Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where individuals look to others’ actions to determine how they should behave in uncertain situations. Although the term was introduced over four decades ago by Robert Cialdini, american professor of psychology on Arizona State University, it is still very popular and eagerly used in online digital marketing narratives. It is so, as it concerns one of the core principles of human behavior, hence, also… customer behavior.
Leveraging social proof is seen as a shortcut to more leads and more sales. And no surprise here. Just to say that 70-99% of clients read product reviews before purchase, while a majority of them buy only if they are positive (Forbes, 2024). Rankings, awards, influencer opinions, certifications, reviews and testimonials – all of these are types of social proof utilized commonly in internet marketing.
From this post, you’ll learn:
- how to make the most out of social proof,
- what kind of benefits you can expect using it,
- and how to create an effective one.
You’ll also see some ideal examples and get to know how to measure its success.
Hungry for new knowledge? Let’s blast off!
What is Social Proof in Digital Marketing?
Social proof in digital marketing is a psychological propensity to rely on the actions, opinions, or endorsements of others to make decisions. In marketing strategies, social proof acts as persuasive evidence that a product or service is popular, effective, or worth investing in. By showcasing positive feedback or demonstrating widespread approval, businesses can reduce hesitation, enhance brand reputation, and drive conversions.
Social proof is typically woven into trust signals, such as:
- reviews,
- testimonials,
- influencer recommendations,
- user-generated content (e.g., shared photos or videos showcasing products),
- case studies,
- ratings,
- awards and certifications,
- counters (e.g., displaying customer or purchase numbers).
All these elements can build credibility and positively influence potential customers.
What are the Benefits of Social Proof in Digital Marketing?
The benefits of social proof in digital marketing include increased trust and authority, which typically translates to more conversions, a boost in user engagement, a broadened audience, and enhanced client retention. Let’s scrutinize these and a few related perks to give you a more detailed picture of how social proof works and why it is so widely used.
Builds Trust and Credibility
Social proof elements, such as testimonials, reviews, and user stories, provides evidence that others have had positive experiences with your product or service. This reassures potential customers and reduces the perceived risk of trying something new, making them more likely to trust your brand.
Increases Conversion Rates
When people see others benefiting from a product or service, they feel more confident in their purchase decision. Social proof acts as a psychological trigger, encouraging hesitant visitors to take action, whether it’s signing up, subscribing, or making a purchase.
Enhances Brand Authority
Endorsements from well-known figures, influencers, or industry leaders position your brand as credible and trustworthy. This heightened authority differentiates you from competitors and strengthens your standing within your niche or market.
Encourages User Engagement
Social proof stimulates interactions such as likes, shares, and comments, especially when users see others engaging with your content. This activity amplifies your reach, helps build a sense of community, and boosts your brand’s presence across digital platforms.
Reduces Buyer Hesitation
Seeing others’ positive experiences helps alleviate doubts and uncertainties that potential buyers may have. Social proof provides the assurance they need to feel comfortable completing their purchase or engaging with your service.
Promotes FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
Elements like “Only 3 left in stock” or “50 others are viewing this now” leverage social proof to create urgency. By highlighting popularity or scarcity, you can push customers to act quickly to avoid missing out.
Supports SEO Efforts
Positive reviews and customer feedback enhance your website’s trustworthiness in the eyes of search engines. As a result, you rank higher, attract more organic traffic, and benefit from improved visibility.
Expands Social Reach
When customers share their experiences online, they amplify your brand’s reach. User-generated content, in particular, is highly shareable and can act as organic advertising, drawing in new audiences.
Improves Product Perception
Showcasing reviews, ratings, or testimonials highlights specific benefits and advantages of your offerings. This shapes a positive perception of your products, making them more appealing to potential buyers.
Increases Customer Retention
By presenting existing customers’ positive experiences and showcasing their loyalty, social proof fosters trust and strengthens relationships with your audience. When customers see ongoing praise and engagement around your brand, it reassures them of their decision to stick with you. Loyalty programs that highlight rewards or testimonials from other dedicated customers further reinforce this bond, creating a cycle of trust and long-term commitment.
How to Create Social Proof for Digital Marketing?
To create social proof in digital marketing you have to persuade your target audience with elements boosting your (or your company, products, etc.) presence, credibility and perceived value. You can do it in countless ways. Here are several quick hints to guide your efforts:
- Highlight happy customers. Start with sharing customer reviews, testimonials, or prominent video feedback (if you already collected any). Real experiences resonate the most and act as a kind of… persuasive dynamite!
