What is social proof?
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon that explains how “human beings often make choices about what to think, and what to do, based on the thoughts and actions of others.” It’s one of the six key principles underlying the science of persuasion, through the lens of social psychology.
Why should you use social proof in email marketing?
In a world where subscribers are inundated with promotional messages (the average person sees about 10,000 ads a day), having social proof in your emails is a way to showcase the approval of your brand from customers themselves.
To put it simply, people trust people. By incorporating social proof in your emails—be it through testimonials, a tally of “likes,” or user-generated content (UGC)—you not only bolster trust with your subscribers but also add a much-needed human touch to your email campaigns. This effort is becoming increasingly crucial in an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more prevalent.
Curious to see what success our customers have had with social proof? Check out our Guide to Live Polls and Social Proof in Email to see the winning results. →
3 ways to use social proof in email marketing campaigns
Here are three ways to integrate social proof into your email campaigns using Litmus Personalize:
1. Interest Signals
Interest Signals showcase live click totals for dedicated email elements, like a product or service. By displaying this engagement, you not only add real social proof to your emails but also encourage more openers to click, making it easy for subscribers to see the value and desirability of each product.
How it works
Interest Signals are powered by clicks. Every time a subscriber clicks, the number is recorded and refreshed upon open. You can display these clicks as “likes,” “loves,” or whichever you see fit.
Here’s a quick explainer on how they work, with results from an A/B test we ran at Litmus (spoiler: we saw a 4.5% increase in click-through rate!):
Example: DFS
DFS showcased the number of people “loving” each product with a purple banner on top of the product imagery, showing the exact number of clicks (or ”loves,” in this email’s case) that each item is receiving. This gives subscribers a browsing experience backed and validated by their peers.
Source: Litmus’ Guide to Live Polls and Social Proof in Email
Example: T.M. Lewin
T.M. Lewin asked subscribers to choose their favorite look for each day of the week. Once each look had over 100 clicks, a “trending outfit” message appeared alongside the live number of clicks, updating at every open. The live vote had over 20,000 clicks, with the second-highest number of clicks on the last look—proving how engaging content gets subscribers to keep scrolling.
Source: Litmus’ Guide to Live Polls and Social Proof in Email
What’s more: T.M. Lewin took things further and used the data from this email to kick off a nurture campaign. Tailored follow-up emails were sent to each voter, showcasing products from their favorite look and directing them to shop the collection.
Example: Puma
Here, Puma showcased the live engagement (number of clicks) on each product. The number of likes for each shoe was displayed alongside a heart icon, giving visibility on what’s resonating the most for subscribers.
Source: Litmus’ Guide to Live Polls and Social Proof in Email
Example: New Look
New Look used social signals in banner form, displaying “Almost gone” when a product’s stock fell below a certain number—set up through their shopping feed.
Source: Litmus’ Guide to Live Polls and Social Proof in Email
Example: Litmus 👋
You might be wondering: can a B2B brand utilize Interest Signals? The answer is absolutely! Take it from us: at Litmus, whenever we release a new resource, we’ll include Interest Signals in our announcement emails, like so:
Each time a subscriber clicks, the number of interested email geeks goes up.
The same goes for virtual event invites, too! Each time a subscriber clicks a link pointing to the event landing page, the number of “email geeks interested” goes up.
Remember: the way you position Interest Signals is completely up to you! In this case, clicks were counted as “views”:
