Testimonial advertising is a powerful marketing strategy that leverages real customer experiences to build trust and credibility for your brand.
By sharing authentic feedback across various channels, you can highlight the value of your products or services in a way that resonates with potential customers. Regardless of whether you decide to use written reviews, images, or video testimonials, this type of advertising adds a layer of transparency that traditional ads often lack.
In this article, we examine what testimonial advertising is, explore why it’s so important, and discuss 15 different types of testimonial advertising to help you decide which might be best for you.
Ready to embrace the power of testimonial advertising for your own brand? Start gathering customer feedback seamlessly with Omnisend’s all-in-one platform
Testimonial advertising is a tactic that promotes customer reviews and experiences across various marketing channels. It leverages the authenticity of these testimonials to showcase the value of your brand, product, or service, and it’s an effective way to establish trust and persuade potential customers.
This is the exact quality of testimonials that you can leverage through testimonial advertising. You can promote your customers’ testimonials to your audience through your ad copy and creatives to win them over.
Owing to the highly impactful nature of testimonials, they can be a great asset for driving your lead generation and sales efforts.
Observe how Baking Steel enhances its website’s credibility by incorporating customer reviews:
Pro tip: Testimonials and endorsements differ significantly.
Testimonial advertising typically relies on input from everyday customers. While some customers might leave feedback without expecting incentives, others may do so in exchange for a gift card or discount.
In contrast to testimonial ads, endorsements typically involve celebrities who are paid generously to promote a brand’s products or services.
As for influencers, if they have a small following, their reviews can be seen as testimonials. But for mega-influencers, it’s often considered an endorsement due to their significant reach and compensation.
Importance of testimonial advertising
Testimonial advertising is a powerful tool for building trust and credibility with your audience, because it allows you to highlight real customer experiences.
Testimonial advertising also helps overcome skepticism and alleviate concerns that potential customers may have. When someone can relate to the experiences of others, they’re more likely to trust that your product will deliver the same value.
By strategically leveraging customer testimonials in your marketing efforts, you can boost engagement, build credibility, and, ultimately, increase sales.
Types of testimonial advertising
As previously stated, there are four major types of testimonials:
Text: These are written recommendations from customers and could include things like Yelp reviews, customer quotes, or product page reviews
Images: Image testimonials effectively convey customers’ satisfaction by sharing pictures and visuals showcasing their positive experiences
Videos: Video testimonials feature happy customers’ voices and are perfect for sharing on your website, YouTube, or social media
User-generated content: User-generated content testimonials are when customers share their experiences with your brand, like posting photos on social media
You may utilize each to your advantage, depending on the availability of reviews and customer approvals, to use them for testimonial advertising.
15 effective testimonial advertising examples
Here’s a quick overview of the various testimonial advertising examples we’ll be exploring at length in this section:
Boxed Water — A shared Instagram post from a customer
To’ak Chocolate — A Trustpilot review in a cart recovery email
Dollar Shave Club — An Instagram post featuring a loyal customer
See Kai Run — A shared Instagram post featuring a customer
Sephora — Text testimonials for community recruitment
Amundsen Sports — Text customer testimonials on a website
Patagonia — Personal customer narratives on a website
Baking Steel — Media mentions and written reviews in emails
Slack — Candid conversations with product users in a YouTube video
Monday.com — Loyal client reviews in a YouTube video
Google Ads — YouTube video featuring a customer success story
Daniel Wellington — Influencer showcasing a product on Instagram
WeWork — An Instagram post created by a loyal customer
Airbnb — An Instagram post sharing a customer’s tip and experience
Aerie — Product worn by a customer in an Instagram post
1. Boxed Water — A shared Instagram post from a customer
Type: User-generated content
Boxed Water is a water company that sells its water in recyclable containers that are 92% plant-based. This environmentally-conscious brand regularly shares images of its products in the hands of happy customers, many of whom partner with the brand, too.
Betsy, the customer here, promoted the #betterplanet campaign in which Boxed Water was to plant two trees for every post published using the hashtag. She wrote about it extensively in her post.
2. To’ak Chocolate — A Trustpilot review in a cart recovery email
Type: Text (quotes)
To’ak Chocolate is a premium chocolate brand. Like any ecommerce business, the brand encounters the common challenge of abandoned shopping carts.
