How to use social proof in landing pages to boost conversion (11 examples)
Izabella and Remis, People Experience team
People who visit your landing page are interested in your product. But do they trust you enough to buy? If you're not seeing the conversions you’d like, social proof could be the fix you need.
Adding social proof to landing pages shows visitors that people similar to them use, like and benefit from your product. It’s a great way to boost sales, since research shows that 90% of buyers say social proof influences their buying decisions.
In this article, we’ll explore 11 types of landing page social proof, show you how to collect and find it, and give you ideas for social proof you can use even if you don’t have any reviews or testimonials yet.
What is social proof?
Social proof is how the actions of other people influence our decision-making. The term was coined by psychologist Robert Cialdini, and it describes the human tendency to look at the actions of others to decide what to do in a given situation.
The idea is that when we are uncertain about what action to take, such as when making a purchasing decision, our brains naturally seek the experience of other people who have made a similar decision.
If their experiences were positive, then we think that we're more likely to have a positive experience too. This influence on people's decisions makes social proof an effective way to bridge the gap between a landing page visitor’s skepticism and their first purchase.
The shift from trust me to they trust us
Social proof marks a fundamental shift in how you approach landing page conversions. It moves the focus of the page from getting someone to trust you to showing them that other people already trust you.
This reduces the perceived risk for the customer, making them more likely to buy.
Here’s how landing page social proof works in practice
Imagine you’re a local business owner looking for a new accountant. You land on a firm's website and immediately see a Local Chamber of Commerce badge and a row of logos from other small businesses in your town.
As you scroll, you see a testimonial from a local bakery owner describing how this firm saved them $5k in taxes. Even before you book a consultation, you already feel like you're in good hands.
This is social proof in action. By highlighting recognizable brand names and real-world results, the landing page builds trust to encourage purchases.
Types of social proof for landing pages
Social proof comes in many forms. Including different types can build up a picture of trust more effectively than a single element. And adding it to your landing page means that buyers can get this information without leaving your page.
Here are 11 forms of social proof to include on your landing page.
1. Customer testimonials
Testimonials are direct endorsements from the people who know your work best: your customers.
By putting your clients front and center, you make your brand more relatable and prove that your services work in the real world. These "trust builders" can range from a simple one-sentence rave review to more engaging formats like a quick video testimonial or a "client spotlight" profile.
At MailerLite, we use blocks that include a quote from the customer, their image, the company they work for, and key metrics that show their success.
When choosing testimonials to feature, we try to select ones that closely relate to the message of the landing page. This could mean showing satisfied customers with a similar background to the reader, or talking about the feature the page highlights.
The easiest way to get testimonials is to ask your customers if they’re happy to give you one.
If you’re a MailerLite customer, create an email campaign with a survey they can use to provide a testimonial. You can then use the recipient filtering options to only send the email to current customers.
Once you have your testimonials, add them to your MailerLite landing pages with one of our prebuilt testimonials blocks (we’ve got 8 to choose from). Just drag the block into place on your landing page and edit the content.
2. Customer reviews
Much like testimonials, reviews are a first-hand account from your customers. Customer reviews can be featured directly on the landing page with the text, customer name, and image.
If your landing page is for a specific product, include user reviews for the relevant item.
It’s tempting to take reviews from third-party sites like Amazon, Yelp, or G2 and publish them on your website. But these sites often copyright reviews, so using them could land you in trouble.
Luckily, there’s another easy way to get customer reviews: review request emails. These are automated messages triggered by the purchase that go out in days or weeks after someone has bought your product.
Just write a short email asking the customer to review the product and provide a link to your chosen platform. Since the emails are automated, they go out whenever someone buys something, without you having to lift a finger.
See a simple review request automation built in MailerLite below.
3. Expert, influencer and celebrity endorsements
Adding the endorsement of industry thought-leaders to your landing page can be a quick way to build trust. This could come from an industry expert with authority and knowledge, such as a dentist recommending a toothbrush or a fashion magazine editor recommending your shoes.
