generated content. With features like reviews, ratings, photos, and video testimonials, Okendo helps brands turn everyday shoppers into their most powerful advocates—and it’s driving serious growth.

Why Okendo’s Customer Profiles Are a Game-Changer

One feature setting Okendo apart is its dynamic customer profiles. Unlike basic review apps, Okendo allows Shopify merchants to gather detailed information about their customers through attributes like age, skin type, body shape, usage frequency, and more—all submitted alongside reviews.

So what’s the big deal? It’s personalization at scale. Brands can now uncover deep, actionable insights that drive campaign targeting, product improvements, and better CX.

Here’s how customer profiles create value:

• Hyper-relevant social proof: Display reviews from customers with similar attributes to future buyers, increasing trust and conversions.
• Smarter segmentation: Use attribute data to fuel email flows and remarketing campaigns within Klaviyo or Meta Ads.
• Product development insights: Identify patterns in customer feedback tied to specific demographics or use cases.

These rich profiles turn what was once static review content into a strategic data source that marketing and product teams can tap into across their tech stack.

Challenge: Standing Out in a Crowded DTC Market

Brands selling everything from skincare to supplements to athleisure are booming on Shopify. But many are discovering that performance marketing alone no longer delivers the predictable ROAS it once did—especially with rising CAC and tighter margins.

To scale sustainably, DTC brands need to increase conversion rates and AOV while reducing dependence on paid media. That’s where Okendo comes in. By embedding customer voices (and faces) directly into PDPs and email flows, brands increase buyer confidence—without increasing ad spend.

With Okendo, Shopify brands achieve:

• 3-8% lift in conversion rates on product pages featuring UGC-rich reviews
• Boosted email engagement with personalized reviews and photo content in post-purchase flows
• Higher AOV by showcasing product compatibility or results across diverse customer types

Reviews become more than just checkboxes—they become scalable assets across your entire eCommerce funnel.

Leveraging UGC Beyond the Product Page

Successful Shopify brands are no longer siloing customer feedback. With Okendo’s seamless integrations across the eCommerce tech stack, UGC becomes a performance tool across all channels.

Here’s where high-growth brands apply Okendo content:

• Email Marketing: Sync reviews directly into Klaviyo flows (e.g., abandoned cart emails that include photos and quotes from happy customers).
• Google Shopping and Meta Ads: Use high-rated product reviews and UGC snippets to boost CTRs and social proof in ads.
• Landing Pages: Create custom-curated review sections by persona or product category, increasing relatability and trust.

Okendo moves the needle by creating a full-funnel content library—powered by your biggest fans. And with AI-driven review moderation and automation, the platform scales with even the busiest Shopify Plus brand.

How Top Brands Are Using Okendo to Scale

Let’s look at a few real-world examples of how successful brands are using Okendo to hit their growth goals:

• Truly Beauty: This cult beauty brand used Okendo to generate over 70,000 visual reviews and increased PDP conversion by 11%.
• The Sill: By collecting product-specific reviews with lifestyle images, The Sill created personalized UGC showcases that improved buyer conversion and reduced returns.
• Kosas: The clean beauty disruptor used customer attributes and reviews to gather key product development feedback—leading to a data-backed expansion of shade ranges.

These brands highlight how reviews aren’t just “nice to have”—they’re critical infrastructure for DTC success. And it all starts with implementing the right platform.

How to Get Started with Okendo

If you’re on Shopify or Shopify Plus and looking to power up your customer experience, getting started with Okendo is fast and scalable.

Here are our top tips for onboarding successfully:

1. Import existing reviews: Whether from Yotpo, Judge.me, or elsewhere, make sure your historic content transfers seamlessly.
2. Customize customer attributes: Think about what demographics or usage patterns matter most to your buyers and gather that data with reviews.
3. Automate review collection: Set up post-purchase email flows to maximize review responses at scale.
4. Design with intent: Strategically display reviews and UGC with Okendo’s customizable widgets and layouts on PDPs, collection pages, and email.
5. Loop in your dev or agency: For advanced design or integration, bring in experts early. (Need help? Keep reading.)

Ready to Scale with UGC-Powered Growth?

As Shopify brands push beyond $5M in revenue, every touchpoint with the customer matters. Okendo delivers a powerful combination of data, storytelling, and automation that helps brands unlock higher conversions, stronger retention, and a more efficient marketing engine. Whether you're migrating from a legacy review tool or starting fresh, Okendo empowers growing brands to stand out through their customers.

Need help implementing or optimizing Okendo in your Shopify store? Contact Gapstow—a trusted Shopify expert agency—to get it done right.