Yet, To’ak Chocolate tackles this problem by intelligently incorporating customer reviews into its abandoned cart emails. This strategy offers social proof that effectively reassures potential customers regarding the product’s quality and benefits.
Consider how this review touches upon different aspects of the shopping “experience.” There’s mention of the packaging, the personalized hand-written note, and the quality of the chocolate itself.
It serves as a compelling method to encourage individuals to finalize their purchase, even when dealing with a higher price point.
There’s a lot more to learn from To’ak Chocolate’s email marketing strategy. Here’s a complete case study for you to explore.
3. Dollar Shave Club — An Instagram post featuring a loyal customer
Type: Image
This post on Instagram by Dollar Shave Club talks about one of its most loyal customers, Justin.
While he hasn’t necessarily written a review of the brand, his loyalty is the thing that the brand is promoting through this post. (You could probably achieve the same thing with a loyalty program.)
The following post is a part of its #Twosday campaign, in which it posts something related to the loo every Tuesday.
4. See Kai Run — A shared Instagram post featuring a customer
Type: User-generated content
See Kai Run is a footwear brand that caters primarily to children. It makes quality footwear for them, and to promote its brand on Instagram, it regularly shares pictures of its customers.
Check out this picture of a kid sporting the brand’s sneakers. Kai Run even tagged the child’s mother in the post.
Pro Tip: Get innovative with your images for maximum engagement. Try to incorporate various visual elements along with the customer’s image to catch the attention of your audience. They may scroll past your post if it’s not attractive enough.
5. Sephora — Text testimonials for community recruitment
Type: Text (quotes)
Sephora is a beauty brand with a division called Sephora Squad. This is a community of storytellers, beauty aficionados, and artists in general. Sephora is actively looking out for partners for this Squad.
To promote the Squad, it has mentioned testimonials from its existing members on the website. These text testimonials are quotes from Sephora Squad members explaining why they love being a part of this group.
A tempting technique for luring fresh members to the Squad, don’t you agree?
6. Amundsen Sports — Text customer testimonials on a website
Type: Text
Amundsen Sports, the renowned outdoor and adventure gear brand, has a clever strategy to captivate visitors right on its homepage — leveraging review marketing.
These authentic customer reviews serve as more than just trust builders. They unveil the unique advantages of the products, making it easier for potential customers to connect with the brand.
What’s even smarter is that each review is thoughtfully linked to the relevant product. This seamlessly guides visitors from the homepage to the products they’re interested in.
This not only enhances the shopping experience for visitors but also boosts the chances of conversion and sales.
Amundsen Sports’ abandoned cart emails make for a true success story. Check out how the brand harnessed Omnisend to achieve a striking 57% conversion rate on abandoned cart emails, among other successes.
7. Patagonia — Personal customer narratives on a website
Type: Text (quotes)
Patagonia has a Worn Wear Program that’s dedicated to selling used and vintage Patagonia clothing.
Patagonia has a dedicated section on its website titled “The Stories We Wear,” geared toward persuading potential customers to buy its products. Here, its customers share personal stories about their Patagonia purchases and what motivated them to buy from the company or leverage their services.
Unlike typical reviews, these are deeply personal narratives that are sure to tug at one’s heartstrings.
Pro Tip: To make the most out of your text testimonials, you can convert them into images, audio voice-overs, and videos as well. This can help you reach a wider audience base that prefers other formats to text. It can work especially well on social media.
8. Baking Steel — Media mentions & written reviews in emails
Type: Text (quotes)
Baking Steel is a brand known for its culinary tools, such as steel baking sheets and pizza stones.
It regularly includes in-depth, authentic customer reviews in its emails.
For instance, the following review chronicles a 15-year quest for perfect pies, addressing pain points and the common dilemma of investing over $100 in a “piece of steel.”
This level of detail provides valuable insights into the product’s performance and helps prospective customers make informed decisions.
Baking Steel further enhances its credibility by showcasing its appearances in various publications:
9. Slack — Candid conversations with product users in a YouTube video
Type: Video
Slack launched one of the best testimonial commercials about one of its customers, Sandwich Video. The video is a brilliant example of storytelling to drive the message home.
It starts off by narrating how the Sandwich Video team used to work before trying Slack. The entire video is peppered with humor that makes it engaging. It also features interviews with individual team members, which lends it a lot of credibility as well.
