Mastering ad creative is a challenging task for marketers. The right ad creative has to be engaging enough to attract prospective customers’ eyes and informative enough to get them to understand your product.
Plus, there are character limits and small graphic sizes, which make designing effective ads even more difficult.
That’s why B2B marketers need to start leveraging testimonial ads.
Testimonial ads can easily engage prospects and highlight product use cases while offering quotes from existing happy customers.
In this post, we’ll show you how you can use testimonial ads to attract, engage, and convert new customers from the moment they see your latest campaign.
You can put anything in an ad. So, why should you consider using a testimonial?
Well, testimonial ads are a valuable form of social proof that can nudge an existing or new prospect towards conversion.
This type of ad can also be more effective than others. That’s because they immediately show how the product provided value for an existing customer.
Testimonial ads focus on the outcomes from your product rather than the product itself. This can help you drive home the key points you want to convey while staying within the given character and design limitations.
Customers also are looking for the solutions your product provides, not necessarily the product itself, so focusing on the outcomes of other, similar customers can help sway them to purchase.
Your prospects may see the ad and immediately think, “If that product worked for someone else in my industry, it might work for me too.” That’s why it’s important to get your existing customers as involved as possible.
Consumers are positively impacted by recommendations, reviews, and testimonials.
Over 63% of consumers state that they have a higher chance of converting if they see product reviews in an ad or on a business’s website.
Once they convert, you can increase their lifetime value, too. Testimonials have been shown to derive approximately 62% more revenue from your customers.
We wouldn’t recommend this strategy if we weren’t comfortable doing it ourselves. Take a look at this video testimonial that UiPath made for us:
You immediately understand what our business is and how we’ve helped one of our customers.
In addition, the video was short — approximately 45 seconds — making it the perfect length to run as an ad on our social channels.
This was perfect creative for our latest campaign. Why? Consumers are empathetic and appreciate hearing from those who are in similar predicaments.
A customer testimonial can add an emotional appeal to a campaign. It shows that the company is open to customer feedback and values its relationship with existing customers.
It also adds credibility by featuring a real person who is using the product, rather than influencers who are merely paid to sell it.
Ready to start infusing testimonials into your paid ad strategy?
Let’s take a look at some of the different ways you can use testimonial ads to achieve your desired business objectives.
Now that you know why you should leverage testimonial ads, let’s take a look at how you can do it to get the most value out of your new content.
There are many different ways you can use testimonial ads to effectively capture your prospects’ attention — we’ll walk you through four of the most effective options.
By deploying these ads in any of the following ways, you’ll begin forming a narrative about your company, with your existing customers as the stars.
Imagine that your prospect is casually scrolling LinkedIn or Twitter.
Then all of a sudden, your product appears with an existing customer explaining its use and how much value it has provided them.
With a testimonial ad campaign on social media, you can easily make that a reality.
Testimonials should be packaged up into highly engaging graphics or videos and promoted on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. These campaigns can help drive leads and conversions for your business.
Take a look at this testimonial that Cognism ran as a Facebook ad:
The ad uses color and call-out text to immediately capture the audience’s attention. Your eyes will immediately skim the customer testimonial that is centered in the middle of the ad.
The copy even teases, “Don’t just take our word for it,” implying that their customers are eagerly endorsing the product.
In addition, the customer offered a data point by highlighting how they are exceeding their goals by 140%. This number pops out from the page and easily will impress prospects.
Want to make your ads even more effective? These types of ads don’t have to just be static images with featured customer quotes.
You can go above and beyond by creating video testimonials. As your potential buyer scrolls, they will come across your ad, which will autoplay and capture their attention.
Video content, both organic and paid, is most commonly promoted by marketers on Facebook and Instagram. YouTube and LinkedIn follow closely behind.
This content performs well on social channels and is engaging for the viewer. More than 70% of B2B marketers use video content in paid ads on Facebook:
Testimonial ads are effective creative assets for your social campaigns. Take a look at how powerful this video testimonial is for CloudZero:
Ben Johnson, CTO of Obsidian, highlights how CloudZero’s team and technology enticed them to do business with them. He went on to say that he saved 25% by switching over to CloudZero.
This data, paired with his endorsement, makes this into a powerful testimonial ad that can perform well across a variety of channels.
It grabs consumers’ attention and explains the benefits that they will get from signing up with CloudZero. The best part? It does all of that in just a few seconds.
Want to improve your email marketing strategy?
Spice up your prospecting emails by including a testimonial ad embedded directly in the center of your next outreach campaign. This will enable your prospect to step inside the mind of a happy customer already using your product.
It takes a step away from your direct pitch and lets the prospect hear from someone like them who might be facing similar challenges in their industry.
Imagine that your prospect has almost made up their mind to do business with your company when they receive an email with a glowing testimonial from an existing, happy customer. This could provide enough momentum to get them to convert on the spot.
For example, look at how MicroAcquire used this tactic:
This simple addition to their outreach email packs a punch in the copy. It provides a valuable form of social proof that shows how easy it is to use their product.
The reader will open the email and learn about MicroAcquire. Then they’ll stumble upon the written testimonial that is featured directly in between sections.
This is an effective strategy because the reader will likely read the testimonial as they move onto the main bulleted section of the email.
By including a testimonial in the email, you make your email copy more powerful and effective at converting prospective customers.
