Addison Wilson
How to use customer reviews in marketing: the short answer
To use customer reviews in marketing, show real, current reviews where buyers make decisions: pricing, signup and landing pages, ads, sales emails and decks. Pull them only through each review site's approved widgets, badges and quote rules, link back to the source, keep the selection representative, and refresh it as new reviews arrive.
Reviews work in marketing because they are social proof from someone with nothing to sell. The hard part is staying inside the rules, because every review site licenses its content on its own terms and the FTC treats the reviews you choose to show as claims you are making.
Where to display reviews on website pages that sell
The best places to display reviews on website pages are the ones where buyers hesitate. On most SaaS sites that means the pricing page, the signup or free trial page, the demo request page and the paid landing pages that ads send traffic to.
Pricing and signup pages
Place a short quote or a rating close to the main button, where it answers a doubt at the moment it appears. Pick reviews that speak to the page's question: on a pricing page, a reviewer who says the plan paid for itself in a quarter does more than one who praises the interface.
Demo request pages
B2B buyers on a demo page are usually comparing vendors for a team. A quote from a reviewer in the same role or company size, with their job title as the review site shows it, tells the buyer that people like them made the same choice.
Reviews on landing pages
Reviews on landing pages work best when they match the ad that sent the visitor there. If an ad promises faster onboarding, the landing page should carry a review that mentions onboarding, with a link to the full review so the visitor can check it.
Trustpilot widget, G2 badges and other live review displays
A live display pulls your rating or reviews straight from the review site, so it stays current without anyone updating the page. Both G2 and Trustpilot offer these, and a live display cannot show an old score after your rating changes.
The Trustpilot widget (TrustBox)
A Trustpilot widget is called a TrustBox. Trustpilot's Legal Brand Guidelines say TrustBox widgets are available to every business with a Trustpilot Business Account, free or paying, but the range depends on your plan, and widgets that display reviews are only on paid plans. Our guide to Trustpilot pricing shows which plan includes what.
The same guidelines list misuse to avoid. They include a TrustBox that is not in your plan, a static image of your TrustScore or star rating on your website, and an out-of-date or incorrect score. When you show your score, put the word "TrustScore" next to the number, use Trustpilot's logo and link back to your Trustpilot profile page.
G2 badges and review widgets
G2's Community Guidelines let any listed vendor show its aggregated star rating with a backlink to its G2 profile and the line "Source: G2.com, Inc." Users Love Us badges are free to use, while other report badges need a license, must keep their full name, including any segment or region, and must link to the G2 category page. G2 bans altering a badge in any way, and its review display widgets need a Starter plan or above. Our guide to G2 badges explains how each one is earned.
When there is not much to show yet
A widget only helps if there are enough recent reviews behind it. Teams with a thin profile often run a campaign first, using G2 review generation or a service to buy real Trustpilot reviews from verified users who choose their own rating. App partners can collect HubSpot marketplace reviews through a campaign run with their own customers through HubSpot's review link, and our SaaS review services page compares every platform we cover.
Using reviews in ads and social posts
Reviews in ads can lift results, because a quote from a user reads as evidence. In a 2022 study Trustpilot commissioned from London Research, US consumers were 65% more likely to click through on a Trustpilot co-branded ad when it contained a customer review, and 66% of 1,000 consumers said they are often or very often influenced by customer reviews on the way to a purchase. Trustpilot paid for the study, and the ads tested were for a fictitious car insurer, so treat the figures as a signal.
Trustpilot draws a clear line between marketing and advertising. Organic social posts count as marketing, and paid digital, billboard, radio and TV campaigns count as advertising, and only paid-plan customers may use Trustpilot content, including reviews, in advertising. In an ad, make clear the review comes from Trustpilot, show its date and star rating beside the quote and never use the quote out of context. Trustpilot also recommends asking the reviewer before using their review in any advertising.
On G2, republishing or quoting a review of your product needs a Professional plan or above, a backlink to the review on G2 and the customer's opt-in. In practice, that means a short message to the reviewer before the quote goes into an ad, a social post or a slide.
Using reviews in sales emails, decks and case studies
Sales teams can use reviews at the point where a deal stalls. A short quote in a follow-up email, with a link to the full review, answers an objection in the buyer's own terms, and a slide of three recent quotes from similar companies does the same in a deck. Trustpilot asks for a date stamp or review count when you show reviews, TrustScore or stars offline, so add the date to anything printed or exported as a PDF.
Case studies are the deepest use of a review. A reviewer who wrote a detailed, positive review has already told the story in public, so ask whether they would expand it into a case study with numbers and a named quote. Thank them first, and our guide on how to respond to positive reviews shows replies that open that door naturally.
Keep a simple record of every review you reuse, with the source link, the date and the reviewer's permission. When a reviewer edits or removes a review, that record shows which emails, slides and pages to update.
