Online shopping for the holiday season

7 tips om je voor te bereiden op de atypische, onvoorspelbare feestdagen van 2021, plus advies en voorspellingen van marktleiders over hoe je bedrijf, ondanks veranderend consumentengedrag, kan floreren dit najaar. 

De feestdagen zijn lange tijd een relatief voorspelbare periode geweest. Consumenten gingen stevig shoppen en er was – afgezien van wat jaarlijkse omzetgroei – verder niet echt sprake van verandering.

Maar toen kwam de pandemie om de hoek kijken. De laatste maanden van 2020 werden gekenmerkt door grote economische onzekerheid en wisselende ervaringen wat betreft fysieke winkelaankopen (vanwege lokale beperkingen en persoonlijke voorzorgsmaatregelen). 

Helaas belooft dit jaar net zo onzeker te worden. Blijft de verschuiving naar online shoppen voortzetten nu fysieke winkels weer open zijn tijdens de feestdagen? 

In dit whitepaper beschrijven we zeven manieren om je voor te bereiden op de feestdagen van 2021. Daarnaast delen we tips en voorspellingen van enkele marktleiders en Trustpilot-klanten over hun voorbereiding op een wederom atypisch najaar. 

## 7 tips voor de feestdagen van 2021

### 1. Bereid je voor op toenemende e-commerce en hybride detailhandel

De massale zelfisolatie van vorig jaar heeft ingrijpend veranderd hoe consumenten onderzoek en aankopen doen. Bedrijven moesten zich daarbij schikken naar [nieuwe consumententrends en communicatiekanalen](https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/retail/our%20insights/how%20covid%2019%20is%20changing%20consumer%20behavior%20now%20and%20forever/how-covid-19-is-changing-consumer-behaviornow-and-forever.pdf). Vorig jaar bereikte de e-commerce-verkoop zelfs het [hoogste groeipercentage in de afgelopen 13 jaar](https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2021/01/online-retail-sales-growth-hit-13-year-high-in-2020/).

Nu de meeste beperkingen zijn opgeheven, verwachten we dat sommige klanten dit jaar weer meer fysieke aankopen zullen doen.
Uit een onderzoek bleek echter dat [38% van de consumenten](https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-e-commerce-fits-into-retails-post-pandemic-future) nog steeds van plan is hun kerst- en sinterklaasinkopen online te doen, en alleen naar winkels gaat die geweldige klantervaring bieden.

“Tijdens de pandemie is de meeste offline winkeltraffic verschoven naar online – het aantal e-commerce-consumenten is dus enorm toegenomen. Als je fysieke winkels heropent, is de belangrijkste uitdaging het behoud van de toegevoegde waarde die je als webshop biedt. Richt je op de aspecten die klantvertrouwen bevorderen”, aldus Gary A., directeur van FragranceBuy Canada.

Voor fysieke winkeleigenaren kan het verbeteren van de winkelervaring tijdens de feestdagen essentieel zijn voor succes. Bedrijven die zowel online als offline verkopen, halen waarschijnlijk de meeste klanten binnen.
We vroegen Melissa Dixon, directeur contentmarketing bij BigCommerce, om haar mening over de komende feestdagen:

“Tijdens Cyber Week 2020 zag BigCommerce zijn [bruto handelswaarde jaar-op-jaar met 74% stijgen](https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/cyber-week). Hoewel de Cyber Week-omzet in de loop der jaren gestaag is gegroeid, heeft de pandemie vorig jaar een aanzienlijke impact gehad op het winkelgedrag. Het is daarom moeilijk te voorspellen of hetzelfde groeiniveau dit jaar opnieuw zal worden bereikt. 

Maar uit een [recent onderzoek](https://www.bigcommerce.com/resources/guides/consumer-spending-trends-cdl-report/), dat BigCommerce met PayPal uitvoerde, blijkt dat sinds het begin van de coronapandemie 62,5% van de shoppers meer online uitgaf dan in fysieke winkels. 

3 dingen om rekening mee te houden tijdens deze feestdagen

### 2. Omnichannel-ervaringen winnen aan kracht

Tegenwoordig moet een omnichannel-ervaring klantenservice, marketing en klantervaring nauw integreren, ongeacht wanneer en via welke kanalen de klant kiest om met het bedrijf in contact te komen.

Om een naadloze winkelervaring te creëren moet je meerdere communicatiekanalen, tools en platforms met elkaar verbinden. 

De afgelopen tijd is duidelijk geworden dat multichannel-strategieën niet langer voldoen aan de behoeften van consumenten, omdat ze afzonderlijke en onafhankelijke winkelsystemen bieden, in plaats van een holistische ervaring.

Voor deze feestdagen zal het bieden van naadloze klantervaringen, van winkel tot mobiel of computer, een stuk meer conversies opleveren. Steeds meer shoppers willen namelijk via verschillende kanalen navigeren voordat ze een aankoop doen.


NL Freshworks quote

Het verkennen van nieuwe kanalen en het creëren van een holistische klantervaring via alle kanalen zal de sleutel tot succes zijn deze feestdagen. 

In zijn [jaarverslag van 2020](https://www.pwc.com/us/en/retail-consumer/publications/assets/pwc-retailing-2020.pdf) constateert PwC dat het aantal bedrijven dat investeert in omnichannel-ervaringen in slechts één jaar tijd is gestegen van 20% naar meer dan 80%. En aangezien de mobiele verkoop dit jaar [72% van de totale omzet](https://www.statista.com/chart/13139/estimated-worldwide-mobile-e-commerce-sales/) zou kunnen uitmaken, loop je zonder een omnichannel-strategie waarschijnlijk veel mis.

“Een van onze belangrijkste tips voor het aankomende feestdagenseizoen: vergroot je bereik via extra kanalen en markten. Het afgelopen jaar lanceerde BigCommerce nieuwe integraties, waaronder [Instagram Checkout](https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/instagram-checkout-tips/) en [Walmart Marketplace](https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/selling-on-walmart-marketplace/). Veel van onze verkopers gebruiken deze nieuwe kanalen om hun omzet te verhogen. 

Deze ontwikkeling laat ook zien dat de manier waarop shoppers producten ontdekken is veranderd. In ons [consumentenonderzoek van 2021](https://www.bigcommerce.com/resources/guides/consumer-spending-trends-cdl-report/) zei bijvoorbeeld 54,8% van de respondenten dat ze social media gebruikten om nieuwe producten te verkennen. 

Daarom raden we je aan om uit te zoeken op welke kanalen je klanten actief zijn en daar te beginnen met verkopen. Ben je hier niet zeker van of beschik je niet over over de benodigde data? Dan kun je eenvoudig experimenteren en enkele van je producten delen op platforms zoals Amazon of Instagram”, aldus Melissa Dixon, directeur contentmarketing bij BigCommerce.


Creëer een goede omnichannel-ervaring in 3 eenvoudige stappen

### 3. Grensoverschrijdende verkoop wordt steeds populairder

Grensoverschrijdende verkoop is een van de belangrijkste manieren geworden waarop retailers hun bedrijf laten groeien en hun winst vergroten. Eigenlijk heel logisch: waarom zou je je markt beperken als je een geweldig product of dienst verkoopt? 

"Een andere trend die we bij onze retailers zien, is de toename van grensoverschrijdende verkoop – afgelopen feestdagenseizoen schoten de bestellingen in november en december omhoog", bevestigt Melissa Dixon. 

NL BigCommerce quote

Maar grensoverschrijdende verkoop kan ook een [bron van meerdere problemen](https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/cross-border-selling-issues) zijn. Houd hier dan ook absoluut rekening mee, zodat je er enkel de voordelen van plukt. Anders loop je het risico slechte kwaliteit te leveren en zo je klanten een frustrerende ervaring te bezorgen. 

“We schreven een blogpost over hoe je [succesvol grensoverschrijdend kunt verkopen](https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/cross-border-selling-issues). We raden onder andere aan om je inhoud te lokaliseren, te verkopen op marktplaatsen zoals [Mercado Libre](https://www.bigcommerce.com/essentials/mercado-libre/), lokale betaalmethoden aan te bieden en je verzending zorgvuldig te plannen”, aldus Melissa.

Klaar om deze feestdagen te investeren in grensoverschrijdende verkoop? Hier zijn 4 handige tips.

4 tips voor grensoverschrijdende verkoop

### 4. Een goed verzend- en retourbeleid is nog steeds essentieel

Nu consumenten steeds meer online winkelen, beginnen ze een uitstekende bezorgervaring van bedrijven te eisen. Dit werd voorheen slechts als extra pluspunt beschouwd. 

90% van de consumenten ziet [gratis verzending als grootste stimulans om online te blijven kopen](https://www.emerce.nl/research/shopper-doet-moeite-gratis-verzending). Aan de andere kant zal een deel van je online verkopen altijd worden geretourneerd, om de eenvoudige reden dat klanten een product niet kunnen zien of uitproberen voordat ze het kopen. Consumenten willen daarom artikelen gratis en gemakkelijk kunnen terugsturen. Krijgen ze die optie niet, dan kan dit betekenen dat ze al gauw elders gaan shoppen.

Omdat gratis verzending en retourneren steeds gebruikelijker worden, zijn er twee nieuwe diensten waar je voordeel uit kunt halen ten opzichte van je concurrenten: tracking- en verzendverzekering.

“Tussen de groei in e-commerce en de toename van verloren en gestolen pakketten, zagen we dat steeds meer van onze retailers prioriteit geven aan tracking- en verzendverzekering via apps als [Route](https://route.com/merchants). En omdat pakketdiefstal doorgaans het vaakst voorkomt tijdens de feestdagen, kunnen verkopers hun klantervaring verbeteren door hen deze opties aan te bieden”, zegt Melissa Dixon, directeur contentmarketing bij BigCommerce.

Het aanbieden van deze opties verbetert je merkimago, houdt je klanten tevreden en geeft je een voorsprong op je concurrentie. 


3 manieren om klanten tevreden te houden tijdens de feestdagen

### 5. Gebruik reviews om vertrouwen te wekken en geweldige ervaringen te leveren

[91% van de mensen ervaart advertenties als meer opdringerig](https://www.vieodesign.com/blog/new-data-why-people-hate-ads) dan 3 jaar geleden. Het etaleren van [social proof en validatie door derden](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/wat-is-social-proof-en-waarom-is-het-belangrijk-voor-uw-marketing) is dan ook een van de beste vormen van marketing voor je bedrijf. Mensen vertrouwen namelijk veel eerder op de mening van andere consumenten, dan op de woorden van bedrijven.

“Vooral in deze tijd van het jaar is het belangrijk dat je klanten je vertrouwen wanneer ze online winkelen. Dit bereik je het beste door eerlijke, echte reviews op je website te tonen.

De kopers van vandaag zijn clever – ze zoeken naar bedrijven met een mix van positieve en negatieve reviews om te zien hoe het bedrijf reageert op eventuele slechte klantervaringen en deze oplost. Door je best te doen om je klanten een geweldige ervaring en service te bieden, en door alle shoppers uit te nodigen om reviews te schrijven, kun je het vertrouwen opbouwen dat nodig is om deze periode online te verkopen,” zegt Jan Jivmark, Trustpilots Global Marketing-manager.


NL eyeglasses.com quote

Consumenten vergelijken bedrijven ook graag online om er zeker van te zijn dat ze precies krijgen wat ze zoeken – vooral tijdens de feestdagen. Dit maakt het nog moeilijker voor merken om op te vallen in een toch al competitieve omgeving. Daarom kunnen het bieden van uitstekende klantenservice en hoogwaardige klantervaringen een echte onderscheidende factor zijn. 

“In deze zeer concurrerende markt heeft de overstap naar leveringsmodellen die prioriteit geven aan online bestellingen, zowel klanten als klantenservicemedewerkers tevreden gehouden. Door de wijdverbreide invoering van chatbots kon het aantal vragen worden verminderd, waardoor de klantenservice-medewerkers betere en meer persoonlijke service konden leveren. Berichten-apps zoals WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat of Facebook Messenger, waar klanten lang op blijven hangen, brachten shopper-gemak naar een geheel nieuw niveau.  

De toekomst is aan merken die erin slagen om aan de verwachtingen van klanten te voldoen met ongecompliceerde, snelle en gebruiksvriendelijke digitale klantenservice”, benadrukt Abhishek GP, directeur Growth Marketing bij [Freshworks](https://www.freshworks.com/?utm_source=ISV_Trustpilot&utm_campaign=Blog). 

Een uitstekende klantenservice vereist wel dat je je klanten en doelgroep goed kent, evenals hun wensen en behoeften. Met reviews kun je [actuele consumenteninzichten verzamelen](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/wat-zijn-klantinzichten-en-welke-voordelen-bieden-ze) en verbeterpunten identificeren om je klantenservice aan te scherpen en je merkvertrouwen te vergroten.

Rhiannon Williams, marketingmanager-partner bij [AmericanEagle](https://www.americaneagle.com/), concludeert:
“Zeker in de aanloop naar kerst is het belangrijk om een positieve winkelervaring te bieden om van bezoekers vaste klanten te maken. 

Klantenservice is een cruciaal aspect van de algehele customer experience – zonder goede klantenservice kun je namelijk geen goede klantervaring bieden. 

In de aanloop naar de feestdagen is er een overvloed aan aanbiedingen rondom bijvoorbeeld Black Friday en Cyber Monday. Gezien de verwachte traffic is het zorgen voor een geweldige online ervaring dan ook essentieel."

Je checklist voor je review-verzameling tijdens de feestdagen

### 6. Ethische bedrijven zullen aan het langste eind trekken

Er is de laatste tijd veel gesproken over merken met een ethische missie, en dat zal de komende tijd niet veranderen.

“De trend naar ethisch winkelen zal ondanks andere economische factoren blijven groeien. Omdat consumenten zich goed voelen als ze andere mensen en de planeet helpen", bevestigt Mark Agnew, CEO en oprichter van [eyeglasses.com](https://www.eyeglasses.com/).

Geloof het of niet, er zijn tal van manieren waarop je merk zich bij deze trend kan aansluiten, wat je ook verkoopt. 

Zo kun je bijvoorbeeld proberen om de komende feestdagen samen te werken met liefdadigheidsinstellingen of non-profitorganisaties, en een percentage van je opbrengst aan die organisaties doneren. En als lokaal bedrijf kun je zelfs een stap verder gaan door samen te werken met lokale liefdadigheidsinstellingen die de gemeenschap waarin je actief bent direct helpen. 

Alan Duncan, Trustpilots vicepresident Branding & Consumer Marketing, zei: "De VN-conferentie over klimaatverandering (COP26) wordt begin november gehouden – het milieu zal dus in de schijnwerpers staan wanneer het feestdagenseizoen aanbreekt. Als je iemand een cadeau geeft, zegt dat altijd iets over jezelf. Slimme marketeers die werken voor merken met een groene agenda moeten hier dus op kunnen inspelen, om het koopgedrag in de richting van ethische geschenken te sturen." 

Gaat je bedrijf ethisch en duurzaam te werk? Schreeuw het van de daken! Zeker tijdens de Sint- en kerstperiode. Het milieu is echt belangrijk voor mensen, en het geven van een cadeau dat ze niet alleen leuk vinden, maar dat ook staat voor waar ze in geloven, is een geweldige manier om hen te laten zien dat je de goede doelen steunt waar ze om geven. 


3 manieren om iets terug te doen tijdens de feestdagen

### 7. Bereid je voor op hogere consumentenbestedingen

De [economie is inmiddels herstellende](https://www.dnb.nl/actueel/algemeen-nieuws/persberichten-2021/vlot-economisch-herstel-verwacht-na-coronacrisis/), en voor de meeste mensen begint het leven weer een beetje normaal te worden. En het zijn niet alleen consumenten die weer [meer gaan uitgeven](https://www.ing.nl/zakelijk/themas/duurzaam-ondernemen/grotere-bedrijven-investeren-volop-in-duurzame-herstart-uit-coronacrisis.html).

"Met het toenemende consumentenvertrouwen en een sterke opleving van de reclame-uitgaven van grote merken, verwacht ik dat vooral luxemerken goed zullen presteren in het komende vakantieseizoen. Dit jaar willen de mensen eindelijk weer feestvieren met hun familie en vrienden, en daarbij mogen de juiste cadeaus niet ontbreken. 

Een andere categorie die veel baat zal hebben bij deze situatie zijn waarschijnlijk de ervaringsgeschenken. Een deelnemer aan een recente focusgroep meldde dat dagelijkse Amazon-bezorging zo ongeveer het enige was waar zijn familie naar uit kon kijken tijdens de lockdown – ze hebben nu een huis vol aangeschafte spullen! Het weggeven van échte ervaringen, waar velen van ons in deze droevige tijden alleen maar van kunnen dromen, kan in de nabije toekomst dus erg populair worden ”, aldus Alan Duncan, onze vicepresident Branding & Consumer Marketing.

Reclame-uitgaven worden zorgvuldig gemeten en gepland, en grote merken zouden hun geld niet investeren als ze er niet van overtuigd waren dat het lonend zou zijn. 

Omdat alle factoren wijzen op hogere verkopen en uitgaven tijdens de feestdagen, moet je je richten op het leveren van een geweldige algehele klantervaring. Wanneer producten niet langer beschikbaar zijn, verzending lang op zich laat wachten en klanten het winkelen beu raken, hebben goede – of slechte – klantervaringen doorgaans de meeste weerklank. 

3 trends om rekening mee te houden tijdens de feestdagen in 2021

## Zie ginds komt.. dé tijd voor geweldige klantervaringen

De afgelopen maanden heeft de [wereldwijde focus op online shoppen](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/learn-from-customers/de-impact-van-covid-19-op-het-bedrijfsleven-en-de-trends-na-de-pandemie) ertoe geleid dat een goede klantenservice en klantervaring absolute voorwaarden zijn geworden voor bedrijven die zich willen onderscheiden van de concurrentie. Goede service wordt niet langer alleen maar beschouwd als ‘mooi meegenomen’.

Dus, of je nou een webshop of een fysieke winkel hebt: een naadloze shopervaring zal cruciaal zijn voor je succes dit najaar. 

Maar gezien het risico dat de coronacrisis opnieuw verergert, moet je je als merk de komende maanden voorbereiden op verdere veranderingen. 

“Veel merken hebben de afgelopen anderhalf jaar geleerd om hun bedrijf razendsnel aan te passen. En juist deze wendbaarheid zal de komende maanden van cruciaal belang blijven. Hoewel we de vage hoop hebben dat de pandemie langzaam maar zeker zal afnemen, zal het consumentengedrag waarschijnlijk minder voorspelbaar zijn dan voorheen, aangezien nieuwe en oude gewoonten nog botsen in de nasleep van COVID-19," voorspelt Alan Duncan.

Nu we opnieuw een ongebruikelijk winkelseizoen tegemoet gaan, is het begrijpen van je doelgroep en het opbouwen van consumentenvertrouwen belangrijker dan ooit. Investeren in een sterke reviewstrategie kan je daarbij helpen, samen met onze zeven tips voor succesvolle feestdagen in 2021.

__[Ontvang gratis meer informatie over de kracht van reviews](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/request-demo)__

Holiday Shopping: Trustpilot Holiday Report 2021

Trustpilot-whitepaper: Feestdagen 2021

Trustpilot-whitepaper: 7 e-commerce-tips voor de komende feestdagen

View Trustpilot's latest reports as we share industry data, whitepapers and research papers from verticals including automotive, finance, ecommerce and more.

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Guides and Reports

The complete guide to marketing with customer reviews: 2021 update

Trustpilot's complete guide to reviews

Marketing with customer reviews is a surefire way to build trust in your brand, and turn that into measurable ROI through increased web traffic and sales. In this practical guide, we'll show you 15 ways you can improve your marketing strategy with reviews.

I rely on reviews. You rely on reviews. 

We all rely on reviews. 

In fact, [consumer behavior](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/consumer-behavior-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-global-review-trends-by-industry) has evolved such that shoppers the world over are relying on reviews from their fellow customers to find the most up-to-date and accurate information about businesses in their local communities and beyond. 

So, if you’re wondering whether you could be doing more with customer reviews, know this: reviews can provide your business with so much more than feedback on your products and services. 

They're also a powerful marketing engine in their own right. Customer reviews are a way to build trust in your brand, and turn that brand trust into measurable ROI through increased web traffic, sales, and revenue. 

In this practical guide, we’ll show you exactly how to turn your customer reviews into better business results by putting them to work throughout your entire marketing strategy. 

And on the off chance you’re totally new to the world of reviews, we’ll start with a quick overview of their many benefits, and how they work together to propel business growth. 

## Why every business needs customer reviews and testimonials

We’ll keep this brief — the virtuous cycle of collecting reviews goes something like this: 

### 1. Build trust in your brand by collecting and responding to reviews.

Reviews are an opportunity for anyone familiar with your brand to publicly share what they love about your products, services, and [customer experience](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/5-reasons-why-customer-experience-is-the-pulse-of-every-business). So, having reviews publicly available conveys to potential customers that you’re safe to do business with.

Once you have some reviews about your business, you can:

### 2. Attract new customers by using reviews, ratings, and testimonials throughout your marketing strategy. 

Showing off your customer reviews is how you turn your hard-earned brand trust into measurable ROI. 

Whether you dream of becoming the search result they actually click, driving more traffic with your emails and ad creative, or converting more browsers into buyers on your site — [social proof](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/why-and-how-social-proof-influences-consumers) like reviews, star ratings, and testimonials can help with that. 

To meet the expectations of all the new customers you’ll attract from showing off your reviews, you’ll need to: 

### 3. Tap into the goldmine of fresh consumer insights within your reviews.    

You’ve built a trusted brand. You’ve attracted more customers than ever before by exuding trustworthiness in all of your marketing. Now you need to understand what all of your new customers thought about their experience with your brand. 

Reviews act like a window into the minds of your customers, allowing you to discover exactly what they want — and deliver it — so you can build customer loyalty, get even more customer feedback, and continue using that feedback to attract new customers.

Sounds good, right? It all begins with [getting reviews](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/get-reviews) for your business so you can start showing off the trust in your brand. 

This is especially easy for businesses built on major eCommerce platforms to get up and running thanks to Trustpilot’s native integrations for [Shopify](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/shopify-plus), [BigCommerce](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/bigcommerce), [WooCommerce](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/woocommerce), [Magento](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/magento-commerce), [PrestaShop](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/prestashop), [Shopware](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/shopware), and [OpenCart](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/opencart). 


complete-guide-to-reviews-img1

Trustpilot reviews displayed on a phone

## 15 Ways to use customer reviews in your marketing strategy

Once you’ve collected some reviews about your business, you can start showcasing the voice of the customer throughout your marketing strategy to increase organic traffic, dial up your paid digital campaign performance, and ultimately win more customers. 

## Improving organic SEO with customer reviews

With [91.5% of organic traffic](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101/seo-statistics/) going to sites listed on the first page of search engine results, we can’t overstate how important your organic search ranking is when it comes to attracting new customers. 

__With that in mind, here are five ways you can use customer reviews to improve your organic search rankings.__

### 1. Build strong off-page SEO by collecting reviews on a third-party platform. 

Off-page SEO describes any actions you take to build up a digital footprint outside of your actual website — whether it’s building credible backlinks to your pages, staying active on social media platforms, or even creating a profile on a [third-party review platform](https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/02/26/can-independent-review-platforms-make-google-love-site/) like Trustpilot. 


Off page SEO

off-page SEO diagram

Even though search engine algorithms are always evolving, the experts at [Moz](https://moz.com/learn/seo/off-site-seo) suspect that off-page SEO considerations like relevance, trustworthiness, and authority carry more than 50% of the ranking factor weight. 

Fortunately, building up your online presence with third-party reviews can help your business tick all three of those boxes. 

### 2. Drive more referral traffic from your Trustpilot business profile. 

On top of the off-page SEO benefits for your actual website, creating a profile on Trustpilot can also lead to a huge spike in referral traffic. 

That’s because when someone searches for reviews of a brand, they’re likely to find that brand’s Trustpilot [business profile page](https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013930439-Introduction-to-your-company-profile-page) at the top of the search results. Why, you ask? 

We don’t mean to brag, but Trustpilot’s [domain authority](https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority) is strong. So, the more reviews you collect — and the more you [enrich the content](https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/202616716-Customize-your-company-profile) on your business profile page — the easier it will be for search engines to associate your brand with ours, and show your presence on Trustpilot right at the top of search results.

This could be your competitive advantage since referral traffic is so often overlooked — even though it’s a free source of qualified leads, and can even [improve your organic search performance](https://moz.com/blog/organic-traffic-without-ranking). 


Learn how TaxSlayer used their enriched business profile page to generate a 500% increase in referral traffic to their site.

### 3. Get more organic traffic by displaying customer reviews on your website.

Featuring customer reviews on key landing pages is easy to pull off with review widgets, and this small addition to your website can improve how often your pages show up in organic search results. 

That’s because reviews are a form of user-generated content, and UGC is SEO gold:

- __Reviews increase the amount of text on each page.__ This extra text makes your page more valuable in the eyes of Google because you’re offering them more context for what the page is really about — and whether it should surface for the user’s search query. 
- __The ratings associated with your reviews help Google understand the quality of your products and services.__ At the end of the day, Google wants to show the most reputable search results in hopes of delivering the best experience to their users. 
- __Review text adds fresh content to pages that might not otherwise get frequent updates.__ This tells Google that the information about your business is recent and up-to-date, and is therefore worth surfacing for the user’s search query.  

These elements work together to [help Google understand your website](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/why-does-google-care-if-your-business-has-online-reviews-in-2019). Over time this can lead search engines to show your pages in search results more frequently, and drive larger volumes of high quality traffic to your site.


reviews are great for SEO because they provide fresh content and long tail keywords, both of which Google loves

complete-guide-to-reviews-img4

Google search on a laptop

### 4. Earn review snippets in organic search with product reviews. 

When marketers think about star ratings in search results, paid listings usually come to mind — and we’ll get there in the next section. But most marketers don’t realize they can also earn star ratings on their organic search listings and appeal to those savvy shoppers who might be [less inclined to click-through an ad](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/can-online-reviews-revive-consumer-trust-in-advertising). 

As it turns out, collecting [Product Reviews](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/product-reviews) can help you qualify for [review snippets](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/rich-snippets-stars-for-product-reviews-can-boost-seo) in organic search.  

And those shiny gold stars on your listings can help attract more attention to your product pages, and even improve your click-through rates by up to 35% in organic search. 

Not bad!

It’s not hard to do — our range of [eCommerce integrations](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/type/apps) allow you to make your Product Review data discoverable to search engines in just a few clicks that add some simple code (aka schema markup) to your product pages. This allows search engines to easily get a sense of your products’ overall ratings, and determine whether you meet their requirements for displaying review snippets. 

If your review stats meet [Google’s requirements](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/review-snippet), your product pages could appear with performance-enhancing review snippets in the SERPs. 


According to Conversion XL, review stars in search engine results can improve CTR by as much as 35%.

complete-guide-to-reviews-img5

According to ConversionXL, review snippets can improve click-through rate by as much as 35% in organic search

### 5. Rank for long tail search queries with product reviews.

Collecting product reviews can also amp up the SEO power on each of your product pages, and help you rank for a broader range of relevant keywords. 

It’s pretty straightforward. Allowing customers to leave reviews about your individual products — and putting them front and center on your product pages — can improve your site’s visibility for [long tail search queries](https://yoast.com/focus-on-long-tail-keywords/#:~:text=Focusing%20on%20long%2Dtail%20keywords,as%20they%20are%20more%20specific.), with no copywriting effort on your part.

Try as you might, thinking of every possible descriptor, use case, or problem your product solves can be difficult to say the least. Thankfully, product reviews let your customers become the copywriters, enabling them to share their own unique experiences with your products. 

The icing on the cake is that all this happens automatically — no extra copywriting or content creation for you.

## Enhancing paid digital campaign performance with customer reviews

Today’s consumers have seen it all — and many of them don’t want to see ads or slick marketing messages anymore. In fact, more than [75% of consumers](https://deloitte.wsj.com/cmo/2018/04/03/are-consumers-adlergic-a-look-at-ad-blocking-habits/) regularly use an adblocker.

To make matters even more challenging for digital marketers, research shows [fewer than 3 in 10 consumers](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/learn-from-customers/trustworthiness-in-advertising-what-consumers-have-to-say) report a solid level of trust towards digital advertising channels.  

__Fortunately, customer reviews and star ratings can enhance your digital campaign performance on the channels that have the [biggest influence](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/can-online-reviews-revive-consumer-trust-in-advertising) on consumer’s purchasing decisions.__

### 6. Qualify for Google Seller Ratings to improve Google Ads performance.

A close relative of review snippets in organic search, [Google Seller Ratings](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/how-to-land-great-reviews-and-boost-your-google-seller-rating) are a one-stop-shop for:

- Adding a healthy dose of social proof to your paid search listings.
- Making your business stand out from the competition.
- And increasing click-through rate on your Google Ads campaigns.

A higher click-through rate often leads to increased sales, and will usually improve your [Quality Score](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/140351?hl=en) — meaning you’ll get traffic at a lower cost per click. This in turn gives you a lower cost per acquisition, and frees up more budget for the rest of your business.

Just keep in mind that whether Google Seller Ratings display on your paid search listings is up to Google’s discretion in line with their [latest guidelines](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375474?hl=en) — which tend to stipulate that a business must have a certain number of reviews and a certain aggregate rating before those shiny gold stars will appear below your [Google Ads](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/browsers-to-buyers/why-wont-my-google-seller-ratings-show-up-and-4-other-gsr-questions).

Once you do earn them though, your [Google Seller Ratings](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/how-to-land-great-reviews-and-boost-your-google-seller-rating) will appear in Google search results, Google Shopping listings, and even on Google search partners’ listings. 

So if you ask us, it’s worth setting yourself up to qualify for them.

### 7. Enhance your retargeting campaigns with customer testimonials, reviews, and ratings.

[Retargeting campaigns](https://blog.alexa.com/retargeting-vs-remarketing/) can straddle a range of platforms using paid ads to re-engage potential customers who have visited your website or social media profiles. 

No matter which platform you’re using to run a retargeting campaign, you can see a [performance improvement](https://business.trustpilot.com/customer-stories/finance-insurance/why-taxslayer-chose-trustpilot-to-leverage-customer-feedback) if you include your reviews and ratings in the ad creative. This can look like:

- Quoting an individual customer review.
- Using your overall rating in your ad creative.
- Showing off how many customers have rated you highly.

The best part? Highlighting your reviews in ad creative can be done without design skills (or even an in-house designer) with some help from Trustpilot’s social media [Image Generator](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/social-media-tools).

With retargeting, you’re putting ads in front of people who have some existing relationship with your business. The extra social proof you add to your retargeting creative might be the deciding factor that nudges customers to purchase from you.


Learn more about Trustpilot's social media tools. 

## Getting more from your email marketing with the voice of the customer 

Though it’s a tough number to pin down, email marketing experts estimate that the average person sends and receives [126 business emails per day](https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/knowledge-base/how-many-emails-does-the-average-person-receive-per-day/). That’s a whole lot of emails.

It’s easy to see why the average open rate for emails is about [22%](https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/) — and why it can be so challenging to cut through the noise with email marketing.

__Here are four ways you can let the voice of the customer do it for you.__

### 8. Boost email click-through rates by adding customer reviews and testimonials.

Every improvement in email click-through rate is going to drive more qualified traffic to your website and increase the odds of a conversion. So you might be interested to know that customer reviews can improve the click-through rate in all of your [marketing emails](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/browsers-to-buyers/4-email-marketing-strategies-to-unlock-black-friday-sales-volume-throughout).

Unlike channels with strict word counts and requirements for visual creative, with email you’re free to be creative with how you show off your reviews. You can even use them as the entire basis for different types of email content and CTAs. 

Whether you’re drafting a monthly newsletter, a seasonal product promotion, or a dynamic remarketing campaign – [highlighting a customer review](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/inside-trustpilot/social-proof-in-email-marketing-is-easier-than-ever-with-trustpilots-klaviyo) that’s directly related to your offer puts the social proof your customers crave right on a silver platter, and [increases the odds](https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2019/06/improve-your-ctr-using-social-proof/#:~:text=4.,a%2037.5%25%20increase%20in%20conversions.) that they’ll click-through to your landing page, and ultimately convert. 

And with [82% of shoppers](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/why-and-how-social-proof-influences-consumers) reporting that ratings and reviews in email marketing can make them more likely to purchase, that’s pretty promising.  

### 9. Let customer reviews do the talking in your welcome campaigns.

Welcome campaigns are your first opportunity to build a direct relationship with a future customer. Most of your email signups probably haven’t made a purchase yet, and they could even be brand new to your business.

This is your opportunity to convince them you’re a brand they can feel comfortable buying from — and it’s the perfect time to let your satisfied customers do the talking. 

Think of your reviews as a dynamic database of nuanced marketing content to make your campaigns as compelling as possible to your email audience segment. 

When you’re in the early stages of building a relationship with your future customers, it’s a good idea to: 

- Include a relevant customer review in each email, whether it’s about a specific product or your customer experience in general. 
- Feature your top-rated products and services based on your reviews. 
- Show off your brand’s personality by curating some surprising or funny customer reviews. 

This is just a sampling of the creative ways you can make a first impression through your customer reviews and generate warm responses to your email campaigns. 

### 10. Show off your trustworthiness in the email header, footer, and subject line.

Every email you send should include some proof of your trustworthiness. One easy way to achieve this is by including your star rating to your email template’s header, or adding a customer testimonial in the footer. 

With email [open rates](https://mailchimp.com/help/about-open-and-click-rates/) hovering around a modest 22%, it’s also in your best interest to lead with social proof right in the subject line. Here are some sample ideas to get you started:

*- "Our top reviewed products this month."*
*- "Thank you for making us a 5 star company."*
*- "5 ways we’ve used your reviews to improve our customer service."*
*- "Meet Sue, our top customer service rep."*
*- “We thought our teapots were great, your feedback has made them even better!”*
*- “The products you love.”*


Complete Guide to Reviews Quote Jillian Lore

Trustpilot logo Round Star BlueBG 420x420

Digital Marketing Specialist, Rush49

### 11. Abandoned cart emails are more effective with customer reviews.

No matter how watertight your online shopping journey is, abandoned carts are bound to happen. 

According to the experts at [Klaviyo](https://www.klaviyo.com/blog/whats-is-abandoned-shopping-cart-email), the average cart abandonment rate is about 70% on desktop and a whopping 85% on mobile — so it’s not surprising that abandoned cart email flows have become so popular. 

Many retailers rely on special offers and promotions in these email campaigns to lure would-be customers back to their website, but adding a testimonial, review, or rating can be more than enough to bring them back without compromising your precious margins.  

So if you’re putting together an abandoned cart email flow, consider including a few reviews about your customer experience or best-selling products to reassure any hesitant shoppers out there that your business is not only safe to buy from — but that there’s plenty to love about your brand.

No matter what type of email campaign you’re running, it’s easy to feature Trustpilot reviews with our integrations for major email providers like [Klaviyo](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/klaviyo), [Fresh Relevance](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/fresh-relevance), and [Movable Ink](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/movable-ink). 


Adding reviews to your cart abandonment email campaigns can boost CTR by up to 220%

complete-guide-to-reviews-img7

NewYorkDress saw a 220% increase in CTR after adding reviews to their cart abandonment emails

## Improving website conversion rates by putting customer reviews front and center

Today, [89%](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/4-things-every-business-owner-should-know-about-the-state-of-reviews) of consumers check online reviews throughout the online shopping journey. So, by the time a potential customer lands on your website, chances are they’ve already formed a first impression about your brand. 

If you want to make sure that first impression leads to a conversion, it’s a good idea to provide all the reassurance they need to click “BUY” right on your website. 

__Here are four ways to [improve your conversion rate](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/browsers-to-buyers/what-is-conversion-rate-optimisation) with customer reviews on your website.__

### 12. Use reviews to make a stellar first impression on your homepage. 

When you improve the trustworthiness of your marketing campaigns, you’re likely to drive a lot more qualified traffic to your website. If your goal is turning more site browsers into buyers, your website should be just as trustworthy as the marketing materials that led them there. 

When it comes to website optimization, the homepage is often overlooked in favor of product pages and the checkout page — and that’s a missed opportunity.

Even if the majority of your site visitors arrive via a specific landing page, there’s a good chance they’ll still want to check out your homepage, especially if they’re unfamiliar with your brand. 

With this in mind, try to highlight customer reviews as much as possible on your homepage. You could:

- Showcase the quality and quantity of your reviews — for example, *“We received 2,365 reviews this year, and 95% of customers gave us a 5/5”.*
- Feature 3-5 recent reviews to show off what your others love about your customer experience.
- Round up your most reviewed or highly rated products and services — for example, *“Here are some products our customers gave 5 stars”.*

Remember, your homepage is where site visitors turn to find [trust signals and other social proof](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/what-is-social-proof-and-why-is-it-important-for-marketing) for your brand — so don’t miss this opportunity to easily build trust with curious customers by showing off a highlight reel or some summary statistics about your customer reviews. 


complete-guide-to-reviews-img9

ThirftBooks have embedded customer reviews throughout the customer journey

### 13. Add review widgets to product pages to make the buying decision easy.

We’ve already established that product reviews are an SEO secret weapon — but they can also make [conversions skyrocket on your product pages](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/customer-stories/get-seen-in-search/ann-summers-uses-product-reviews-to-increase-sales-up-to-230). 

According to the experts at [Shopify](https://www.shopify.com/blog/15359677-why-online-store-owners-should-embrace-online-reviews), 79% of online shoppers trust information shared in product reviews as much as a personal recommendation. And other studies have revealed that [product reviews are 12x more trusted](https://econsultancy.com/ecommerce-consumer-reviews-why-you-need-them-and-how-to-use-them/) than manufacturer or product descriptions. 

In short, [showing relevant reviews](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/trustbox-widgets) on product pages makes the buying decision easier for hesitant shoppers. 

That said, not all reviews carry the same weight. 

Research shows that shoppers want to see real product images from other customers (aka [user-generated content](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/product-reviews)) when they look at product reviews:

- Millennials trust user-generated content [50% more](https://www.iab.com/insights/user-generated-content-for-marketing-and-advertising-purposes/) than traditional media and think it’s 20% more influential on their purchasing decisions.
- Consumers are [3x more likely](https://www.iab.com/insights/user-generated-content-for-marketing-and-advertising-purposes/) to perceive user-generated content as authentic compared to content created by a brand.

So if your goal is to increase conversions on your product pages, make sure your product review provider gives customers an opportunity to share their own photos.

If you display these on your product pages, your conversion rate is sure to thank you. 

### 14. Add star ratings to the site header and footer to make every single page more trustworthy. 

Depending on what they searched to find your business, customers can land on almost any page on your site from the SERPs. With this in mind, every page is an opportunity to convince them to make the critical decision to purchase.

The easiest way to make sure your trustworthiness comes across loud and clear — no matter where visitors land on your site — is to add your star rating to your header or footer.

It’s a small change that can make a big difference.

### 15.  Reduce your exit rate by highlighting reviews and ratings on exit pages. 

Every journey has a start point and an end point — and if that end point isn’t the order confirmation page, you should take every opportunity to increase your conversion rate.

First, identify any pages with high exit rates by checking out your [exit page performance](https://www.paperstreet.com/blog/how-to-use-google-analytics-to-identify-exit-pages-and-improve-them/) in Google Analytics and noting which ones have high traffic and a high exit percentage. 

With exit pages, it’s worth taking the time to look at the actual page and see if you can spot a problem:

- Are there enough calls to action on those pages to keep people on the website?
- Is the page a dead end on the website?
- And of course, are there any customer review sentiments that might help keep people on this page?

Once you’ve ruled out other potential issues, it’s worth exploring any opportunity to show off relevant reviews on your exit pages — and Trustpilot’s [Review Tagging](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/review-tagging) feature makes this easy.

Here’s an example.

If your Delivery and Returns page has a high exit rate, you might start tagging reviews that mention delivery or returns so you can easily filter reviews by those keywords. This should make it easy to find a testimonial or two that sings your praises about delivery and returns — so you can feature them on your Delivery and Returns page. 

This tiny consideration could lead to a meaningful drop in your exit rate, and more conversions down the line. 

## Grow your business by amplifying the voice of the customer

If you made it this far, it should be clear that there’s an infinite number of creative ways you can integrate reviews into your marketing strategy to attract more customers — and make sure they actually convert. 

As we laid out at the beginning of this guide — customer reviews are all you need to kickstart a sustainable cycle of business growth. 

1. __Build trust in your brand__ by collecting and responding to reviews.
2. __Attract new customers__ by adding reviews to your marketing campaigns and across your website’s shopping journey. 
3. __Tap into the goldmine of fresh consumer insights__ within your steady stream of new customer reviews.

And then the cycle repeats, all because you put your customers at the heart of your marketing strategy. 

And if you really want to make the most of your customer reviews in your marketing strategy, focus on growing your [review collection](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/review-invitations) until your [social proof reaches critical mass](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/3-reasons-why-you-really-need-to-get-more-reviews). This makes it easier to highlight your reviews across your marketing channels, and eventually tailor your review curation to campaigns and product promotions.

So, the next time you approach a marketing campaign or a business challenge — whether it’s online or [offline](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/ratings-and-reviews-in-above-the-line-advertising) — ask yourself if customer reviews could be used to boost performance results.

You heard it here first: the answer is yes. 


Speak to one of our review experts today. 

7 Tried and Tested Conversion Strategies

According to research, in 2020, the average global conversion rate is [4%.31](https://www.invespcro.com/blog/the-average-website-conversion-rate-by-industry/). But in today's competitive landscape, it's getting harder for businesses to keep visitors engaged. So how can brands keep customers hooked and ensure their business generates more revenue?

In this guide, you’ll learn how to:
• Easily turn browsers into buyers
• Leverage your social proof to increase sales
• Use customer feedback to shape a great customer experience and encourage customer loyalty.

key cart abandonment statistics

## 1. Create an efficient checkout process

Needing as few steps as possible to actually complete the purchase process is a surefire way to increase conversions. Here are some of our top tips.

__Avoid complex clicks and unnecessary steps__

Make sure your checkout experience is completely linear - no confusing steps within steps. Never make objects clickable during the checkout phase so visitors get distracted and leave, abandoning their basket. You want the sole focus of the checkout page to be the checkout!

According to [VWO](https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/12/22/seven-fascinating-stats-on-ecommerce-and-cart-abandonment/), a confusing checkout is among the top five reasons for cart abandonment.

__Don’t push customers to register__

Make it optional to create an account. Some customers just want to buy their goods and be gone, and that’s fine. Have an express route for these shoppers. Baymard claims that [35%](https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate) of shoppers leave a purchase if they’re forced to create an account.

__Create a compelling checkout page__

We all like something to function and look good at the same time.

Think about the colours on your checkout page, the data fields you require, and even the calls-to-action you use. Don’t forget to add credibility to your checkout too by informing the customer what payment methods are accepted, or how secure their data actually is by adding security icons to your website.

Don't forget be clear about your final pricing so customers can see where their money is going.

__Reduce the amount of manual work__

A shipping address that is also the billing address by default can save the customer a lot of time in their purchase. You should also inform customers as early as possible if an item is unavailable or will be subject to delayed delivery, rather  than notifying them after they’ve gone through several steps.

Provide customers with a back button that leads to the previous page, so the customer doesn’t need to fill in their details again. Providing users with real-time support can also be a crucial tool to keep them on the path to completion.


## 2. Optimise your site for common web browsers

Different browsers – and even different versions of the same browser – see your site differently. When you’re designing your website, try to avoid to rely on browser-specific behaviour, and test its appearance and functionality on multiple browsers to make sure that all your visitors are getting the experience you’ve worked hard to create.

Once your site is up and running, be sure to retest at regular intervals and adapt where necessary. A site that is not regularly upgraded will not keep pace with new browsers or new versions of browsers affecting how the site is displayed. 

Don’t forget to consider your site’s overall accessibility. Not all users may have JavaScript enabled in their browsers and technologies such as Flash and ActiveX may not render well (or at all) in every browser. 

According to real-time web stats analysts [StatCounter](https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share), as of April 2020, the top five browsers by market share are:

- Chrome - 64%
- Safari - 13.6%
- Firefox - 4.21%
- Samsung Internet - 3.4%
- Edge Legagy - 2.23%


## 3. Optimise your site for mobiles and tablets

It’s no secret that mobile ownership and usage [has surpassed desktop](http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/). 

Mobile marketing is arguably the closest you can get to the consumer, as there is no other device that is as personal or portable. 

If your website doesn’t automatically resize to fit the screen that it’s being viewed on, you are running the risk of losing a lot of business. More than this, Google might not consider your website as much if you avoid mobile adaptability, thanks to a 2015 update to their algorithms (popularly dubbed ‘Mobilegeddon’). Without a mobile-optimised site, your mobile discoverability will suffer.


## 4. Display online reviews to boost trust

There’s no better way to build consumer trust than by showcasing the experience of your customers with your company. 

Canvas8 research found that, in 2020, [89%](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/4-things-every-business-owner-should-know-about-the-state-of-reviews) of global consumers check online reviews as part of their online buying journey, and 49% of global consumers consider positive reviews one of their top 3 purchase influences.

Having customer feedback on display on your site gives customers the encouragement they need to complete a purchase. More than that, customer reviews give you unparalleled insight into customer trends. 

You might notice the same kind of feedback appearing again and again in reviews. If so, this tells you you’re either doing something great, or there’s something that requires attention. 

Make sure you’re encouraging customers to leave reviews - and quickly respond to all of them, whether they’re positive or negative. It shows that you are listening and that you care. No matter how great your product is, if people don’t trust you, they won’t want to engage with you. 

## 5. Use social media to drive online sales

Savvy ecommerce managers are now exploring social media as a tool to directly boost sales. Over a quarter of individuals say brands that are active on social media are more “human”, meaning they appear more approachable and helpful by having real conversations with customers online.

Don’t forget, there are customers and prospects out there ready to connect with you on social media. Here are some tips to transform your social media success. 

__Develop a content strategy for your social media channels__

Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin have become great vehicles for content, meaning brands are paying attention and making the space more competitive than ever. Make sure you have a well-thought out strategy around your messaging, what you want to promote, and how you’ll differentiate yourself.