Endorsements can also come from social media influencers. And don’t think that endorsements are only effective when coming from people with large followings. Recommendations from micro influencers with a small but engaged audience in a specific niche can be just as effective.
4. Media mentions
Media mentions often come in the form of “As Seen In” content. Highlighting your media mentions is great for establishing credibility (and some fomo) by associating your product with trustworthy brands. As soon as customers get to your landing page, they’ll know your products are legitimate and reputable.
Consider including the name of the publication that featured your content, as well as a quote that shows what they love about it. See an example we built in MailerLite below.
5. Awards and certifications
Awards and certifications show potential customers that other parties rate your brand highly. They can be especially effective if the award is from a brand that the customer knows and trusts.
At MailerLite, we’ve been given plenty of awards, and we showcase these trust badges on relevant landing pages. For example, our homepage shows the awards we’ve been given by brands including G2 and Trust Radius.
6. Case studies
Add mini case studies to your landing page to highlight the benefits of a particular service or feature.
Include key stats as well as text that shows what the business achieved thanks to the product being advertised on the page. Consider adding a link the page visitor can use to read the whole story.
Case studies are effective since they provide a lot of information about the specific ways your product impacted your customer.
If your product is expensive, has a more complex sales funnel, or makes a particular claim that you want to prove, then customer stories are an extremely useful type of social proof.
But, case studies aren’t usually necessary for low consideration products. No one needs to read a case study for a pair of jeans or a stapler.
7. Customers or clients
An easy way to show social proof is to highlight the people or brands that use your product. This shows page visitors that they will be in good company if they buy from you.
This tactic is especially effective for B2B brands that sell to businesses or B2C brands that have high-profile individuals as customers.
The brands blocks in the MailerLite landing page builder are an easy way to add client logos to your pages. Just choose the one you like and then replace the logos with those of your clients.
Alternatively, showcase social posts or images showing high-profile customers using your product. Just be sure to get their permission first.
8. User-generated content
Sharing numbers that show the impact of your brand is a good way to quickly build trust with landing page readers. Choose numbers that highlight your impact.
This can include:
Number of customers (Helping over 1 Million People)
Subscriber count (Read by 15,000+ marketers)
Years in business (20+ years of experience)
Social audience (Followed by 120,000 people)
Range in geography (In 100+ countries)
Consider adding these stats around key calls to action and buttons. For example, you can add: “Read by 15,000+ marketers” underneath your newsletter signup form button. Or add “Trusted by 1 million+ businesses” next to your free trial button, as we do at MailerLite.
Another option is to add a row of key stats to act as a separator between sections, like in the image below, which comes from our landing page template for a digital product. Doing this lets the reader see all of the most important stats at once.
The MailerLite landing page builder also has several prebuilt blocks you can customize to quickly add brand stats to your website. Find them in the Social proof section of the left side menu.
9. Customer data
Customer data shows the impact of your product without needing to highlight specific buyers or request reviews. It’s useful if you don’t have any reviews but want to start adding social proof right away.
The easiest data to add to a landing page is the number of people who have bought from you. This shows potential buyers that many people already trust your brand. We do this at MailerLite on our main homepage.
You can also filter this metric down depending on the type of customer. For example, our page for e-commerce email marketing highlights the number of customers who identify as e-commerce stores, while the comparison pages highlight the number who have switched from the platform we are comparing MailerLite to.
As well as the number of customers you have, you can add deeper data about things people achieve. At MailerLite, we could share the number of campaigns sent, automations created, orders brought in by emails, or subscribers generated by forms.
The key is to think about what people want from your business and then find stats that prove how your product helps them reach this goal.
10. Customer favorites
Highlighting your top-selling products on a landing page is an effective way to encourage customers to make a purchase. It shows that other people are buying your products, and that the product the visitor is interested in is especially popular.