All in all, the video testimonial clearly highlights the best aspects of the team’s experience using Slack. It’s no surprise that the video has over 1.29 million views!
10. monday.com — Loyal client reviews in a YouTube video
Type: Video
monday.com is a project management platform that helps businesses organize and manage their day-to-day operations and projects. It also has a slew of other functions ranging from HR and operations to sales and CRM.
monday.com took testimonial advertising to the next level by inviting some of its most loyal customers to its headquarters for a three-day storytelling experience.
Here’s one of the most famous testimonial ads from monday.com. In the video, the clients share how their organizations benefited from using monday.com.
It uploaded the event’s video footage on YouTube to promote the testimonials and drive more leads and conversions.
11. Google Ads — YouTube video featuring a customer success story
Type: Video
Here is a shining example of how Google UK leveraged video testimonial advertising to promote Google Ads. It put up a 100-second video clip on YouTube about one very satisfied customer, Chuckling Goat, who used Google Ads to grow its brand awareness and sales.
In the video, the owners can be seen talking about how they managed to get 6,000% growth in their sales by using Google Ads over four years.
Pro Tip: Try to avoid simple testimonials where the customer is the only one doing the talking. They can get boring. Instead, incorporate storytelling by coming up with a script, graphics, and other creative elements to create an engaging video that can keep your audience hooked.
12. Daniel Wellington — Influencer showcasing a product on Instagram
Type: User-generated content
Daniel Wellington is a watch brand that regularly shares user-generated content by its customers and influencers on its Instagram account. These posts have helped it grow immensely, and it now boasts over 4.8 million followers on the platform.
Even its Instagram bio encourages content co-creation by asking its audience to tag the account in their posts using #danielwellington.
Below is an example of testimonial advertising for Daniel Wellington. It’s a post by Greta, an influencer who shared her love for her watch.
13. WeWork — An Instagram post created by a loyal customer
Type: User-generated content
WeWork is a popular coworking space provider, and it regularly shares testimonials from its customers on its Instagram profile. WeWork put up testimonials in the form of quotes from satisfied business owners on its IG feed.
Additionally, a large portion of its Instagram feed is packed with posts created by its customers related to workspaces.
For instance, note how it shared this image from one of its customers based in Warsaw flaunting a coffee mug from WeWork as a midweek motivational booster.
14. Airbnb — An Instagram post sharing a customer’s tip and experience
Type: User-generated content
When it comes to testimonial advertising, Airbnb relies heavily on user-generated content. It posts images and videos shared by its customers on its Instagram account and also puts up a snippet related to the customer’s experience in the captions.
It employs this method of advertising to drive people to check out the properties that its customers have visited.
Take, for example, the following post, which provides a personalized tip from the customer for a stay at a vintage B&B property. It also directs the audience to head to the link in the bio to check out the property and make a reservation. Impressive, wouldn’t you say?
15. Aerie — Product worn by a customer in an Instagram post
Type: User-generated content
Aerie, an apparel retailer, regularly shares posts created by its customers on its Instagram account. It also encourages them to share their posts using the hashtags #AerieREAL, #goingOFFLINE, and #LiveInMyLeggings and feature some of them on its profile.
Observe how the post below from its Instagram feed promotes self-positivity and self-love.
Pro Tip: The key to getting more UGC from your audience is to incentivize them. This could be in the form of free products or even something as simple as giving them a chance to be featured on your page.
Testimonial advertising: Wrap up
Testimonial advertising is a great way to tap into the inherent bias that people have toward trusting the words of other customers.
People are more willing to try out your products and services if they see others saying good things about your brand online. These testimonial examples in advertising might serve as an inspiration for planning your own campaigns, too.
However, the key here is to get these testimonials in the first place.
You need to have a method in place through which you can approach them for testimonials. That’s where Omnisend comes in handy.
It allows you to send automated emails to your customers requesting them to submit testimonials for you after they’ve purchased your product or used your service.
Get started with Omnisend for free to begin sending these emails or use our email pricing calculator below to quickly compare price rates and features with those of other top platforms. Input your desired number of contacts, choose up to two other email marketing providers from the list, and see how Omnisend stacks up against them.
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Bernard is the Sr. Director of Communications & Creative at Omnisend, with a passion for good research, helping ecommerce businesses with their marketing automation needs, and beating absolutely everyone in Mario Kart 64.
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