Case Study: Sigma Beauty achieves 16x ROI and nearly 4x time-on-site with Curalate

The Beauty of UGC Using Authentic Fan Photos to Drive Sales

Sigma Beauty, founded in 2009, is primarily an ecommerce-driven cosmetics brand with only one standalone store, so it struggled to show how products look in real life. Stock and branded images underperformed, making it difficult to convert shoppers who couldn't try products in person, so the brand leaned on its passionate fan base and influencers to fill that gap.

Sigma partnered with Curalate to make Instagram shoppable (Like2Buy) and to surface user-generated content on-site (Fanreel), adding an on-site upload widget and hashtag-driven curation. The results: ~16K monthly UGC submissions, 24K monthly clicks from Instagram to product pages, Fanreel drove 20K pageviews in 30 days with users clicking 10.5 images per session, nearly a 4x lift in time-on-site (3:19 → 12:25), and an overall 16x Fanreel ROI, with Instagram becoming a top-four traffic source.

Sigma Beauty

Amber Mulle

Social Media Strategist