Getting customers to click “buy now” doesn’t start at checkout, it starts the moment they first see your brand. While Krepling Pay delivers fast, frictionless payment experiences that convert browsers into buyers, we know that moving customers through the funnel requires the right content strategy long before they reach the payment page. That’s where brkfst.io, the leading UGC platform for retail and ecommerce brands, comes in. 

We sat down with Joe Yakuel, CEO and Founder of brkfst.io, to talk about where content makes or breaks the path to purchase, what brands get wrong about creative production, and how to identify when your content is helping or hurting conversion before customers even reach your checkout page.

Krepling Pay: Where in the buyer journey does UGC have the biggest impact on purchase completion?

Joe Yakuel: Mid-funnel. Early funnel UGC builds interest and social proof. But it’s in the mid-funnel where people are asking real questions: How does this fit? Will it work for me? What does it actually look like in use?

That’s where creator content outperforms highly produced brand content. It doesn’t feel staged. It feels like proof. That authenticity builds trust. The best mid-funnel UGC doesn’t just engage, it directly answers the questions that move someone closer to buying.

Krepling Pay: What part of creative production do brands overengineer? What part do they underbuild?

Joe Yakuel: Most brands overengineer the idea and underbuild the system. They obsess over the concept but don’t think about how that concept becomes 10 pieces of content across 5 channels in under a week.

Great ideas don’t matter if you can’t execute on them. The brands that scale creative are the ones that build the systems to support it. They know that operational strength is what turns creativity into actual performance.

Krepling Pay: What signals tell you when content is helping or hurting conversion at checkout?

Joe Yakuel: If bounce rate is high and traffic is qualified, that could point to a content issue, but it’s not the only possibility. It could also be a PDP issue, a load time problem, or a mismatch in targeting. Same with return rates: if content overpromises or misses key details, that’s one explanation, but it could also reflect gaps in product or fulfillment.

The key is isolating variables. If CPC is strong but conversion is weak, and PDPs and product quality check out, then content might be where the gap is. Creative should close the distance between interest and action. If numbers are off, start by asking what the content may be missing, but don’t stop there.

Krepling Pay: Brands obsess over optimizing checkout, but what’s the creative equivalent of a “leaky cart”? Where do you see brands losing people before the conversion even starts?

Joe Yakuel: Weak creative gets ignored. Misaligned creative gets skipped. But the biggest leak happens when content doesn’t speak to what the customer actually needs or expects in that moment. That’s where the real drop-off begins.

Imagine you’re selling cookware. If your ad only shows professional chefs in pristine kitchens, it might impress some people, but most everyday home cooks won’t see themselves in it. That kind of disconnect can cause drop-off long before checkout. If the content doesn’t reflect your customer’s reality, they’ll assume it’s not for them and move on.