What is social proof in marketing?
Social proof in marketing leverages psychological principles to influence consumer decisions based on observed actions of others. It enhances credibility, builds trust, and directly motivates customers towards making purchases. Typical applications include customer reviews, testimonials, influencer endorsements, and behavioral cues that boost sales, engagement, and customer loyalty.
In eCommerce, social proof is extremely important, leading to more engaging customer experiences, higher online conversion rates and reduced returns.
In this article, we delve deeper into why social proof works and how to use it effectively within your marketing mix to boost ROI.
The psychology of social proof in marketing
The theory of social proof is simple: we are influenced by the actions of others. Psychologist Robert Cialdini first articulated the idea in 1984 that people are likely to do what they see or hear others doing.
“In general, when we are unsure of ourselves, when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look to and accept the actions of others as correct.”
– Dr Robert Cialdini
Social proof works because humans naturally look to others when uncertain. Dr. Robert Cialdini explains this behavioral cue as our tendency to follow others’ actions, especially when decisions involve ambiguity or uncertainty. In marketing, strategically employing these psychological insights helps brands quickly establish trust, credibility, and encourage purchases.
Examples of social proof in marketing include: reviews, real-time shopper behavior, expert opinions and third-party credentials. These can be used across the digital marketing mix, including your website, app, social media, display ads, email and even digital Out-of-Home (OOH).
Benefits of using social proof in your marketing strategy
Leveraging social proof strategically delivers compelling benefits, directly impacting sales and brand credibility:
- Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: Real customer experiences create genuine brand connections, boosting loyalty and repeat sales.
- Increased Trust & Credibility: Consumers trust brands validated by peers and experts, making them more likely to engage and purchase.
- Higher Conversion Rates: Social proof reduces decision fatigue, driving more confident buying decisions.
- Reduced Product Returns: Authentic feedback and visual proof help align customer expectations with reality.
How to use social proof in marketing
There are several ways to incorporate social proof into your marketing activities to deliver more trustworthy and engaging customer experiences. By leveraging social proof to showcase what other people are buying from a site and highlighting that customers are happy with the products and services sold, most retailers and brands see immediate results, including higher online conversions, more engagement, fewer returns, increased AOV (average order value) and more.
Social proof in marketing examples
1. The Wisdom of the Crowd
Social proof messaging pools the wisdom of the crowd to help customers with product discovery and making purchasing decisions with confidence.
- Key Tips:
- Social proof messaging should always be based on real-time data – without this, you expose your brand to risk.
- Use simple, factual messages tailored to suit your brand tone of voice
- Ensure you can implement this technology across Product Listing Pages (PLPs), Product Description Pages (PDPs), Checkout Pages, Display Ads, Native App, Emails, Social Media, and Digital OOH
- Deploy A/B testing to rigorously test statistically significant uplifts
- Ensure Machine Learning is built in as standard
2. User Generated Content / Shared Content
UGC or Shared Content is often referred to as ‘earned’ content. This may happen naturally, but there are very effective tactics you can employ to maximize UGC for your brand:
- Key Tips:
- Encourage customers to share photos of their recent purchase in return for discounts on their future purchase, prizes for the best content or even simply increased exposure. Using emails and leaflets with the items when delivered, are two easy ways to communicate this whilst encouraging customers to tag you and use your preferred hashtags for maximum exposure
- Reshare their content (with their permission!) on your main channel, ensuring you reciprocate the @. This shows your followers that if they share great content, they may get additional exposure for their own handle
- Share in your stories and link through to the product(s) being shown
EXAMPLE: This example from Fatface perfectly showcases how they’ve both encouraged UGC and woven it into their social media strategy.
3. Reviews, case studies, customer comments and testimonials
Consumers rely on other consumers to learn about products and often become (often unknowingly) brand advocates through user-generated content (UGC) like customer reviews, photos and Q&A.
Key Tips
Go deeper than ‘comments’ alone. Layer this with fit, quality, value, and which size and/or color variant the customer chose
Reviews can be pulled in to social proof messaging and deliver even greater ROI uplifts as seen in the example below from FatFace
4. Influencer/celebrity endorsements
Influencer marketing has become a fundamental channel for many eCommerce brands. Not only can this help your brand reach new audiences, but it also helps align your brand and its values with those of their followers
- Key Tips:
- The influencer or celebrity’s own style and tone of voice should lead the content, rather than be led by your brand, to retain authenticity
- Developing new product lines in collaboration with influencers will deliver even greater authority
EXAMPLE: Revolution Beauty has a network of influencers that they collaborate with and promote their content across Instagram, Tik Tok, their website and app.
5. Expert opinion, accreditations and third-party endorsements
Independent third-party accreditation provides consumers with a verified ‘stamp of approval’. This can be particularly powerful for items requiring a high investment
Key Tips:
Leverage existing partnerships and industry relationships. This could be in the form of awards you may have won, industry standards you’ve achieved and industry body reviews
On social platforms, this can be as simple as having the verification symbol on your handle
EXAMPLE: ao.com have woven in Which?’s Best Buy accreditation for their range of LG washing machines
6. Credentials
Almost all companies will have their own credentials that can be used to showcase authority and credibility, such as:
- the number of customers they have
- how many years they’ve been operating
- which countries they operate in
- how many items have been sold
- the number of reviews given
EXAMPLE: This example from Crew Clothing demonstrates this perfectly by aligning the years they’ve been established with timeless British style.
7. Combining social proof techniques
These social proof tactics do not need to be used in isolation. By understanding which will be most important to your customers at each point of the buying journey, they can be combined to great effect.
EXAMPLES: This example from Matalan shows how social proof messaging can show complimentary messages to customers. In this example, ratings with trending messages are used in tandem.
Common mistakes to avoid in social proof marketing
Avoid common pitfalls to ensure your social proof marketing remains authentic, compelling, and effective:
- Avoid Generic Testimonials: Specific, detailed testimonials resonate better with your audience and improve credibility.
- Never Fake It: Always use real-time data and genuine user experiences; transparency is key to maintaining trust.
- Don’t Overload or Misplace Social Proof: Strategically balance various forms of social proof across your marketing channels.
- Regular Updates are Essential: Continuously refresh your social proof to stay relevant and credible in consumers’ eyes.
Boost conversions and drive sales with Taggstar’s social proof
Taggstar’s social proof messaging solution integrates these tactics across the digital buying journey to deliver consistent and significant ROI uplifts. As a result, the technology used can pay for itself very quickly through an uplift in online conversion rates (some retailers have reported a conversion rate increase of 20%+) and increased sales. Indeed, Taggstar social proof deployments have consistently delivered 100% ROI and, in some instances 1000%+. Explore some of our recent case studies to find out more.
Getting started with social proof in marketing
Social proof can be woven into your eCommerce, digital and overall marketing strategy with almost immediate effect and deliver statistically significant ROI uplifts in a matter of weeks. Taggstar’s social proof solutions can help you take your real-time purchasing behavior to deliver consistent and measurable conversion rate uplifts from day 1.
Calculate the impact social proof can have on your conversion rate and revenue with our ROI calculator.
What to look for when selecting social proof messaging solutions for your business
- Social proof based on real-time data taken directly from the retail/brand’s own systems
- Simple, factual messages tailored to suit your brand tone of voice
- Platform-agnostic implementation that works across any eCommerce platform
- Multiple channel integration (e.g. website, social, display ads, native app, email, OOH)
- A/B testing to rigorously test statistically significant uplifts
- The ability to integrate different types of social proof to increase conversion rates
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