How B2B marketers can effectively deploy testimonial ads
Why you should read: See how conversational intelligence can unearth the right insights to save countless hours and provide premium client experience at scale.
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Head of product, Caleb & Brown
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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.
Why testimonial ads are effective
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.
4 ways to leverage testimonial ads
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.
#1. Launch testimonial ad social media campaigns.
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.
#2. Embed a testimonial ad in your prospecting emails.
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.
#3. Include a testimonial ad on your landing page.
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.
#4. Publish testimonial ads on your favorite streaming channel.
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.
Conclusion
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.
Dan shares on:
Brokers no longer need to spend hours each week tagging conversations manually and adding notes after each call—ZRA does all that for them.
During customer calls, brokers, salespeople, and customer success agents can easily see AI-generated notes from previous interactions and continue the conversation, whether it involves offering the customer more information about a particular token or solving a simple troubleshooting issue like two-factor authentication.
Using ZRA has streamlined customer processes, from sales to customer service calls to onboarding. “When we go through a customer onboarding process, we need a lot of information from the customer to remain compliant,” Dan explains. “With Zoom Revenue Accelerator, our onboarding team can easily see what’s been collected and what’s missing.”
After each call, ZRA will automatically create a summary and generate a list of the next steps to complete the onboarding. “Our onboarding team can now save time. When engaging with a customer, they can focus and prioritize that customer conversation.”
With automatic, AI-enabled insights into customer calls, Caleb & Brown now uses the intelligence gathered from conversations to guide business decisions. “When we want to start a new customer acquisition campaign or explore a new business line, we have insights into what matters most to our customers,” Dan says. “We can adjust our acquisition strategy and the key messages we use in our comms to match what we see.”
ZRA makes data sharing between teams easier, so brokers can share customer feedback with product and engineering teams—something they couldn’t do easily before. “In the past, it was quite clunky to pull a clip or audio file to share with other teams. Now, they can easily search through transcripts and provide those snippets as text snippets. It’s been a huge improvement to our workflow,” Dan says.
The enhanced collaboration—furthered by the adoption of Zoom Chat and Zoom Meetings—has also improved security. Teams can communicate faster and use ZRA to share data and call recordings to identify bad actors and confirm client identities quickly.
"Our teams can look at the data and make sure the voice and conversation style matches previous conversations. The auto-generated transcript that ZRA provides makes it much easier to search previous conversations." — Dan Johnson, Head of product, Caleb & Brown
In addition to tightening security, ZRA has made it easier for Caleb & Brown to track potential compliance issues and conduct quality assurance.
Along with ZRA, Caleb & Brown adopted Zoom Phone.
As a distributed company with global teams, it was important to ensure that distance didn’t impact customer experience. According to Dan, their previous provider “had significant latency issues and delays in the conversation. It made conversations quite disjointed and felt very unnatural.”
Switching to Zoom Phone solved those issues, and with the seamless integration of ZRA, they’ve gained data analysis capabilities they didn’t have before.
Since they’ve started working with Zoom Phone and ZRA, Caleb & Brown has gathered valuable data from every single customer call. “Previously, only a fraction of those calls were analyzed and reviewed. Now it’s 100%, and our team doesn’t have to do anything—the software does it for us. It’s quite magical,” Dan says.
This analysis has led to significant time savings and given the team a deeper understanding of their customers.
“Understanding those conversations and what topics matter most to our customers at scale has been absolutely phenomenal. We can’t put an exact number on it, but days, months, years of work have been saved.” —Dan Johnson, Head of product, Caleb & Brown
Caleb & Brown have gotten so much value from Zoom Phone and ZRA that they’ve expanded their Zoom ecosystem.
One such integration involves Salesforce. ZRA integrates directly with Salesforce, which means agents no longer have to spend time searching for the information they need. When a customer calls, their profile pops on the screen, allowing agents and brokers to swiftly navigate through that customer's data for additional context for a particular request. “If a customer wants to update their address, for example, the agent can click see and change that information directly in Salesforce. The useability is phenomenal,” Dan says.
Another addition is Zoom Contact Center, which provides a better way for the global support team to service customers. Rather than having support team members to have unique phone numbers, they leverage intelligent routing to streamline call volume through a single phone number. This capability makes reporting much clearer, as it's easier for leadership to understand the types of conversations being had and who is having those conversations.
With so many solutions to offer, Zoom enables Caleb & Brown to improve productivity, know their customers better, and get deeper deal insights to drive more revenue.
“One of the biggest benefits of working with Zoom is their complete product line. Having one provider that you can go to for many solutions makes things quite easy.” —Dan Johnson, Head of product, Caleb & Brown