- Show off your numbers. Have in mind big milestones? Let people know. “10,000+ satisfied clients” or “1M downloads” screams trustworthiness.
- Share stories that matter. Create case studies or success stories showing how your service or product delivers results. People connect with relatable wins.
- Let influencers talk for you! Collaborate with brand advocates and famous influencers to amplify your credibility and acquire new audiences. When someone people trust vouches for you, it’s worth its weight in gold.
- Engage on social media. Repost mentions, reviews, or photos from your customers. User-generated content often serves as free validation.
- Show media features. Bragging rights? Flaunt those “As Seen On” or awards logos where everyone can see them.
- Leverage real-time updates. Popups like “Anna just purchased X!” or “5 people are looking at this now” create FOMO and trust. Both of which drive them firmly to buy.
- Encourage reviews. This point is so simple yet can yield you quite a lot! Just ask happy customers to leave reviews where it counts – Google, Yelp, or your industry’s favorite platform.
- Use visual proof. Photos or videos of people using your product/services feel fresh, real and true. Showcase them on your website, social platforms, or where your audience is most active.
- Certify and secure. Show badges for certifications, guarantees, or secure checkout processes. People love to see that you’ve got credibility.
With appropriate tools, implementing social proof can take no more than 5 minutes (OptinMonster, 2024).
How to Use Social Proof in Digital Marketing?
To use social proof in online marketing:
- showcase customer testimonials, reviews, and case studies prominently on your website, social media channels, Google Business profiles and review portals;
- leverage trust badges, certifications, or social media follower counts (alternatively, client counts, purchases number, etc.) to establish credibility and encourage conversions;
- collaborate with influencers or display user-generated content to highlight real-world engagement with your brand.
How to Measure Social Proof in Digital Marketing?
To measure social proof, compare the conversion rates (CR) on your pages or social media platforms before and after implementing its elements like testimonials, reviews, or opinions. Or, if you already use them, you may temporarily remove them to check the CR without them. Then, you can investigate whether the CR was higher with social proof present or absent. This way you’ll determine if the impact of social proof is positive or negative.
If you’d like to know how strong this impact is, you should compare conversion rates of different versions of your social proof. For instance, on the web page, you may measure the conversion rate of the testimonials section placed at the top of the page against the star ratings section positioned in the middle height of your page. Of course, you should test variant A first and then test variant B – if you put both sections online at the same time, you’ll be unable to make a comparison (unless you run an A/B test).
You may be wondering what I mean by conversion here. Well, it depends on where you use social proof. On websites or landing pages, conversion usually comes down to:
- purchases,
- form submissions,
- sign-ups,
- button clicks.
On social media platforms, the following items are most often considered conversions:
- social shares,
- likes,
- comments,
- and follower growth.
Aside from the aforementioned, you can track social proof by analyzing customer reviews, feedback, and opinions on your product or service published online, e.g., on your Google Business profile or review platforms such as Trustpilot, G2, Tripadvisor, Product Hunt, etc. This should help you answer the fundamental question: Is your product/service valuable/credible enough in the target audience’s eyes?
7 Good Social Proof Examples in Online Marketing
We’ve just covered some basic theory. This is where you should jump into the practice to learn more about real-life social proof applications. Let’s glance at a few examples from digital marketing area.
1. Include Customer Testimonials like MailerLite
Testimonials are statements or endorsements provided by satisfied customers, clients, or users who share their positive experiences with a product, service, or brand. They are perceived as authentic because they highlight real-world success stories and outcomes.
Testimonials can take various forms, including written reviews, video testimonials, or quotes displayed on landing pages, web pages and promotional materials. By showcasing genuine customer satisfaction, they help influence potential buyers’ decisions and strengthen the brand’s reputation.
MailerLite provides a great example of how to properly use testimonials. They not merely cited a relevant opinion on their landing page, but also took care to:
- make it stand out through the dedicated section,
- share the reviewer’s position to prove he is a real person,
- use the photo of the reviewer to give it a human touch,
- double the impact using numbers (of creators and businesses using their platform),
- redirect users to additional opinions using the “Read more stories” button.
2. Tap Into Expert Authority like Surfer SEO
On social media accounts, social proof is often provided by influencer marketing, especially in the fashion, health & beauty and travel industries. But what about other ones like, for example, software & technology, finance or real estate? In these cases, nothing outshines expert authority.