This type of landing page social proof is easy to add to your pages. Just add short copy around the product promotions.
This could be copy like:
“Customer Favorite”
“Top Seller”
“Most Loved”
“Trending Now”
11. User-generated content
Featuring user-generated content on landing pages is another way to positively influence customer buying behavior. User-generated content (UGC) is any content that comes from your customers. This can be anything from social media posts, images, videos, blogs and comments.
Consider collecting UGC through social media. Search for people who are already posting about your brand and ask to feature them. You can then take a screenshot of the social post, copy the image, or, if the platform allows, embed the post on your website by pasting the embed code directly to your page.
6 landing page templates with social proof blocks
Build your landing page, complete with social proof, in a flash by starting with one of our templates. Just choose one of the options below and then customize it with your brand colors and additional content.
If you’d rather start from scratch, the MailerLite landing page builder also has a selection of social proof blocks you can easily drag and drop into your page.
Final landing page social proof best practices to keep in mind
To ensure your social proof actually drives conversions, follow these essential guidelines for your landing page:
Keep it relevant
Social proof only works if your visitor can see themselves in the story. Ensure your testimonials and case studies match the specific product, use case or service on the page.
If you are selling a high-end service to small business owners, a quote from a college student won't carry much weight.
Choose peer-level proof that showcases customers who share the same pain points and goals as your target audience so they can think, "If it worked for them, it will work for me."
Authenticity over perfection
While a perfect 5-star rating seems ideal, it can actually trigger skepticism. Research shows that purchase likelihood peaks when products have a 4.0 to 4.7-star rating, then starts to decrease, suggesting that people don’t trust reviews when they are too high.
A few minor critiques or a real-world tone make your positive reviews feel genuine rather than manufactured. Don't be afraid of a testimonial that mentions a small hurdle you helped them overcome; it proves you are a real business that provides real solutions. And make sure all your online reviews come from real customers.
Keep it visual
Don’t just use walls of text for your social proof. Try to add images, videos, badges, logos and other visual elements that help page visitors take in the information on the page faster.
Perfect your placement
Social proof shouldn't be buried at the very bottom of your page. Sprinkle it throughout the content.
You could place a short trust bar of logos just below your hero section, put a powerful quote right next to your main headlines, and add supporting stats around your buttons.
Placing social proof at the point where the customer is deciding whether to click can give them the final nudge they need to move forward.
Social proof FAQs
Q: Why is social proof important for a landing page?
Social proof shows potential buyers that other people use, trust, and like your product. This can increase conversions since Gartner found that 90% of people say social proof influences their buying decisions.
Q: How do I add social proof if I don’t have any reviews?
There are plenty of ways to add social proof to landing pages, even if you don’t have reviews. Consider mentioning stats about your product, such as the number of people who have bought from you, highlighting your most popular products, showcasing how long you’ve been in business for, listing your clients, or mentioning awards you’ve won.
Reviews and testimonials are important, though, so we recommend setting up a review request automation to start bringing them in asap. You can also find people who have left a comment on platforms like Google Reviews and reach out to see if they'll give you one for your website too. And remember, you can use them across your digital marketing, not just in your landing pages.
Q: How and when to use social proof on your landing page?
We recommend using multiple points of social proof throughout your landing page. For example, on our email marketing for creators page, we have a small reviews summary in the page hero, then multiple testimonial blocks further down the page, and then a block that showcases our awards at the end.
Q: How can I effectively incorporate social proof into my landing page design?
The easiest way is to use prebuilt blocks. MailerLite’s landing page builder has multiple blocks built to showcase reviews, testimonials, case studies, stats and badges. You just have to drag them into place and then adjust the content with the customization settings.
Your turn to use social proof
Because social proof works and is becoming more popular, this is one strategy that should not be overlooked. Using the different types of social proof in the examples above, you can begin incorporating social proof into your landing page content and using A/B tests to find out what leads to increased conversion rates. Happy social proof-ing!