Want a steady supply of recent reviews to quote?
See how our review campaigns work, from the written plan to the last review.
How to use customer reviews in marketing without misleading buyers
The FTC treats customer comments you feature in ads as endorsements, so truth-in-advertising rules apply to them. The FTC's Endorsement Guides Q&A says you can ask customers about their experience and feature their comments in ads. But if a featured customer got results that buyers generally will not get, the ad must make clear what the generally expected results are.
How you arrange reviews matters as well. The same FTC guidance warns that sorting reviews so all the five-star ones appear first can give a misleading picture, even if visitors can re-sort them, and that asking only customers likely to be happy for reviews would be misleading. If anyone received something for their review, such as a discount or a free plan, that connection should be disclosed.
The 2024 rule adds a hard line. The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, at 16 CFR 465.7, bans a business from implying that the reviews it displays on a review section of its website represent most or all reviews submitted when it is suppressing reviews based on their rating or negative sentiment. Removing reviews for reasons applied to every review equally, such as abusive content or reviews you reasonably believe are fake, does not count as suppression.
Trustpilot's guidelines put it plainly: do not display reviews in a misleading way, such as showing only five-star reviews without a disclaimer. A few chosen quotes on a landing page are fine when they are labelled as a selection and link to the full profile.
Why review stars on your own site will not show in Google
Many teams add review markup to their website in the hope of getting gold stars in Google search results. For reviews about your own company, that no longer works. In Google Search Central's 2019 post on review rich results, Google called a review about a business placed on that business's own website "self-serving" and stopped showing review rich results for those reviews on the LocalBusiness and Organization schema types.
The same post says that embedding a third-party widget is seen as controlling the process of linking reviews. So a Trustpilot widget or a G2 widget on your pricing page still helps the visitor who reads it, but it will not earn stars for your company in search results. Treat widgets as a conversion tool and judge them by what they do for visitors on the page.
Keep the reviews fresh so the marketing stays true
Reviews in marketing age quickly. A quote from three years ago describes a product your buyer will not get, and Trustpilot lists content that is not up to date as misuse.
Reviews only work in marketing if you keep getting new ones. Set a fixed point every customer reaches, such as day 30, day 90 or the account anniversary, and ask every customer in the same way. Then swap one or two quotes on your key pages each quarter, so the proof on your site always matches the product you sell today.
Keep your marketing stocked with fresh reviews through RelikReview
RelikReview runs review campaigns on six software review sites, so your widgets, badges and quotes have recent reviews behind them. See our SaaS review services to compare platforms; you get the plan and price in writing first.
- Six platformsG2, Trustpilot, Capterra, SourceForge, SoftwareSuggest and HubSpot.
- Steady pacingNew reviews every month, with no sudden spikes.
- Honest ratingsReviewers are never paid and choose their own rating.
Putting your reviews to work
Learning how to use customer reviews in marketing comes down to three habits: put real reviews where buyers decide, follow each review site's display rules, and keep the selection honest and recent. Done that way, one good review can help on your pricing page, in an ad, in a sales email and in a case study.
The work that never stops is collecting new reviews to show. If you would rather hand that to a team that runs it every day, the RelikReview team can help you buy real reviews from verified users and plan a steady campaign with you.
FAQs about using reviews in marketing
Can you use customer reviews in ads?
Yes, you can use customer reviews in ads if the review site allows it. Trustpilot limits its content in paid advertising to customers on paid plans and asks you to show the review date and star rating beside the quote. G2 asks for a Professional plan, a backlink to the review and the customer's opt-in.
Is it legal to show only positive reviews on your website?
Showing only positive reviews on your website becomes a legal problem when it misleads buyers. The FTC's rule bans implying that displayed reviews are most or all reviews while suppressing others by rating. Trustpilot asks for a disclaimer when you show only five-star reviews, so label any selection clearly and link to the full profile.
Do review widgets get you star ratings in Google?
No, review widgets on your own website will not earn star ratings in Google search results for your company. Since September 2019, Google treats reviews a business shows about itself as self-serving, and it counts an embedded third-party widget the same way. Widgets still help visitors on the page decide.
Do you need permission to quote a customer review?
You often need permission to quote a customer review, from the review site and sometimes the reviewer. G2 requires a Professional plan or above, a backlink and the customer's opt-in before you republish a review. Trustpilot recommends asking reviewers before using their reviews in advertising, so asking directly is the safest habit.
What is a Trustpilot widget?
A Trustpilot widget, which Trustpilot calls a TrustBox, is a piece of code that shows your live TrustScore, star rating or recent reviews on your website. The widgets you can use depend on your Trustpilot plan, and Trustpilot treats a widget outside your plan, or a static image of your score, as misuse.