Check out how Surfer SEO incorporates social proof in their campaign. They promote one of their blog articles on Facebook using a roster of experts served in an appealing design. The message they are trying to convey may sound:
“Hey, those numerous authorities write for us, so they trust us (and… pssst… our product), so… maybe you should too?”.
3. Use Trust Badges on Website like Landingi
Trust badges are visual symbols displayed on websites to reassure visitors about security, credibility, or quality. They serve as a powerful tool in digital marketing by building confidence in potential customers, thus encouraging them to complete transactions (sign-ups, etc.) or share personal information.
Trust badges include certification emblems, payment security seals, money-back guarantee symbols and similar entities. By reducing perceived risks, they play a crucial role in boosting conversions and enhancing overall user trust. They are frequently gathered in separate sections on web pages – just like in the following example by Landingi:
4. Involve Celebrities and Influencers like Adidas
Influencers, stars, or celebrity endorsements are perfect examples of social proof used in the sports niche. Add to this the following sport social proof use cases, all of which they can be involved:
- team sponsorships,
- branded gear promotions,
- advertisements featuring athletes,
- ambassador roles for sports brands,
- hosting of sponsored events,
- participation in promotional campaigns.
They are all an effective way to increase engagement metrics due to the viral potential induced by the popularity of famous people. Adidas tries to acquire new audiences (and transform current one-time customers to… repeat customers) by presenting their sportswear modeled by sports heroes, namely, popular Manchester United footballers:
5. Leverage UGC like Nikon
User-generated content (UGC) is a type of social proof important particularly in creative industries. It refers to any material created by users that you can showcase on your website or social media. It includes especially:
- photos,
- videos,
- comments,
- stories,
- hashtags,
- memes,
- fan art.
What is great about UGC, it can cause bandwagon effect. Users see content created by other users and feel inspired to create and share their own, amplifying your brand’s reach. Your potential customer base is still on the rise.
Obviously, to transform this kind of things into the trust to your brand (not only generate pure fun), it should be related to your offerings. This is why Nikon encourages their community to share photos and videos they made with their gear calling them “creators”:
6. Bet on Reviews, Ratings and Certifications like Osteria la Fenice
Reviews, ratings, and certifications also reflect customer satisfaction and industry recognition. They are often presented in the form of star ratings, graphical icons, award symbols or simple review scores. This kind of social proof is frequently seen in the tourism and restaurant industries. The best practices for using it encompass:
- prominent placement (they should be clearly visible and catch eyes),
- use across multiple channels (from websites through social media profiles to Google My Business and review portals),
- mixing different elements (review counters, testimonials, certification badges, etc.).
Unmatched examples are Tripadvisor reviews or Michelin stars. Both are eagerly used by Osteria la Fenice, famous German restaurant specializing in Italian cuisine:
7. Share Customer Success Stories like Salesforce
Customer success stories or case studies are about your previous or current customers who achieved success with your products or services. They are one of the strongest methods to validate your marketing strategy and brand narrative. Here are a bunch of tips you should apply to nail this type of social proof:
- focus on challenges and solutions – highlight the problem and how your product or service resolved it;
- use data and metrics – include numbers to show tangible impact and results;
- incorporate quotes – add authentic client testimonials for credibility and personal touch;
- keep it visual – use graphs, images, and design elements to make it engaging and easy to skim;
- be relatable – tailor the story to resonate with your target audience’s needs and pain points;
- highlight unique selling points – showcase what sets your product or service apart.
- end with a CTA – encourage readers/viewers to take action, like contacting you or learning more.
And the ideal example by Salesforce for your reference:
8. Amplify Social Proof and Local SEO with Rating Captain Local
Social proof is a fundamental element of successful digital marketing, helping businesses build trust and influence customer decisions. When paired with a robust local SEO strategy, it becomes even more impactful. Rating Captain Local empowers businesses to maximize their local visibility while enhancing their reputation through authentic customer interactions.
This tool not only tracks keyword performance and manages listings but also simplifies the process of leveraging social proof. It allows you to showcase positive reviews and customer feedback effectively while automating personalized responses to strengthen trust and engagement.
Here’s how Rating Captain Local supports social proof in your strategy:
- Generate Tailored Responses: Automatically craft thoughtful, empathetic replies to customer reviews that build trust and authenticity. Customize tone, length, and keywords to align with your brand voice, ensuring every interaction reflects your identity.
- Review Management: Highlight customer feedback prominently, reinforcing your brand’s credibility and encouraging others to follow suit.
- Local Listing Optimization: Keep your business information accurate and visible on platforms like Google Maps, where potential customers frequently search for recommendations.
- Competitor Insights: Learn from competitors’ strategies to make your reviews and ratings stand out even more.
By combining local SEO expertise with the persuasive power of social proof, Rating Captain Local ensures your business attracts and retains customers effectively.
What are the Best Tools for Tracking Social Proof in Digital Marketing?
The best tools for tracking social proof in digital marketing are A/B testing console and EventTracker by Landingi, Hootsuite and WP Review Pro.
The first two solutions do the job on landing pages. A/B testing allows you to test different variations of social proof to identify the best-performing one. You can test, for example:
- testimonials placement (e.g., testing the position of customer testimonials at the top of the landing page versus the middle or bottom to see which drives more conversions),
- review formats (e.g., comparing a text-only review section with one that includes customer photos or video testimonials to determine which format is more engaging),
- trust badges and certifications (you can, for example, experiment with displaying trust badges, e.g., “Certified by XYZ” or “Secure Payment Guaranteed, versus no badges, to measure their impact on sign-ups or purchases).
In contrast, EventTracker enables detecting potential misplacements of social proof elements. It shows you, among others, scrolling depth on your landing pages. This way you can find out whether or not users are likely to notice your social proof at all.
Hootsuite is a universal tool for tracking user behavior across multiple platforms. It provides insights into how users interact with content, including social proof. By understanding the patterns of these interactions, marketers can adjust social proof elements in terms of placement and copy to ramp up credibility.
WP Review Pro is a must for WordPress sites. It helps you collect and display reviews and ratings and track user interaction with them based on precise data. With these insights, optimization is much easier and has much more chance of achieving significant success.
What are the Limitations of Social Proof in Digital Marketing?
Key limitations of social proof pertain to the risk of receiving negative feedback, doubts arising around too many or too good opinions or reviews, context challenges, and possible neglect of other important elements of marketing campaigns.
While positive feedback in online reviews or ratings is always appreciated, collecting it makes the most sense if your product or services are good enough. Otherwise, it’s likely to receive also an amount of negative feedback, which may… offset positive one. Offset or even completely overshadow.
Additionally, brands with limited visibility or those new to the market may struggle to generate enough credible social proof.
On the other hand, excessive use of social proof can lead to skepticism, especially if testimonials or reviews appear fabricated or overly promotional. Consumers are becoming increasingly adept at identifying inauthentic content, which can damage trust.
Social proof also relies heavily on context, meaning that what works for one audience or platform may fail to resonate with another, limiting its universal application.
Finally, overemphasis on social proof can lead to overlooking other essential elements of a marketing strategy, such as product quality, customer service, or unique selling points. While it’s a valuable component, it should be balanced with other efforts to build a holistic and trustworthy brand presence.
What is the Role of Social Proof on Landing Pages?
Social proof creates a sense of community and popularity around your offering, as well as generates so precious trust, making visitors feel more confident in following through with a purchase or sign-up. Whether through testimonials, trust badges, ratings or case studies, it proves the value of what you present (or/and offer) to your audience, hence, it also can neutralize their potential hesitations and objections. In other words: it can be a trigger for visitors to convert on your landing pages.
Start Using Social Proof in Your Digital Marketing Strategy
While we are on landing pages, they are a perfect place to start experimenting with social proof. As you’ve seen in the examples above, on landing pages (as well as on service or product pages), numbers, counters, benefits, or testimonials are often highlighted in separate sections, being a critical point in the page marketing narrative. Some landing page builders even offer ready-to-use section templates for various types of social proof. Here is what it looks like in Landingi for the benefits section type:
There is no easier way to use social proof than to pick the right template, fill it with your content, and put the page online!
Of course, by their very nature, landing pages also could be created in a snap using templates and user-friendly no-code drag-and-drop interfaces. This is how it works in top-notch platforms like Landingi or Unbounce.
And, to top it off, landing pages allow you to test your social proof and optimize it for better results with tools like A/B testing, heatmaps and microconversion tracking.
Sign up to Landingi for free, select and customize the appropriate page kit, use the chosen social proof section template, and take your digital marketing efforts to the next level.