Have you ever felt that something was missing on your landing page?
If you don’t have a testimonial ad on it, you’re missing out on business. By adding a testimonial ad to your landing pages, you can increase conversions substantially.
In fact, more than 37% of the top-performing landing pages showcase a testimonial ad on them.
Think of a testimonial ad as the final nudge that’s needed to push a prospect to the next phase of their consideration process. Doesn’t it make sense to include a testimonial on your site?
Landing pages need to be enticing in order to convert prospects effectively. The headline needs to be catchy, and the value propositions need to be stated clearly.
Testimonials can show that your product works. The success stories and recommendations from existing customers will showcase your company and product in a positive light.
Take a look at this landing page for Hootsuite:
The landing page features a written testimonial in its own dedicated section from a happy customer. The customer even attributes their “secret to success on social media” to using the Hootsuite product.
With a featured testimonial ad on your landing page, you’ll provide your prospects with everything they need to request a demo or reach out to begin the conversation.
If your testimonials make great ads, they also might make great evergreen content.
Long-form video testimonials are an engaging way to attract and educate prospective customers about your offering. You should ensure that they are accessible at all times, not just when a specific campaign is live.
Publish video testimonial ads on your favorite streaming channel (like YouTube or Vimeo) to begin building a library of powerful assets that your prospects will love. They’ll be useful in a variety of settings and valuable for years to come.
These testimonial ads can serve as mini-sales tools that will educate your prospect on what your product does, who it helps, the impact it will have, and why they should purchase it.
More than 37% of consumers appreciate video testimonials because they are “more authentic than a business’ own pitch.”
For example, take a look at Talla’s testimonial for Botkeeper:
Rob May, CEO of Talla, calls the Botkeeper “a really good tool for high-growth startups.” He then explains why he decided to work with Botkeeper and outlined the value it provided.
This was such a valuable asset for Botkeeper that they published it on their YouTube account:
Now, prospective customers can access the video at any time and learn about the value that their services provide.
Testimonial ads are impactful assets that you can use to engage prospects and showcase your product’s value and effectiveness in an efficient way. B2B businesses that use testimonial ads have an edge over their competition.
To get started with testimonial ads, consider using them in your social ad campaigns and prospect emails. In addition, you should add them to landing pages and feature them as long-form content on your favorite streaming channel.
By doing so, you’ll reach more prospects than ever before and let social proof do your selling for you.
Reach out to Testimonial Hero to hear how we can help you create effective testimonial ads to drive new leads and increase conversions for your B2B business.
We tried making testimonial videos in-house, but it was a logistical and creative nightmare:
We lacked the internal resources to assemble high-quality testimonials that reflected our premium brand, so we sought a partner with the expertise and global reach to help us craft compelling customer stories.
All I needed was an idea and a couple of willing clients, and Testimonial Hero took care of the rest. The team handles everything from email communication, scheduling, travel booking, and dispatching qualified crews to record customer interviews and location footage. They help us plan the interview questions, write the necessary copy, and determine the best shots. They can work remotely, but they also conduct interviews onsite and make interview subjects feel at home on camera. They edit the footage into compelling testimonial videos, adding music, transitions, and graphics reflecting our company branding.
The final products surpass anything we could have done in-house and showcase Directive Consulting as a top-tier agency.
We couldn’t have found Testimonial Hero at a better time. We had an idea for a large-scale project that would involve telling six customer stories, but the customers were in different regions. We worked with the Testimonial Hero team to interview subjects on video in Texas, California, New York, and abroad. The onsite testimonial shooting experience was nothing short of phenomenal. The staff were true professionals, arriving at the locations ready to go and coaching the interviewees through the process.
Within two months, they had captured the interviews and crafted them into a singular piece of content. The video was so good that we expanded the campaign to include supporting content. We’ve made nearly 40 videos with Testimonial Hero, and are using them across our paid advertising and social media channels. We also built a customer success module on our website that features those six core stories along with three additional stories that complement the narrative.
Producing the content in-house would’ve taken us six months and five times the cost, and it wouldn’t have looked as good or told the right story. Thanks to the expertise of the Testimonial Hero team, the final product was flawless.
"Producing the content in-house would have taken us six months and five times the cost, and it wouldn’t have looked as good or told the right story." – Derek Gerber, VP of Growth at Directive Consulting
About 85% of our buyers inform themselves about our services before they contact us. Our Testimonial Hero videos help educate prospects about our services, bringing more people to our door. Within a few weeks of launching our video campaign, we closed $200,000 worth of deals, tripling our initial spend.
The videos are a great tool for our sales reps to help them close deals faster. They qualify prospects by asking whether they’ve seen the videos. They also share these stories during the sales process, pointing out similarities with other customers to help finalize a deal.Video testimonials can set any brand apart, but creating them can be daunting without in-house expertise. Make it easy on yourself and trust in Testimonial Hero. There’s no easier way to get started, and there’s no more flexible pricing for such a high-quality result. The stories we’ve created with the team continue to drive our growth and amplify our brand globally. More than anything, we know we have true partners in our corner who want to bring our customers’ stories to life.
"Within a few weeks of launching our video campaign, we closed $200,000 worth of deals, tripling our initial spend." – Derek Gerber, VP of Growth at Directive Consulting