__Use YouTube playlists to showcase your own products__

Cisco predicts that online video will account for [82%](https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-much-ip-traffic-will-be-video-by-2021-2017-6) of all web traffic by 2022. YouTube playlists allow channel owners to select which videos will play sequentially, so a company’s use of this tool enables it to present viewers with additional products they may be interested in, increasing potential sales. 

__Manage and monitor social media and customer feedback in one place__ 

To find succeed in social media, you need to effectively monitor it. Save time and energy by monitoring your online reviews and social media activity from one console. If you use Hootsuite, Trustpilot has just the [Hootsuite app for you](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/hootsuite).

__Share your customer reviews on social media__

Today, [90%](https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stats/) of people follow at least one business on Instagram. Instagram has become known as an ideal fit for eCommerce marketing. 

The social platform is often used as the discovery portion of the sales funnel. [83%](https://www.facebook.com/business/news/insights/how-instagram-boosts-brands-and-drives-sales) of Instagram users say they discover new products and services on the platform. That's why encourage businesses to share their customers' feedback on social channels too. 

It’s a great way to showcase great stories from your customers and convert prospective customers. If you're not sure where to start, check out Trustpilot's guide to [social media reputation management here](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/trustpilot-guide-to-social-media-reputation-management).

## 6. Dedicate staff to web design

If your company has separate departments or suppliers for marketing and web design, the responsibility for turning website visits into sales tend to fall between two camps. This can be bad news for any business hoping to turn their online investments into real profitability. 

A web designer is a technical expert who can dedicate their time to testing and retesting website variations to further optimise your website’s buying process. However, a marketer should have a unique understanding of the needs and wants of your customers, and therefore a valuable insight into what will convert visitors into clients or customers, and what won’t. 

Ideally, the staff dedicated to website conversions should have a background in both areas. Including financial incentives for reaching performance goals will also correlate in getting your conversion rates closer to where you’d like them to be.

If you’re working within a smaller budget, consider investing in a professional developer, or try Shopify, the leading e-commerce website building tool. With [Trustpilot’s online review app for Shopify](https://business.trustpilot.com/partners/shopify-plus), so you can design a sleek site that displays customer feedback in no time at all. 

## 7. Consider a retargeting strategy

Retargeting can help reduce shoppers’ concerns and turn hesitant visitors into happy customers.

Start by determining which shoppers have added something to their cart, but haven’t completed their purchase. Once you have identified your audience, it’s important to decide how long you want to target cart abandoners. 

Reaching consumers as soon as they abandon is a must, but the length of time you target them should be determined by the products your business sells. Bigger purchases such as furniture, holidays, or electronics can have a longer consideration cycle, whereas other products like clothes or cosmetics don’t usually have a very long decision-making cycle.

__SMS retargeting__

According to Search Engine Watch, SMS messages are more effective than emails. Consider sending a reminder to cart abandoners. Typically, [90%](https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/12/22/seven-fascinating-stats-on-ecommerce-and-cart-abandonment/) of all SMS messages are opened, and 90% are read within 3 minutes.

It’s a great way to convert those hesitant shoppers, but if you’d rather use display retargeting, here are some of our top tips.

__Display retargeting done right__

- Test the kinds of displays to show cart abandoners - personalised, or static? 
- Use a promotional offer like free shipping to increase conversions 
- Offer a discount on future products to encourage a repeat purchase.


## Key Takeaways

By now, you should have a long to-do list to ensure you’re optimising your eCommerce business for conversions and efficient checkouts. But if you need a cheat sheet, here’s a quick list of key points. 

Turn your ecommerce conversion rates around by: 

- Making sure your checkout process is optimally designed  
- Optimising your site for mobiles and tablets 
- Using social media to drive online sales 
- Making sure your site is optimised for your visitors’ browsers 
- Using online reviews widgets to boost trust 
- Assigning responsibility for online performance and conversion goals to a dedicated member of staff.

If you'd like to learn more about Trustpilot and how reviews can help you amplify your marketing efforts, request a free demo below.

7 Tried and tested conversion strategies

Skift travel report with Trustpilot

From the time travelers start planning a trip, to the moment they complete their booking, reviews help impact multiple stages of the purchase decision, allowing travel brands to gain visibility with potential buyers, establish their credibility, and help influence the ultimate purchase decision.

In 2019, Trustpilot and Skift launched an online consumer survey to investigate the role reviews play in travel purchase decisions. An overwhelming 88 percent of survey respondents said reviews played an
important role in influencing their purchase. And other sources back this up: [Data from So Connect](https://soconnect.com/blog/why-online-reviews-matter/) found that 49 percent of bookers would not book a hotel that has no reviews, and 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.

Though reviews are an essential component of the travel buying experience, many companies are missing an opportunity to use them more strategically. To do this, they need to take a step back from managing individual reviews and instead focus on the bigger picture: the hidden patterns and unexpected insights currently locked away inside of their review data. The travel industry now has tools to access these review insights, unlocking a wealth of opportunities to supercharge companies of all sizes.

### How important are other customers’ reviews in your decision about whether or not to buy a travel product?

Figure 1

It’s not just about having a five-star rating on the website,” said Glenn Manoff, senior vice president, Communications & Brand at Trustpilot. “It’s about everything from brand reputation to product development. Reviews offer businesses the opportunity to improve their services through continuous feedback, engage in an honest dialogue with customers, and use positive sentiment to drive further business.

This new approach has significant benefits. First, it allows travel brands to spend more time amplifying the positive feedback they already receive from satisfied customers. This builds credibility with potential buyers and reinforces the fact that they are open and transparent with customers. In addition, this approach can help brands better prioritize which reviews are likely to have the biggest impact on their reputation and then share them to the right teams to quickly handle resolution. Last but not least, it creates opportunities to uncover a treasure trove of customer insights that can help improve the personalization of marketing campaigns, inform product development efforts, and even provide new metrics to help evaluate company success.

What review strategies are travel brands already using to gain these benefits? Which companies are ahead of the curve in deploying these strategies to boost their success? Finally, what review-focused technologies can they use to make these strategies possible? We’ll investigate these questions and more in “Five Unique Review Strategies to Grow Your Travel Business,” offering those in the industry new opportunities to boost customer satisfaction, streamline operations, and increase profitability in the process.

## Strategy 1: Gaining customer insights and improving personalisation

In the current travel eCommerce environment, it’s essential to understand what customers want and need. Yet many travel companies struggle to use customer data to personalize their advertising, products, and services. According to the results of Skift and Adobe’s 2018 Digital Transformation Report, one-third of travel executives rated their companies’ personalization efforts as four points or higher on a five-point scale.

But now, travel companies have the tools to apply what they know about customers to generate actionable insights. This is possible thanks to the analytical capabilities embedded in today’s review management platforms.

As we’ll explain below, these capabilities provide travel marketers with a more holistic view of their customers’ wants, needs, and behaviors. With this information in hand, they can build more detailed customer profiles, develop more relevant offers, and cultivate ongoing relationships with travelers.

### How travel brands use review data to connect the dots

One way travel brands now use review data to improve personalization is within targeted customer email campaigns. Luxury travel company Butterfield & Robinson (B&R) utilizes review data to improve its email marketing messages for various trip products. “You can actually put in specific reviews that are related to the email content, which we found to be quite effective,” said Michael Bertrand, acquisition marketing manager for B&R. “When we’re sending an email on a specific trip, and we have a very powerful review on that trip, we’re going to feature that in the email.”

Another organization using reviews to support guest personalization is the French hospitality group, Accor. The company collects all guest reviews in a central database. This data is then available to employees, who use it to provide a more consistent experience to guests regardless of which Accor hotel they visit. “It gives our frontline employees the necessary information that they need in order to personalize the guest experience,” said Alison Broussy, vice president of customer experience and reputation guest services for the brand. 

This review-powered process has another benefit: It’s helping Accor cultivate an ongoing relationship with their guests by connecting the dots across properties, service lines, and transactions. “It’s all about building that complete experience rather than just the in-hotel experience,” said Broussy.

### Review tools help identify insights at scale

How do B&R and Accor identify the right insights to inform their personalization efforts? While it’s true that some companies do it manually by analyzing individual reviews, this can be a time-consuming process. Instead, more brands are now relying on insight analysis tools built into review platforms, which help them identify hidden patterns within the data. 

One example is Trustpilot’s Review Insights technology. The tool uses machine learning technology to uncover hidden patterns in customer sentiment and topics surfacing across multiple reviews. These patterns can then be used to deliver more precise marketing messages when it’s time to reengage existing and potential customers. 

Trustpilot’s Review Tagging dashboard can also help marketers organize the various insights scattered among different customer reviews. Tagging can attach a phrase or keyword to a review, marking that information so it can be easily tracked. In the context of personalization, a travel brand might use the feature to tag reviews related to specific demographic groups that value the brand differently, or by destination, which can help marketers get a sense of which trips had the best or worst reviews.

“If the brand knows the type of content that the person commented on in the review, there’s a couple of ways to help analyze that,” said Brandon Till, senior director of product marketing for Trustpilot. “You might segment it based on either your customers … whether it’s a man or a woman, or if it’s a family trip. Or maybe this is a romantic vacation? Tagging can inform the different types of packages they might offer.”

And for those travel brands using third-party business intelligence tools, Till says it’s easy to then export tags for further analysis. “The company
could download and analyze it using their own business intelligence tool. We also have dashboards where people can compare the different tags to one another to see what’s overperforming.” 

## Strategy 2: Monitoring and delivering customer service in real time

In today’s fast-paced consumer environment, travelers expect real-time responses when they make complaints or have a problem. One recent study from Hubspot found that 82 percent of consumers [expected an immediate answer](https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/07/real-time-response-to-customers.html) to their queries and suggestions. And additional 2016 research from Trustpilot found that 81 percent of travel consumers will not buy a vacation from a company known to have poor customer service.

In order to quickly address problems, travel marketers need better strategies to monitor reviews, designate the right team to handle the issue, and provide quick resolution. When problems are handled quickly and appropriately, consumers are quick to forgive. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in Skift and Trustpilot’s survey said they were less likely to leave a bad review if the company tried to fix the problem during their trip.

### Imagine you have a problem with a travel company during a trip. How likely are you to still leave a bad review if the company tries to fix the problem during your trip?

Figure 2

### Building a system to provide real-time support

UK-based travel company Trailfinders has recognized the importance of rapid response and has designated a specific team to provide timely support if customers have a problem while on their trip. “We have a specialist team here that handle client issues that have been raised while they’re away,” said Lee Holden, digital marketing manager for Trailfinders.

Marketers also need to follow up with the reviewer to confirm that the issue has been addressed. “We will often say to clients, ‘Are you happy that your
issue has been resolved?,’” said Trailfinders’ Holden. “That generally leads to a conversation where, if it has now been resolved and they’re happy, then they’ll take a fresh look at their review.”

Among the marketing agencies that work with travel industry clients, some say that it’s important to follow-up with customers who offer feedback whenever possible to gather additional details. “If you’re seeing one-off comments, that’s one thing. But act if you’re seeing people complaining over
and over that ‘The beds are uncomfortable,’” said Jennifer Baum, of marketing agency Bullfrog + Baum. “Reach out. If you can get people to talk more and give you more details offline...then you can create a strategy.”

### How review tools can streamline the response process

In order to streamline the response and monitoring process, many review platforms provide marketers with tools to gather feedback throughout the customer journey. This includes features such as:

- Automatic email invites sent to customers during key moments in their trip
- Embedded review forms that live on company websites
- Customer data APIs to help synchronize review data with customer data found in email programs and CRM software. 

By providing more ways to collect reviews, travel brands can make it more likely that travelers will share their input when it’s most convenient for them.

And as the number of reviews grows, it’s equally important to consider software-based monitoring solutions, which help summarize feedback and notify the right team. “A successful business may get 1,000 reviews a day, right? So, it’s going to be very hard to understand which ones it has to pay
attention to,” said Ramin Vatanparast, Trustpilot’s chief product officer. “As soon as reviews come in, the system automatically analyzes them, groups them together, and informs the person in that department.”

Furthermore, integrations with customer service tools like Zendesk make it easier to flag and share notable reviews with the appropriate support personnel. “We can route these reviews into different help desk systems in real time, so that customers who are out traveling or at an airport can get
responses from companies quickly,” said Trustpilot’s Brandon Till.

Once the issue has been fixed, travel companies should also ask the customer to update his or her review. Consumers that post on review platforms like Trustpilot “own” their reviews, making it easier to modify their original rating, or add additional information. This is a great way to turn a previously negative review into a positive recovery.

## Strategy 3: Informing product research and evolution

Many in the travel industry recognize the potential of innovation to help grow their business and satisfy customer needs. But testing new innovations can also be expensive and risky. That’s why review data is the perfect way to investigate the viability of new innovations before they are released to the general public. 

Reviews already have a strong connection to the innovation process. According to the [2018 Global Innovation 1000](http://usblogs.pwc.com/industrialinsights/2018/11/28/what-makes-an-industrial-company-stand-above-its-peers/) study conducted by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, successful innovator companies “base innovation on direct insights from end users.” And in Skift and Trustpilot’s consumer
survey, 73 percent of respondents said they were more likely to leave honest feedback if they knew travel brands planned to act on the suggestions.

### How likely are you to leave honest feedback in a review if you know a travel brand will act upon your suggestions?

Figure 3

Furthermore, providing feedback is a key motivator for customers to share feedback in the first place. Close to 25 percent of respondents in the Skift and Trustpilot study said the reason they posted reviews was “to help the company improve its products."

### What are your primary reasons for writing reviews to travel brands?

Figure 4

### How travel brands turn reviews into product ideas

Trailfinders is one travel company that draws inspiration from reviews for future product development. The company’s travel packages frequently require collaboration with local supplier partners in each destination. The Trailfinders “watch team” monitors review data and periodically feeds it to the product team and any relevant suppliers who can take action on the insights.

“It’s largely a matter of us making sure that anything relevant gets moved on to the decision makers in the company,” said Trailfinders’ Holden.

And at Accor, consumer reviews help reinforce company decision making about everything from guest recommendations to content marketing programs, allowing them to improve the activities, itinerary suggestions, and marketing materials they then provide to future guests. 

“We can push a little further to get more feedback from our customers on what they actually did while they were in town while they were on property,” said Accor’s Broussy. “It can be used as content for generating revenue and more information on the destination than the actual property itself.”

Yet another example is Booking.com. The online travel agency gathers detailed hotel review data from guests, who are asked to review specific aspects of hotel properties. Room cleanliness, quality of hotel facilities, and the in-room amenities are just a few of the metrics that are investigated. This information is then shared with hotel owners, who are encouraged to take action to address the findings.

### Finding product improvements by identifying patterns

It’s possible that a marketer might stumble upon a single review that leads to a brilliant product idea. But rather than relying on luck to find these
insights, more companies in the travel industry now find these insights by using machine learning software, which can pick up on patterns and common phrases used across multiple reviews.

“You can analyze your reviews and try to get those signals,” said Trustpilot’s Vatanparast. One way this might work is if a hotel discovered a repeated pattern of guest reviews which had negative comments about the bed. “If everybody is complaining about the small beds, or uncomfortable beds, that’s a sign that I have to do something about my beds,” said Vatanparast. “Maybe make them bigger, if that’s the sentiment around it. Or, make them more comfortable.”

## Strategy 4: Proactively managing online reputation

A travel brand’s reputation plays a critical role in establishing credibility and trust with potential customers. But in recent years, trust in brands has been declining. According to the [Edelman Trust Barometer](https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2018-10/2018_Edelman_Trust_Barometer_Global_Report_FEB.pdf) study, less than half (48 percent) of the public said they trusted businesses, a number which declined from 58 percent the year prior. Another [study by Moz](https://moz.com/blog/new-data-reveals-67-of-consumers-are-influenced-by-online-reviews) found that businesses lose as many as 22 percent of customers after just one negative article is found online. In this environment, it’s essential for travel brands to promote review content in ways that reinforce consumer trust and help boost their reputations. 

### Amplifying positive reviews to improve discovery

The biggest opportunity for travel brands looking to burnish their reputation is to share positive reviews more widely. Tour operator Trailfinders uses its reviews on Trustpilot as an easily scalable marketing
asset. “We’re lucky enough to be rated number one for travel by Trustpilot, so we use that as a tagline, and depending on the advertisement, we might use excerpts and quotes from happy clients,” said Trailfinders’ Holden.

Trailfinders has integrated this five-star customer rating into a number of marketing channels. The company includes the endorsement in national newspaper ad campaigns, as well as within paid search campaigns on Google. Holden notes his team saw an increase in ad click-through rates after incorporating reviews into their display advertisements. The Trailfinders’ rating also shows up in the form of a carousel TrustBox “widget” that makes it possible to showcase customer reviews on the company’s website. 

Promoting this positive reputation is beneficial not just for existing customers, but for potential customers as well. “It’s putting us in front of new clients,” said Holden. “We were already engaged with our clients and trying to do the best we could in terms of responding to them as quickly as we could. What Trustpilot has given us is the opportunity to talk about that in the public arena in a way that the public trusts.”

Many travel brands also find that social media and paid search offer a powerful opportunity to put their positive customer ratings in front of consumers when they’re looking for company information. “If people are already looking to validate how good a company is, they’re going to search for reviews, and they’ll find them naturally on Facebook and Google,” said B&R’s Bertrand.

Bertrand says the company has found success integrating its positive feedback into Google Ads campaigns. As he notes, Trustpilot is one of a select group of trustworthy review partners Google allows to be featured in such efforts. “One of the big selling points was, I want to take advantage of seller ratings in Google Ads. To do that, you actually have to use a third-party,” he said.

### Using review tools to reinforce authenticity and transparency

Managing online reputation isn’t just about promoting good feedback. As more travel brands recognize, it’s also important to focus on review platforms that emphasize transparency and don’t allow them to hide negative reviews.

By focusing on these so-called “open” platforms, companies can signal that they have nothing to hide, helping to boost buyer trust and increasing their overall reputations. This stands in contrast to more “closed-loop” platforms, which hypothetically provide more control over which reviews are highlighted, but have hidden costs in the form of increased consumer skepticism. “If they are working with closed-loop platforms, then they have to manage online reputation by themselves,” said Trustpilot’s Vatanparast. “But, if they’re working with us, it’s much easier because we’re building all of our services and functionality around that transparency and trust.” 

One example of a product Trustpilot offers to reinforce trust is a tool called [Transparent Flagging](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/inside-trustpilot/creating-a-culture-of-transparency-and-trustworthiness-with-trustpilots-new). The feature adds data to the company profile page of any brand on Trustpilot, indicating the number of reviews the company has “flagged” (for violating platform guidelines), how many of those contested reviews were ultimately posted to the profile page versus deleted, and an indication about whether the contested reviews were found to be in breach of the guidelines.

“Providing this level of transparency helps businesses grow brand trust where needed and incentivizes good behavior,” said Stine Mangor Tornmark, senior vice president legal & compliance at Trustpilot. “We continue our commitment to combat any attempts to game the system and our fight for a reviews industry where businesses should not be allowed to censor what people can see and share.”

## Strategy 5: Redefine success metrics to include customer satisfaction scores

Travel brands already analyze their performance using metrics such as profit margin, occupancy rate, or revenue. But these measurements don’t always provide a comprehensive snapshot of the value the company creates for customers.

Consider the findings of a 2012 Harvard Business Review article titled, “The True Measures of Success,” in which author Michael J. Maubossin argued that companies “...need to assess nonfinancial measures such as customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, and product quality, and determine if they can be directly linked to the financial measures that ultimately deliver value.”

With this in mind, more travel brands are starting to incorporate metrics related to customer satisfaction and reviews into how they measure performance.

### How travel brands use reviews to measure company success

Accor is one example of a hospitality brand that uses review scores as a yardstick to understand the company’s progress toward key business goals. As company executives note, they keep track of a company-wide online reputation metric that is available to stakeholders across the organization.

“We have one major e-reputation score, used across our network, which enables us to manage the performance of our hotels at an individual level,” said Accor’s Broussy. “It’s part of our customer-centric approach. Even the support staff in our head offices is motivated by the overall experience that our customers are having with our products in the hotels.”

Even more important, Accor believes these positive guest satisfaction scores are closely correlated with online conversion rates for its hotels. “It’s a clear driver for web conversion,” said Broussy. “We closely follow the conversion rates for how customers that have consulted reviews for a particular hotel convert versus those that don’t.”

### Picking the right customer satisfaction metrics

As travel brands reevaluate how they measure success, they will increasingly need to consider how they can expand the range of indicators they use. For instance, indicators like the [Net Promoter Score](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter), which gauges customer loyalty, offer one potential option.

There’s also Trustpilot’s own “TrustScore” metric, which calculates customer satisfaction levels using an algorithm which blends both a company’s star rating and recency of reviews. Each individual indicator offers a specific view of success, and the best results can be achieved by combining various
views to create a holistic approach to brand success.

Another opportunity involves tracking changes in consumer sentiment over time. “You can choose 10 sentiments and follow the trend of those sentiments,” said Trustpilot’s Vatanparast. “Then you receive a report automatically, by email, on a weekly basis, which tells you what sentiments were positive or negative, and what are the areas of improvement. This means you don’t necessarily need to go through all the reviews. Trustpilot is doing the heavy lifting.”

## Conclusion

Reviews play a critical role in how travel brands boost their reputations and drive online business success. But even as more companies in the travel
industry internalize this message, many are still missing the larger opportunity. Reviews are not just something to monitor and manage. In order
to succeed and thrive in today’s highly competitive online travel ecosystem, travel brands need to think more strategically about the role review data
can play in helping achieve their business goals.

Today, a new review strategy is emerging. Thanks to powerful pattern analysis software and filtering tools, travel marketers can use review data to uncover unexpected insights into their customers’ habits and desires. This can help them unearth new product ideas or even to better personalize
the products and services they sell. It will allow them to quickly identify customer issues and respond before the complaint becomes a bigger problem for their brand. They will be able to easily promote positive reviews to potential customers, helping their company get discovered in customer searches. They can even use the data to capture a more accurate picture of their business success.

But in order to reap these benefits, those in the travel industry need to adopt a new mindset. Travel consumers are going to leave reviews, whether
those in the industry like it or not. The question those executives need to ask themselves is if they’ve put in place the proper tools and systems to listen, understand, and then act on what’s been said. “People are taking the time to post a review,” Baum said. “They often just want to be heard.”

__About Skift__

Skift is the largest intelligence platform in travel, providing media, insights, marketing to key sectors of the industry. Through daily news, research, podcasts, and Skift Global Forum conferences, Skift deciphers and defines the trends that matter to the marketers, strategists, and technologists shaping the industry. SkiftX is Skift’s in-house content marketing studio, working collaboratively with partners like Adobe, Airbnb, Hyatt, Lyft, Mastercard, and many more on custom projects to engage the world’s largest audience of travel influencers and decision makers.

5 Unique review strategies to grow your travel business

Reviews zijn geweldige social proof voor je bedrijf. Ze geven je marketingprestaties en conversies een aanzienlijke boost. Ontdek hoe je reviews optimaal benut in alle stadia van je marketing.

Als er iets is waar we allemaal op vertrouwen, zijn het reviews. 

Het [consumentengedrag](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/consumer-behavior-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-global-review-trends-by-industry) is zelfs zodanig geëvolueerd, dat shoppers over de hele wereld vertrouwen op reviews van andere consumenten, om zo de meest actuele en nauwkeurige informatie over bedrijven te vinden.

Kun je meer doen met je klantreviews? Absoluut. Reviews bieden je bedrijf veel meer dan alleen feedback over je producten en diensten.

Reviews zijn goud voor je marketing. Met consumentenreviews kun je je merkvertrouwen opbouwen en dat omzetten in meetbare ROI zoals meer traffic en conversie.

In deze praktische handleiding laten we je precies zien hoe je je reviews in heel je marketingstrategie kunt inzetten voor betere bedrijfsresultaten.

We beginnen met een kort overzicht van de vele voordelen van reviews en hoe ze samenwerken om je business te boosten.

## Waarom elk bedrijf consumentenreviews nodig heeft

De positieve kringloop van reviewverzameling verloopt ongeveer als volgt:

### 1. Bouw merkvertrouwen op door reviews te verzamelen en erop te reageren

Via reviews delen je klanten openbaar hun mening over je producten, diensten en [customer experience](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/5-reasons-why-customer-experience-is-the-pulse-of-every-business). Als je je klanten openbaar reviews laat plaatsen, kom je eerlijk en veilig over.  

### 2. Trek nieuwe klanten aan: voeg feedback toe aan je marketing

Door je klantreviews te laten zien, zet je je zuurverdiende merkvertrouwen om in meetbare ROI.

Droom je ervan om het zoekresultaat te worden waarop mensen daadwerkelijk klikken? Wil je meer traffic genereren met je e-mails en advertenties? Of meer browsers omzetten in kopers op je site? Wat je doel ook is — [social proof](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/why-and-how-social-proof-influences-consumers) zoals reviews, sterrenscores en klantcitaten helpen je er zeker bij.

### 3. Ontdek wat je klanten van je willen 

Inmiddels heb je een vertrouwd merk opgebouwd. Je hebt meer klanten dan ooit aangetrokken door betrouwbaarheid uit te stralen in al je marketing. Nu kun je al je nieuwe klantfeedback analyseren om je producten en service aan te scherpen.
Op die manier bouw je klantloyaliteit op en krijg je nog meer reviews, die je weer kunt gebruiken om nieuwe klanten aan te trekken en je bedrijf verder te ontwikkelen.

Klinkt goed, toch? Je hoeft simpelweg te beginnen met het [verzamelen van reviews](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/features/get-reviews).

Dit is vooral gemakkelijk als je bedrijf werkt vanaf grote e-commerceplatforms — zo kun je direct aan de slag via Trustpilots native integraties voor [Shopify](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/shopify-plus), [BigCommerce](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/bigcommerce), [WooCommerce](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/woocommerce), [Magento](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/magento-commerce), [PrestaShop](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/prestashop), [Shopware](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/shopware), en [OpenCart](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/opencart).

## 15 manieren om reviews te gebruiken in je marketing

Zodra je wat reviews over je bedrijf hebt verzameld, kun je ze inzetten in je marketingstrategie, voor betere conversie en organische traffic.

## Optimaliseer organische SEO met consumentenreviews

[91,5% van organische traffic](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101/seo-statistics/#close) gaat naar sites die op de eerste resultatenpagina van zoekmachines worden vermeld. Je organische zoekpositie is dus essentieel wat betreft het bereiken van potentiële nieuwe klanten.

**Met dat in gedachten zijn er vijf manieren waarop je je klantreviews kunt gebruiken om je organische zoekresultaten te verbeteren.**

### 1. Versterk off-page SEO door reviews te verzamelen op een onafhankelijk platform

Off-page SEO zijn alle acties die je onderneemt om je digitale invloed buiten je website te versterken, bijvoorbeeld door betrouwbare links naar je pagina's te bouwen, je social media levendig en stabiel te houden, of via een profielpagina op een [extern reviewplatform](https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/02/26/can-independent-review-platforms-make-google-love-site/) zoals Trustpilot.

Hoewel de algoritmen van zoekmachines voortdurend in ontwikkeling zijn, zijn [Moz](https://moz.com/learn/seo/off-site-seo)-experts van mening dat bepaalde aspecten van off-page SEO, zoals relevantie, betrouwbaarheid en autoriteit, meer dan 50% van je ranking bepalen.

Bouw je online aanwezigheid op met onafhankelijke reviews, en je bedrijf slaagt in alle drie deze aspecten. 

### 2. Verhoog referral traffic vanaf je Trustpilot-bedrijfsprofiel

Naast off-page SEO-voordelen voor je website, kan een Trustpilot-profiel ook je referral traffic (verwijzingsverkeer) aanzienlijk verhogen.
Wanneer iemand namelijk op zoek is naar reviews over een bepaald merk, vindt hij waarschijnlijk de [Trustpilot-profielpagina](https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/nl/articles/360013930439-Introduction-to-your-company-profile-page) van dat bedrijf in de bovenste zoekresultaten. En weet je waarom?

Niet om op te scheppen, maar Trustpilots [domeinautoriteit](https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority) is sterk. Hoe meer reviews je verzamelt — dus hoe [rijker je inhoud op je bedrijfsprofiel wordt](https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/nl/articles/202616716-Customize-your-company-profile) — hoe gemakkelijker het voor zoekmachines is om je merk aan ons te koppelen en je Trustpilot-aanwezigheid bovenaan de zoekresultaten te tonen.

Hiermee onderscheidt je bedrijf zich van de concurrentie. Referral traffic wordt zelfs vaak over het hoofd gezien, ondanks dat het een gratis bron van gekwalificeerde leads is en zelfs je [organische zoekprestaties verbeteren](https://moz.com/blog/organic-traffic-without-ranking).

Lees hoe TaxSlayer via hun verrijkte profielpagina 500% meer referral traffic naar hun site genereren

### 3. Verhoog organische traffic met reviews op je website

Met review-widgets kun je heel eenvoudig je klantreviews weergeven op je belangrijkste landingspagina's. Deze kleine toevoeging aan je site zorgt ervoor dat je pagina's vaker in organische zoekresultaten verschijnen.
Dit komt omdat reviews een vorm van user-generated content zijn, wat goud is voor SEO:

- __Reviews vergroten de hoeveelheid tekst op elke pagina.__ Deze rijkdom aan tekst maakt de pagina waardevoller voor Google — het biedt de zoekmachine meer inzicht in het onderwerp en in hoeverre het overeenkomt met de zoekopdracht.
- __De sterrenscores van je reviews geven Google een idee over de kwaliteit van je producten en diensten.__ Google wil de meest hoogwaardige zoekresultaten laten zien om zo de beste gebruikerservaring te bieden.
- __Reviews voegen nieuwe inhoud toe aan pagina's die anders misschien niet vaak worden bijgewerkt.__ Dit vertelt Google dat de informatie over je bedrijf recent en up-to-date is en daarom de moeite waard is om hoog in de zoekresultaten te tonen. 
- 
Al deze elementen helpen [Google je website te begrijpen](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/why-does-google-care-if-your-business-has-online-reviews-in-2019). Dit zorgt er op de lange termijn voor dat zoekmachines je pagina's vaker weergeven en meer high-quality traffic naar je site leiden.

### 4. Verkrijg review-snippets in organische zoekresultaten met productreviews

Marketeers gebruiken sterrenscores vooral in betaalde advertenties — dit behandelen we in het volgende gedeelte. Maar sterrenscores kunnen ook worden ingezet in organische zoekresultaten. Hiermee trek je shoppers aan die [minder geneigd zijn om op een advertentie te klikken](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/can-online-reviews-revive-consumer-trust-in-advertising). 

Onderzoek toont aan dat het [verzamelen van productreviews](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/features/product-reviews) je kan helpen in aanmerking te komen voor [review-snippets](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/rich-snippets-stars-for-product-reviews-can-boost-seo) in organische zoekresultaten.

Schitter daar met je sterrenscores, en je trekt meer aandacht naar je productpagina's en verhoogt de organische CTR met maar liefst 35%.
Niet slecht!

Het werkt heel eenvoudig. 

Met onze reeks [e-commerce-integraties](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/type/apps) kun je met slechts enkele klikken een simpele code (de Schema-markup) aan je productpagina's toevoegen, zodat zoekmachines gegevens over je productreviews kunnen vinden. Dit geeft ze snel een idee van de algemene rating van je producten, zodat ze kunnen bepalen of je voldoet aan hun vereisten voor het weergeven van review-snippets.

Als je review-stats voldoen aan [Googles vereisten](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/review-snippet), kunnen je productpagina's worden weergegeven met prestatievehogende review-snippets op de zoekresultatenpagina’s (SERP's).

### 5. Kom in aanmerking voor longtail-zoekopdrachten met productreviews

Het verzamelen van productreviews geeft ook een SEO-boost aan elk van je productpagina's, en kan je bedrijf koppelen aan een breder scala aan relevante zoekwoorden. 

Door klanten simpelweg toe te staan reviews over je individuele producten achter te laten — en deze centraal op je productpagina's te plaatsen — verbeter je de zichtbaarheid van je site in [longtail-zoekopdrachten](https://www.frankwatching.com/archive/2016/06/22/maak-je-seo-strategie-future-proof-vaarwel-toptermen-hallo-longtail/).

Je kunt copywriten tot je een ons weegt, maar het valt niet mee om alle mogelijke trefwoorden en gebruiksvoorbeelden te bedenken voor een bepaald product. Gelukkig geven productreviews klanten het woord, waardoor ze hun unieke ervaringen met je producten kunnen delen.

De kers op de taart? Dit gebeurt allemaal automatisch — dus geen extra werk voor jou!

## Optimaliseer betaalde online campagnes met reviews

De consumenten van tegenwoordig willen geen advertenties of gelikte marketingberichten meer zien. Bovendien gebruikt meer dan [75% van hen nu een adblocker](https://deloitte.wsj.com/cmo/2018/04/03/are-consumers-adlergic-a-look-at-ad-blocking-habits/).

Daarnaast geeft onderzoek aan dat [minder dan 3 op de 10 consumenten](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/learn-from-customers/trustworthiness-in-advertising-what-consumers-have-to-say) vertrouwen heeft in digitale advertentiekanalen.

Gelukkig kunnen consumentenreviews en sterrenscores de prestaties van je digitale campagnes wél verbeteren, op de kanalen die de [grootste invloed](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/can-online-reviews-revive-consumer-trust-in-advertising) hebben op de aankoopbeslissingen van consumenten.

### 6. Ontvang Google seller-ratings voor betere Google Ads-prestaties

[Google seller-ratings](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/how-to-land-great-reviews-and-boost-your-google-seller-rating) zijn nauw verwant aan review-snippets in organisch zoeken. Hiermee kun je: 

- Aanzienlijke social proof aan je betaalde zoekresultaten toevoegen.
- Je bedrijf onderscheiden van de concurrentie.
- Je Google Ads-CTR verhogen.

Een hogere CTR leidt vaak tot meer sales en verbetert je [kwaliteitsscore](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/140351?hl=nl), waardoor je traffic ontvangt tegen lagere kosten per klik. Dit geeft je lagere kosten per acquisitie en maakt meer budget vrij voor de rest van je bedrijf.

Maar vergeet niet: alleen Google zelf beslist of je seller-ratings al dan niet worden weergegeven in je betaalde advertenties. Dit gebeurt aan de hand van Googles meest recente [richtlijnen](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375474?hl=nl), die vaststellen hoeveel reviews en welke score een bedrijf moet hebben voordat diens sterren in [Google Ads](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/browsers-to-buyers/why-wont-my-google-seller-ratings-show-up-and-4-other-gsr-questions) verschijnen.

Zodra je aan hun vereisten voldoet, worden je [Google seller-ratings](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/how-to-land-great-reviews-and-boost-your-google-seller-rating) weergegeven in Googles zoekresultaten, Google Shopping-listings en zelfs in de resultaten van Google-zoekpartners.

Ons advies? Ga meteen aan de slag om aan Googles vereisten te voldoen.

### 7. Optimaliseer je retargeting-strategie

Met [retargeting-campagnes](https://blog.alexa.com/retargeting-vs-remarketing/), betaalde advertenties op verschillende platforms, trek je opnieuw de aandacht van potentiële klanten die je website of social media al eens hebben bezocht. De extra social proof kan net dat duwtje in de rug zijn om ze over de streep te trekken.

Welk platform je hier ook voor gebruikt; al je [advertenties presteren beter](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/customer-stories/finance-insurance/why-taxslayer-chose-trustpilot-to-leverage-customer-feedback) als je er reviews bij gebruikt. Zo kun je:

- Een review citeren.
- Je algehele score aan je afbeeldingen toevoegen.
- Laten zien hoeveel klanten je een hoge score hebben gegeven.
- Reviews creatief inpassen zonder dat je er enige grafische vaardigheden voor nodig hebt! Gebruik simpelweg Trustpilots [image generator](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/features/social-media-tools) voor social media.

Lees meer over Trustpilots social media-tools

## Emailmarketing is succesvoller met reviews

De meeste mensen ontvangen vele tientallen marketing-e-mails per week of zelfs per dag. Van geen wonder dat gemiddeld slechts [22%](https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/) van de ontvangers zo’n e-mail opent. Hoe zorg je dat ze juist de jouwe openen? __We beschrijven het in de onderstaande stappen.__

### 8. Verhoog je e-mail-CTR met reviews en klantcitaten

Reviews helpen de [klikfrequentie van je e-mails te verhogen](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/browsers-to-buyers/4-email-marketing-strategies-to-unlock-black-friday-sales-volume-throughout), waardoor je conversie toeneemt.

Met e-mail kun je ook je reviews creatief inzetten als basis voor verschillende soorten content en CTA’s, zonder restricties op het aantal woorden of afbeeldingen. De ene e-mail kan bijvoorbeeld gericht zijn op after-sales, en een andere juist op feedback over een bepaald productkenmerk.

Of je nu een maandelijkse nieuwsbrief, seizoensuitverkoop of een dynamische remarketingcampagne opstelt — met een [relevante review](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/inside-trustpilot/social-proof-in-email-marketing-is-easier-than-ever-with-trustpilots-klaviyo) erbij lok je je lezers meteen met de social proof waar ze naar zoeken. Het resultaat? [Meer mensen klikken](https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2019/06/improve-your-ctr-using-social-proof/#:~:text=4.,a%2037.5%25%20increase%20in%20conversions) door naar je landingspagina en je conversie schiet omhoog.

Bovendien zegt [82% van de shoppers](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/why-and-how-social-proof-influences-consumers) dat reviews in e-mailmarketing hen direct tot kopen motiveert. 

### 9. Benadruk je reputatie in je welkomstcampagnes

Welkomstcampagnes bieden de eerste mogelijkheid om een directe relatie op te bouwen met een toekomstige klant. De meeste mensen op je mailinglijst hebben nog niets gekocht en weten waarschijnlijk weinig van het bedrijf af.

Dit is je kans om hen ervan te overtuigen om juist bij jou te kopen — en wat is een betere manier dan je tevreden klanten voor je te laten spreken?

Beschouw je reviews als een dynamische database vol veelzijdige inhoud waarmee je verschillende doelgroepen zoveel mogelijk aantrekt.

Ben je net begonnen met het opbouwen van relaties met potentiële klanten? Hier zijn wat ideeën om je op weg te helpen:

- Verrijk elke e-mail met een relevante review over een specifiek product of algemene klantervaring.
- Breng je best beoordeelde producten en diensten onder de aandacht met je reviews.
- Toon verrassende of grappige klantcitaten om te stralen met je merkimago.

### 10. Benadruk je geloofwaardigheid in je koptekst, voettekst en het e-mailonderwerp

Elke aparte e-mail moet een bewijs van je betrouwbaarheid bevatten. Voeg bijvoorbeeld simpelweg je score toe aan de koptekst van je e-mail, of een klantcitaat in de voettekst.

Je kunt ook e-mails versturen die allemaal over social proof gaan, aangezien deze doorgaans een geweldige respons krijgen. Enkele ideeën:  

- Onze best beoordeelde producten deze maand.
- Bedankt dat je van ons een 5-sterrenbedrijf hebt gemaakt!
- Vijf manieren waarop we je reviews hebben gebruikt om onze klantenservice te verbeteren.
- Maak kennis met Suus, onze beste klantenservicemedewerker.
- We vonden onze theepotten al geweldig, maar jullie feedback heeft ze nóg beter gemaakt!
- Je favoriete producten.

### 11. Je herinneringsmail aan klanten die nog iets in hun winkelwagen hebben staan, is veel effectiever met reviews erin

Sommige klanten verlaten altijd wel hun winkelwagentje, dus een campagne om ze aan te moedigen terug te komen en af te rekenen, is erg belangrijk.

Volgens [Klaviyo](https://www.klaviyo.com/blog/whats-is-abandoned-shopping-cart-email)-experts is het gemiddelde verlatingspercentage van een winkelwagentje ongeveer 70% op desktops en maar liefst 85% op mobiel. Steeds meer bedrijven zetten dus herinnerings-e-mails in, en velen vertrouwen daarbij op het gebruik van aanbiedingen. Echter, met reviews kun je een voldoende hoge respons genereren zonder dat je er de prijzen voor hoeft te verlagen.

Het toevoegen van enkele reviews aan deze mails kan al voldoende zijn om winkelwagenverlaters voor je te winnen, zonder dat dit ten koste hoeft te gaan van je winstmarge.

Wat voor e-mailcampagne je ook voert — met onze integraties voor grote e-mailproviders zoals [Klaviyo](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/klaviyo), [Fresh Relevance](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/fresh-relevance) en [Movable Ink](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/movable-ink), is het weergeven van je Trustpilot-reviews een fluitje van een cent.

## Boost je websiteconversie

Tegenwoordig zoekt [89%](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/partners/movable-ink) van de consumenten online reviews tijdens het webwinkelen. Tegen de tijd dat een potentiële klant op je website belandt, is de kans groot dat ze al een eerste positieve indruk van je merk heeft opgedaan.

Dit moet worden versterkt op je website. Bied je bezoekers steevaste zekerheid op al je pagina’s, en je verhoogt de kans dat ze bij je kopen.
Hieronder lees je hoe je van je website een ware [conversie-booster](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/browsers-to-buyers/what-is-conversion-rate-optimisation) maakt.

### 12. Homepagina: de eerste indruk telt op je centrale landingspagina

Bij website-optimalisatie wordt de homepagina vaak vergeten ten gunste van pagina's later in het afrekenproces, zoals winkelwagen-, afreken- en productpagina's. Een gemiste kans!

De homepagina is op bijna alle websites de meest bezochte pagina en bovendien vaak de primaire landingspagina. Hier krijgen klanten hun eerste indruk van je bedrijf, ook is het een pagina waar velen naar terugkeren.
Laat hier je reviews centraal staan!

Hier zijn enkele tips voor het gebruik van reviews op je homepagina, om zo een goede eerste indruk te maken:

- Benadruk zowel de kwaliteit als de kwantiteit van je reviews: "We hebben dit jaar 2.365 reviews ontvangen, waarvan 95% met 5/5 sterren".
- Geef 3-5 recente klantreviews weer. Dit toont je beste eigenschappen en producten.
- Zet je best beoordeelde producten in de schijnwerpers: "Deze producten hebben 5 sterren gekregen van onze klanten".

Onthoud dat je homepaginabezoekers op zoek zijn naar [tekenen van betrouwbaarheid en andere social proof](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/what-is-social-proof-and-why-is-it-important-for-marketing) over je bedrijf. Win er hun vertrouwen met een highlight reel of algemene stats over je klantreviews.

### 13. Voeg review-widgets toe aan productpagina's

Productreviews zijn echte SEO-krachtpatsers, maar ze tillen ook de [conversie van je productpagina’s enorm omhoog](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/customer-stories/ecommerce/ann-summers-uses-product-reviews-to-increase-sales-up-to-23). 

Volgens [Shopify](https://www.shopify.com/blog/15359677-why-online-store-owners-should-embrace-online-reviews)-experts vertrouwt 79% van de online shoppers productreviews evenveel als een persoonlijke aanbeveling. En andere onderzoeken concluderen dat mensen [productreviews 12x meer vertrouwen](https://econsultancy.com/ecommerce-consumer-reviews-why-you-need-them-and-how-to-use-them/) dan fabrikant- of productbeschrijvingen. Kortom, [relevante productreviews op productpagina’s](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/features/trustbox-widgets) maken de koopbeslissing een stuk makkelijker voor je klanten.

Productreviews zijn op zichzelf al geweldig, maar er zijn enkele belangrijke redenen om een reviewplatform te kiezen dat reviews kan bieden met [user-generated content](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/product-reviews) en afbeeldingen.

Millennials vertrouwen user-generated content [50% meer](https://www.iab.com/insights/user-generated-content-for-marketing-and-advertising-purposes/) dan traditionele media en denken dat deze 20% meer invloed heeft op aankoopbeslissingen en 35% meer memorabel is dan andere soorten media.
Het is [3x zo waarschijnlijk](https://www.iab.com/insights/user-generated-content-for-marketing-and-advertising-purposes/) dat mensen user-generated content als echt interpreteren in vergelijking met content dat door het bedrijf zelf is geproduceerd.

Dus als je bedrijf fysieke producten verkoopt, maak dan absoluut gebruik van [user-generated content op je productpagina's](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/4-great-examples-of-user-generated-content).

### 14. Voeg sterrenscores toe aan de kop- en voettekst van je site

Afhankelijk van hun zoekopdracht, kunnen klanten op vrijwel elke pagina van je site terechtkomen. Elke pagina biedt dan ook een kans om hen tot kopers om te zetten. 

De eenvoudigste manier om met je reputatie te schitteren, ongeacht waar bezoekers terechtkomen, is met je sterrenscore in de kop- of voettekst.

Een kleine verandering, een groot verschil. 

### 15. Exitpagina's: houd bezoekers op je site

Elke customer journey heeft zijn beginpunt en eindpunt. Is dat eindpunt vaak niet de pagina ‘Bedankt voor je bestelling’? Dan is het tijd voor een conversie-boost:
Identificeer eerst alle pagina's met hoge exitpercentages. Ga hiervoor naar het [‘Exitpagina's’-report](https://www.paperstreet.com/blog/how-to-use-google-analytics-to-identify-exit-pages-and-improve-them/) in Google Analytics en zoek naar de pagina's met veel traffic en een hoge exitscore.

Heb je de probleempagina's geïdentificeerd? Plaats daar dan je reviews om het exitpercentage te verlagen.

Met exitpagina's is het de moeite waard om goed naar de daadwerkelijke pagina te kijken om mogelijke problemen te ontdekken:

- Zijn er voldoende CTA's om mensen op de site te houden?
- Werkt de pagina niet goed, leidt het nergens toe?
- En natuurlijk: zijn er reviews die echt zouden helpen op deze pagina?

Met Trustpilots [Review Tagging](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/features/review-tagging) kun je eenvoudig de juiste reviews op de door jou geselecteerde pagina's weergeven.
Zo is de pagina 'Levering en retouren' bijvoorbeeld een veelvoorkomende exitpagina, dus als je reviews hebt waarin klanten je levering- en retourservice prijzen, is het een goed idee om deze hier te plaatsen.

## Laat je klant spreken en je bedrijf groeit

Hopelijk zie je nu oneindig veel creatieve manieren waarop je reviews kunt integreren in je marketing en sales om je bedrijf naar nieuwe hoogten te tillen.

Consumentenreviews zijn alles wat je nodig hebt om je succes op gang te brengen:

- Bouw merkvertrouwen op door reviews te verzamelen en te reageren op klantfeedback.
- Trek nieuwe klanten aan door reviews toe te voegen aan je marketingcampagnes en in alle stadia van de customer journey op je site.
- Profiteer van de goudmijn aan nieuwe user-generated content dankzij een gestage stroom reviews.

En zo is het kringetje rond en blijft je bedrijf groeien, allemaal omdat je je klanten centraal stelt in je marketingstrategie.

Wil je zoveel mogelijk uit je reviews halen? Richt dan al je inspanningen op je [reviewverzameling](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/features/review-invitations), totdat je een [aanzienlijke hoeveelheid social proof](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/3-reasons-why-you-really-need-to-get-more-reviews) hebt om mee aan de slag te gaan. Dit maakt het nog gemakkelijker om je reviews in al je marketing onder de aandacht te brengen en ze zelfs af te stemmen op specifieke campagnes en aanbiedingen.

Dus stel jezelf, tijdens je volgende online of [offline](https://nl.business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/ratings-and-reviews-in-above-the-line-advertising) campagne of nieuwe uitdaging, de volgende vraag: hoe kunnen reviews de respons vergroten?

Gratis demo? Neem vandaag nog contact op met een van onze review-experts

De ultieme handleiding voor reviews: 2021 update

cover-1880x1057

Local research report cover

Social proof is meer dan ooit van invloed op de manier waarop we tegenwoordig winkelen. Ontdek de kracht van onafhankelijke reviews, de invloed op online verkoop en hoe je er je voordeel mee kunt doen via ons whitepaper op basis van onderzoek van YouGov.

__Social proof__ is meer dan ooit van invloed op de manier waarop we tegenwoordig winkelen. Onafhankelijke reviews spelen daarbij een grote rol in e-commerce. Hoe doe je hier je __voordeel__ mee? Het onderzoek van marktonderzoeksbureau YouGov geeft ons een __gedetailleerd inzicht__ in de __invloed van reviews op koopbeslissingen__. We bespreken onder meer: 

- het belang van reviews per __leeftijdsgroep__;
- de impact van __kritische reviews__ en hoe je ermee omgaat;
- strategieën voor __klantbehoud__.

Benieuwd naar de resultaten en hoe je bedrijf het meeste kan halen uit deze waardevolle feedback? Bekijk onze gratis whitepapers nu:

[__Onderzoekswhitepaper Nederland__](https://f.hubspotusercontent10.net/hubfs/2749863/CEU%20Demand%20Generation/CEU%20HERO%20AND%20LOCAL%20CONTENT/Local%20content%20/NL-Consumer-research-Report.pdf)

[__Onderzoekswhitepaper België__](https://f.hubspotusercontent10.net/hubfs/2749863/CEU%20Demand%20Generation/CEU%20HERO%20AND%20LOCAL%20CONTENT/Local%20content%20/BE-Cosumer-Research-Report.pdf)

Local research report thumbnail

De invloed van reviews in het digitale tijdperk

Truspilot 5 trends that will define the future of fashion

Trustpilot 5 trends that will define the future of fashion

A survey from London Research and Trustpilot has shown that fashion shoppers are more cautious on spending this year, and are also acutely aware of the need to buy items from fashion brands with strong ethical and sustainability practices.

[London Research](https://www.londonresearch.com/) and Trustpilot's latest international survey has shown that not only are fashion shoppers more cautious on spending this year, they are also acutely aware of the need to buy items from fashion brands and retailers with strong ethical and sustainability practices.

Fashion brands and retailers now have an opportunity to reach out to consumers who are actively seeking to shop from companies that are kind to the people working in their supply chains, as well as the environment.

Those seeking to market themselves to modern shoppers need to listen to what consumers have revealed they are looking for in sustainable and ethical brands, as outlined in this research.

### Five key trends that will define the future of fashion brands

__1. Four in five customers are led by ethics__

Size and fit are not the only priorities. Fashion brands and retailers need to be aware that treatment of workers across their entire supply chain and environmental footprint are now a vital part of a customer’s purchasing decisions. 

More than four in five customers (82%) reveal they would definitely (31%) or probably (51%) stop buying from a brand found to be lacking ethical standards. 

__2. Shoppers are cautious on spending__

The recession looming over the global pandemic is shaping fashion spending habits. Just under three-quarters of consumers (72%) are spending less or the same as they did before.

As befitting markets where many are working from home, casual clothing and leisurewear is the category with the highest proportion of consumers having increased spend (21%). This figure is nearly double that seen in formal wear or luxury items.

__3. Fashion shoppers trust reviews and each other__

Consumers are eager to seek out fashion brands and retailers with solid ethical and sustainability strategies.

They are getting advice on which brands meet these criteria from many sources, but they trust each other above all else – 89% of consumers have a high or medium trust level in word of mouth and 85% in ratings and reviews.

The levels of high trust placed in word of mouth and reviews are two to three times greater than other sources, such as magazines, advertising and brand websites. The least trusted source is celebrity influencers. People are three times as likely to highly trust ratings as they are a well-known figure touting a fashion product on social media.

__4. Fashion shoppers are acting on a brand’s ethical record __

The research found brands must not think of ethics as an issue to be addressed in the future. Shoppers are already acting on their concerns right now. More than half (54%) of consumers say that coverage of working conditions and sustainability policies has influenced where they buy, or don’t buy, fashion items.

Nearly as many (41%) have been steered by coverage of a fashion retailer’s diversity and inclusivity policy and 33% by a brand pretending to be ethical but not backing it up with real action (‘slacktivism’).

Given that consumers trust word of mouth and customer ratings three times or two times (respectively) as much as the media, savvy brands should realize the need to communicate how their ethical and environmental strategies match the modern shopper’s concerns. This way, those credentials are more likely to be reflected in customer conversations and ratings.  

__5. Brands can tap into consumers’ ethics and sustainability wishlist__

Customers have revealed what they want to see from fashion brands and retailers. Joint top spot (46% each) goes to a commitment to good working practices throughout the supply chain as well as to environmentally-friendly packaging. A recycling service (41%) was just behind in third place.

Feeling inspired? Let's dive in!

## Introduction – cautious consumers tell brands their values are more important than discounts

Consumers are changing their mindset and behavior when it comes to buying clothes, and the effects are set to be profound for fashion brands and retailers.

The national and local lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic have accelerated a change in attitude among shoppers to be more caring for one another and the environment. Communities have come together to fight a common foe and taken stock of the values they find important to them, which they want to see reflected in the brands they buy from.

This prompted London Research, in association with Trustpilot, to ask fashion consumers in the UK, the US, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden to reveal the importance of brand values around issues such as sustainability, working conditions and diversity. What principles do they expect fashion brands and retailers to live up to? 

Just as importantly, how do they know they are truly committed to these causes, and whom do they trust in making those judgement calls?

### Sustainability over discounts

[Research from McKinsey](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/survey-consumer-sentiment-on-sustainability-in-fashion) has already shown lockdown has forced fashion consumers’ priorities to change. They now place the welfare of employees and supply-chain workers, as well as protecting the environment, way ahead of being offered promotions and discounts.

This points to a significant change in consumer priorities, according to fashion writer Olivia Pinnock. She has created a series of events, called [The Fashion Debates](http://www.thefashiondebates.com/), through which the industry can come together to discuss how to clean up an industry with a poor record on worker conditions and sustainability.

“We had the sweatshop scandals of the ‘80s and ‘90s but the issue seemed to have been swept under the carpet,” she says.

“Now, though, we’ve got a generation who realize they can’t ethically buy a T-shirt for £5 when there are so many people in the supply chain to pay. There are also a lot of executives who are pushing for real change because they have been shocked by the industry’s record and don’t want to be a part of it any more.”

Pinnock believes the push for change is real and is relying on changing attitudes among shoppers. However, there are two major challenges.
“Fast fashion’s cutting corners on worker rights and the environment has got us all used to cheap clothing,” she explains.

“It’s skewed our perception of cost. Then there’s availability. The vast majority of clothes, outside a pandemic, are bought in stores and it’s only the big chains, who are highly competitive on price, that can afford to roll out chains of shops in every town.”

### Consumers are cautious on spend

It is not surprising that in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, the majority of respondents are not spending more on fashion. Instead, they are maintaining previous spending patterns or cutting back. 

On average, 28% of respondents say they are spending more. That leaves exactly a quarter who are spending the same amount as before (25%) and nearly half (47%) who reveal they are cutting back (Figure 1).


Figure 1: How has the coronavirus pandemic impacted your overall monthly spending on fashion and clothing products?

As shown in Figure 2, the standout category for increased spending is casual and leisure clothing (21% of consumers), nearly double the percentage of respondents spending more on luxury apparel (11%) and significantly more than the proportion of consumers increasing their outlay on smart clothes (13%).

Across all international markets surveyed, those going through lockdown and social distancing measures have clearly been prioritizing comfortable attire for home use over spending on formal clothes for the office or expensive luxury items for big nights out.


Figure 2: How has the Covid-19 crisis impacted the amount you’ve spent on the following types of fashion and clothing products?

- Consumers in the US are more likely than those in other countries surveyed to be increasing their spending on casual clothes (28%), footwear (20%), smart fashion (20%) and luxury products (15%) (Figure 9, see appendix).
- The UK, on track to have its worst economic downturn on record, leads the way for the most cautious shoppers. Just over a fifth (22%) reveal they’ve been cutting fashion spending by more than half (Table 1, see appendix).

### More careful? Or more thoughtful?

Consumers are clearly cautious when it comes to fashion spending. It will become clearer when the developing global recession caused by the global pandemic eases whether this is an economic decision or an environmental choice.

Dialing down consumption is what Olivia Pinnock refers to as ‘the elephant in the room’. In addition to looking out for fair trade labels and commitment to ethical and environmental standards, she believes modern consumers will soon realize they need to buy fewer clothes.

It is a message echoed by Laurel Wolfe, VP of Marketing at deferred payment platform [Klarna](https://www.klarna.com/).

“The pandemic has made us all think carefully about how, where and why we shop - whether that's online instead of in-store, or with smaller, local brands.” she says.

“For us, this has meant helping people be mindful consumers, to ensure they buy items they will truly use and love. We have been running campaigns, particularly with thought influencers, echoing the money management advice on our site and asking shoppers to ‘think thrice’. Do I love it, will I use it, is it worth it?” 

The message underlines how the market is evolving to row back from the days of fast fashion by being more considerate in how workers in the supply chain are treated and mitigating the industry’s impact on the environment.

## People trust ratings and each other, not celebrities and magazines

People are clearly cautious about their spending, given the massive uncertainty hanging over the global economy. With budgets curtailed, consumers are looking to make sure the items they buy are right for them. This no longer means right look, size and price.

As shown through our survey, customers are attracted to brands that share their ethical values and are kind to their workers and the planet.
With ethics, sustainability and environmentalism playing a large part in purchasing decisions, who are people trusting for guidance on purchasing decisions?

Here, the research provides a resounding answer. Consumers trust one another. Word of mouth from friends and family is the most trusted source, with 44% rating their trust level as ‘high’. Consumer ratings and reviews (36%) is a close second (Figure 3).


Figure 3: How would you describe your level of trust in the following sources of information when you are researching fashion products and retailers?

In all, 89% of consumers have a high or medium level of trust for word of mouth compared to 85% for ratings and reviews.

The two categories are two or three times as highly trusted as other high-profile sources of fashion information, such as magazines, advertising and social media.

Fashion is an industry filled with well-known designers, models and celebrities who are reported on daily for what they are wearing. However, a key takeaway from the research is that celebrity influencers are poorly trusted as a source of information by nearly two in three consumers (63%).

The research could not be any clearer. Consumers want to make the right decision on fashion, for fit, price and look as well as sustainability and ethics. When it comes to making these decisions, they trust one another’s spoken advice or ratings much more highly than the world of social media and advertising where brands pay a fortune hoping to be noticed.


The Savile Row Company website, displaying the company's Trustpilot rating. This research shows that ratings and reviews, along with word of mouth, are the most trusted sources of information.

The Savile Row
Company website,
displaying the
company's Trustpilot
rating. This research
shows that ratings
and reviews,
along with word of
mouth, are the most
trusted sources of
information.

- The US and Italy stand out as the markets where reviews are most highly trusted (43% of consumers) (Figure 10, see appendix).
- Sweden and the Netherlands show the highest trust for word of mouth, for nearly half (49% and 48%, respectively) of consumers (Figure 10, see appendix).

## Customer loyalty depends on ethics

Everyone needs clothes and it is fair to say that the driving force in purchasing decisions will depend on garments matching an individual’s sense of style and budget. Increasingly, however, image and price point are being joined by a new criterion. Customers want to know a business shares their values.

More of us want to know a business is run ethically and that it tries its best to ensure people in its supply chain are treated with respect and paid properly, while attention is paid to sustainability.

One of the major takeaways from this research is that more than four in five customers (82%) would either ‘definitely’ (31%) or ‘probably’ (51%) stop buying from a brand that was found to lack ethical standards (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Would you stop buying from a brand or fashion retailer you knew to be lacking ethical standards?

The finding should serve as a warning to brands who have yet to put ethics at the heart of their brand strategy. While nearly a third would definitely withdraw their business if non-ethical practices were discovered within the business or wider supply chain, half of the market would consider it.

This is not only a hypothetical question. For any fashion brand wondering when the market will evolve to a point where bad press around their ethics will lose them customers, the answer is we are already there.

More than half of consumers (54%) say that coverage of working conditions and sustainability policies has influenced which brands they buy or don’t buy fashion items from (Figure 5). Nearly as many have been steered by a fashion retailer’s diversity and inclusivity policy (41%) and 33% by a brand pretending to be ethical but not backing it up with real action (‘slacktivism’).


Figure 5: Has positive or negative coverage relating to any of the following issues impacted where you buy (or don’t buy) fashion and clothing items from?

Sophie Slater, who co-founded online women’s ethical fashion business [Birdsong](https://birdsong.london/), is not surprised by the findings. The company’s workers in London are paid the London Living Wage to produce garments made from organic cotton which are packed by a charity supporting adults with learning difficulties. Protecting staff from Covid meant closing down production, which has relied on customers accepting delays in deliveries because ethical fashion is not fast fashion.

“We’ve seen fashion businesses talk about sustainability for the past few years but the last year or so has definitely seen a rise in people thinking about ethics,” she says.

“People have seen how workers are treated in sweatshops in Leicester (in the UK) by well-known brands… there’s been a lot of bad press for fast fashion. We rely on good press and social media to get our message out to people who are motivated by social inclusion and treating people ethically and so will pay a little more for clothes made by people paid the London Living Wage.”

- Italy is the clear leader in customers making decisions based on media coverage (Figure 11, see appendix). More than three in four have been influenced by stories about a brand’s ethics (79%) and working conditions (77%). Perhaps this is a result of the country being the EU’s biggest producer of clothing so environmental impact and working conditions are factors that are far closer to home for Italian shoppers.

## Trust – winning over the ‘moderately trustful’ half by being kind to workers and nature

The good news for the industry at large is that more than a quarter of consumers (28%) have a ‘very’ (9%) or ‘quite’ (19%) high level of trust in fashion brands and retailers in terms of their ethical standards (Figure 6).

The bad news is this is negated by a quarter of the market (26%) which has a ‘very’ (7%) or ‘quite’ (19%) low level of trust. This leaves almost half of consumers (46%) sitting on the fence, with only a moderate level of trust in the industry.

Figure 6: How would you describe your level of trust in fashion brands and retailers in terms of their ethical standards?

With a quarter of the market trusting the industry and a quarter not trusting it, the battleground is clearly winning the hearts and minds of the remainder who are fairly neutral.

Given that four in five respondents have also revealed they are ready to dismiss a brand which treats workers or the environment disrespectfully, the focus should be on convincing customers with a moderate level of trust that a brand is truly committed to treating its workers and the planet with respect.

There are some novel ways of improving trust being deployed at eco-friendly fashion brand [SANVT](https://sanvt.com/) (which means gentle on nature in German). The company’s Head of Marketing and Co-Founder, Benjamin Heyd, reveals the company is dedicated to working with suppliers who use organic cotton and do not use toxic chemicals in the dyeing process. To underline the point, they have an unusual approach to transparency and promotions.

“We keep our environmental impact low and our ethical standards high by using a factory in the EU, in Portugal,” he says.

“We offer a virtual tour of the factory so people can see for themselves the high standards we adhere to. We also don’t run sales promotions, we just offer to plant more trees within our carbon offsetting program when people buy promoted items. I don’t think we’re quite at the point yet where sustainability is the most crucial part of a customer choosing a brand, compared to the design and fit of clothing. However, in the long term, we are definitely getting there and brands will soon need to be able to show consumers they are eco-friendly and ethical.”

- Sweden and the Netherlands stand out as the markets with the lowest opinion of fashion brands and retailers. In each market, only 4% trust them highly. France is close behind with a high level of trust reaching just 5%.
- The US has the biggest level of ‘very high’ trust in fashion brands and retailers at 14%, backed up by a 20% level of ‘quite high’ trust.
- Overall, Italy is the most trusting nation, with more than a third (39%) of consumers having ‘very’ (8%) or ‘quite’ (31%) high trust levels.

## Customers need ethical and sustainable fashion brands

It is clear today’s fashion customer is starting to look for more than items that suit their style. In particular, they are committed to avoiding brands found to be acting in a non-ethical and unsustainable way. They are also expecting brands to embrace diversity and inclusivity.

So, what does this mean in practice? What are the strategies, commitments and services modern customers are looking to see more of in the future from fashion brands and retailers? When allowed to suggest three proof points that companies are walking the proverbial walk, what do they pick out?

Joint top, for nearly half of respondents, was commitment to good working conditions throughout the supply chain (46%), along with environmentally-friendly packaging (also 46%). A recycling service (41%) comes in third place, with clothes made from recycled materials (38%) and initiatives aimed at reducing the carbon footprint (36%) completing the top-five wishlist (Figure 7).

Methodology note: Respondents could select up to three options.

Figure 7: What three things would you like to see more of in the future from fashion brands and retailers?

For menswear brand [The Savile Row Company](https://savilerowco.com/), it is not a major surprise that environmentally-friendly packaging tops the list, alongside ethics. 

Marketing Director Lee-Anne Harris reveals the business has replaced plastic with biodegradable and potato starch bags, with shirt collars and shoulders held in place by paper fasteners rather than the traditional plastic clips.

“The data we’re getting from our Trustpilot reviews shows customers are reacting well to orders arriving in recyclable paper packaging and a biodegradable bag,” she says.

“We didn’t ask customers first; it was just a no-brainer for us because it’s how we want to live and we were pretty sure it’s how our customers want to live as well. It’s more a question of why wouldn’t you? It’s just a base level of decency.”


The Savile Row Company has replaced plastic packaging (left) with a recyclable paper bag (right).

Despite the uptick in positive reviews, Harris confirms recyclable packaging is still a feature that customers appreciate rather than demand as standard. However, she believes it is only a matter of time before customers “truly hold fashion companies to account for their record on plastic waste”. Hence it makes sense to be prepared in advance.

- American customers are way ahead of their European counterparts on the values they want to see from fashion brands and retailers which did not make the top-five list above (Figure 12, see appendix). These include working with charities (35%), offering inclusive product ranges (27%), ensuring diversity in advertising (26%) and taking a stance on social issues (24%).
- It is likely a result of the deep social issues Americans are examining in the year the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement gained massive national, and global, traction. Support for brands taking a stance on social issues, including BLM, is more than twice as high in the US as it is in all other countries surveyed, other than Italy.

## How brands can embrace ethics and sustainability

They know their size, they know their style and they have a good idea of what they are starting to want to see from fashion brands and retailers. But what indicators are customers looking for to find out if a brand shares their values on treating people and the environment with dignity and care?

The challenge for companies is there is no single standout attribute consumers are seeking out. Instead, there are four key drivers of trust which are being actively sought out by a little over half (58% and 59%) of fashion shoppers (Figure 8).

Respondents reveal transparent values and policies, fair trade badges and certification, on-site and off-site ratings and reviews are equally as important, on average.


Figure 8: Do you look for any of the following to give you confidence that you are buying from an ethically responsible fashion brand or retailer?

These are areas high on the radar for luxury online fashion retailer [FARFETCH](https://www.farfetch.com/). Its Director of Sustainable Business, Thomas Berry, explains the fashion brand not only helps customers make more ethical and sustainable purchases, it also has reselling schemes to extend an item’s life.

“As part of Positively FARFETCH, we have an extensive Conscious collection which customers can shop, using either filters, or our dedicated edits, to ensure they’re getting items that meet good independent sustainability standards and certifications,” he says.

“We also have two service offerings that help our customers extend the life of unused clothes. FARFETCH Second Life is a resale service, where customers submit their old hand-bags, get a price quote, we arrange a pick-up slot and, once the item is verified, the quoted price is added as a credit to their FARFETCH account.

“We do the same with our FARFETCH Donate service, where a customer fills a bag with any fashion item they no longer want, the items are sold in aid of their chosen charity, and customers get a third of the proceeds as FARFETCH credit. In both cases someone else gets to enjoy the items so everyone’s doing their bit to help the environment by reducing overall consumption of 'new' items."

The proof that customers are now looking to make more sustainable and ethical purchasing decisions comes from Berry revealing that the Conscious range is growing at a significantly faster rate than all other sales through the site. Additionally, across the industry, he estimates new clothes sales are predicted to grow at most around 3% whereas clothing resale growth is in the 15%-30% range.

## Conclusion

The primary motivators in fashion will likely always be the look, feel, design and price of an item. However, there is a growing consideration to filter fashion brands and retailers according to their action on sustainability and ethics.

This was always bubbling under the surface but it would appear the global pandemic has prompted consumers to take stock of what is important and to value brands who treat their workers and the environment with care and respect.

Research coordinated by Cardiff University found, for example, that the proportion of Britons who believe tackling climate change is urgent rose from 62% to 74% between August 2019 and August 2020. Additionally, nearly half the UK population (47%) is now vowing to fly less than before once restrictions are lifted. In the US, media reports have suggested taking a step back from the daily grind of driving to work has seen air pollution drop by 30%.

These issues should resonate with fashion brands and retailers, given that four in five consumers reveal they would not shop with a brand that lacked ethical and sustainable values. Hence, half of consumers have already revealed they have avoided fashion companies that have received poor media coverage over their ethics and sustainability record.

__Consumers have spoken clearly. They want brands to:__

- Treat workers throughout their entire supply chain fairly
- Produce clothes without damaging the environment
- Use recyclable packaging
- Embrace recycling schemes which extend garments’ lives
- Work hard on carbon reduction measures
- Operate according to transparent brand values

These are the action points fashion brands and retailers need to embrace to win over the half of the market that currently only trusts the industry to a moderate degree and the quarter which does not trust them at all.

When it comes to trust, they need to remember fashion shoppers highly trust one another’s advice and online reviews two to three times as much as glossy magazine articles, social media and advertising. As for celebrity influencers, these are the least trusted source available to fashion marketers.

The message is clear. Consumers want to see sustainable and ethical fashion, and they place their trust on which brands match these values in word of mouth and reviews, not the media and most definitely not on what celebrity influencers are paid to say.

If you'd like to find out more about Trustpilot, and how social proof can help you build trust with consumers, request a free demo below.


### Methodology

London Research was commissioned by Trustpilot to carry out surveys of 2,800 nationally representative consumers across the UK (n=1,000), US (n=1,000), France (n=200), the Netherlands (n=200), Italy (n=200) and Sweden (n=200) in September 2020.

The research was conducted using a Toluna research panel. London Research also carried out a series of interviews for this report.

### Acknowledgements

London Research and Trustpilot would like to thank the following people for their help in compiling this report:

- Thomas Berry, Global Director of Sustainable Business, FARFETCH
- Lee-Anne Harris, Marketing Director, The Savile Row Company
- Benjamin Heyd, Head of Marketing and Co-Founder, SANVT
- Olivia Pinnock, Fashion Writer and Creator of The Fashion Debates
- Sophie Slater, Co-Founder, Birdsong
- Laurel Wolfe, VP Marketing, Klarna

Why ethical fashion brands are future-proof

the new face of seo is aeo

Users are seeking a solution to a problem or the answer to a question. That has always been the case. Search engines have provided a list of options from which to choose but they have struggled to provide one single solution or answer. That’s starting to change.

- Both Google and Bing are increasingly capable of offering the correct answer.
- The devices that provide the answer are becoming increasingly ubiquitous (mobile phones, voice assistants, watches, in-car assistants...).
- As Google and Bing improve, their users are increasingly comfortable accepting the unique solution they propose. 

These changes present new challenges - but also offer phenomenal opportunities for companies.

### Converting Google and Bing’s users into your clients

Your aim, as a company, is to make sure that Google and Bing understand when you can offer the correct answer for a user for a given need at a given time and that they consider your answer to be the best. If you can do that, search engines will send their users to your site and those users can become your clients.

__How can you ensure the interactions between users and search engines turn out positively for you?__

### Optimising for Answer Engines - The Two Pillar Strategy

__Google is looking for:__

- Understanding
- Credibility

__So you need to:__

- Communicate
- Convince

You need to communicate to Google that you have the solution or answer for a given problem or question and prove that your solution or answer is better than your competitors.

This guide will provide an 8-point checklist on how to communicate and convince answer engines through understanding and credibility.

## Communicate to create Understanding

Communication provides understanding to Google and Bing so they know who you are and what you do. If you can communicate that, and provide sufficient corroborated information, these search engines will give you a place in their knowledge graphs and the opportunity to be provided as a definitive answer. There are four steps in communication to ensure your company is ready for the answer engines of tomorrow.

### 1. Leverage structured data

[Schema.org](http://schema.org) markup provides a way to present the information in your webpages to Google and Bing in a format they can easily and reliably understand. Use
basic information such as Corporation, Product, Offer, and more to explain who you are and what you do, then expand on this by giving details about you and your offers using attributes such as address, brand, price, etc. You can explain pretty much anything in this manner, and we recommend that you use schema.org markup extensively. 

### 2. Use semantic HTML5

Semantic HTML5 is an additional way to present information to Google and Bing in an easily digestible manner. By using semantic HTML5 tags such as article and navigation, you can identify parts of the page so Google can better understand and concentrate on the content that is central to the message your page is providing to the user. 

You can also give the content of the page structure using HTML tables and special HTML5 tags. Find out more [here](https://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_intro.asp).

### 3. Maintain owned and third-party channels

Multiple sources corroborating and confirming the information you provided in steps 1 and 2 will reinforce Google and Bing’s understanding. Owned and
semi-controlled channels are easy to manage and include your company’s website, EV SSL certificates, your social accounts, review sites like Trustpilot, and other relevant third-party channels that you can affect. Sources you have no control over send stronger signals and include
news sites, Wikipedia, and government sites. The more signals you can generate through various pertinent and trusted channels, the better. This is very much an ongoing task as new channels emerge and existing ones
shift in value.

### 4. Keep your company’s identity consistent

Ensure that all the information about you, wherever it appears, is accurate and up to date. The better you can manage to be consistent across the web, the more confidence Google and Bing will have in the veracity of the information you provided in steps 1, 2, and 3. Start with your social accounts, business accounts, government sites build a qualitative and quantitative review platform portfolio, and then move onto asking third party sites to update information about you (they often oblige). This is another ongoing undertaking, but is absolutely essential.

## Convince using Credibility

Your aim is to convince Google that you are the most credible available
solution. If you provide more powerful positive credibility signals than your competition, these search engines will consider you to be the best solution in your market and offer you as the best (objective) answer. This is the second pillar necessary for the answer engines of tomorrow - and consists of four steps.

### 1. Get reviews and ratings

Customer feedback, and therefore reviews, are an incredibly strong credibility signal. Reach out to happy customers post-sale by email or SMS and make it easy for them to give you a review on a third party platform.

Reviews you collect yourself have little value for AEO. Choose 3 or 4 platforms to begin with. There are two main questions to think about when choosing the right review platforms:

- Which review platforms do your prospects use and trust?
- Is the review platform credible?

The credibility of the platform that publishes a customer review carries significant weight in Google’s measure of that review’s importance. Everyone gets negative reviews. For brands with over 80% positive feedback, it is sheer quantity that makes the difference. 

__Google will prefer a brand that has 10,000 reviews giving an average of 80% over a brand that has 100 reviews with an average of 85%.__

### 2. Engage in and encourage social feedback

Get positive social buzz and chatter to generate a very strong credibility signal. To generate buzz, keep a constant flow of content on social channels:

- Engage with your clients
- Reach out to prospects
- Get your content out there
- Share other people’s great content

The sheer quantity of social chatter makes it impossible for Google to crawl and index everything in this field. Some estimates suggest that it manages to crawl 35% of Facebook. If that is true, social chatter needs to be three times more voluminous than any review or press activity in order to have the same effect. So, although much of it goes unseen, a constant low-level buzz is vital for this channel. Should your brand go viral, you will become a focal point that Google will remember.

### 3. Obtain quality third-party mentions via press and thought leaders

Links remain important, but an intelligent machine understands, and gives credit to, brand mentions (so-called linkless links). So, reach out and get quality mentions from relevant thought leaders. Although we often think of thought leaders as individuals, brands and sites can be considered thought leaders.

Mentions and (better still) reviews from thought leaders are very powerful. Getting a thought leader, whether it’s a brand, site, or person, to talk about your brand in a relevant, positive context will send an incredibly powerful credibility signal to Google - well worth pursuing.

### 4. Optimise user experience

Identifying a user’s “moment of satisfaction” is the most difficult to pin down, but potentially the most important. Google is looking to identify the moment when its user has found the solution to their problem or the answer to their question. Google is not there yet, but is rapidly developing the capacity to identify this moment and base its results accordingly. 

You need to make sure that user behaviour on your site reflects the fact that you have provided that user with the correct solution or answer at the right time. 

Make landing pages fast, attractive, pertinent, and intuitive. Use the same vocabulary as your users and make sure you address their problem or question and clearly indicate that you have the answer for them.

To see how well you are doing, track such metrics as: page load speed, bounce rate, dwell time, visit depth and conversion rate. To help improve user experience on your landing pages, you can use one of the many A/B testing and user session analysis solutions.

__Understanding and credibility are the two deciding factors in a future where Google and Bing deliver definitive answers to their users with increasing accuracy. If you want to be leading the field in the years to come, you must seek to communicate and convince. Starting today.__

__If you'd like to learn how reviews can help you improve your AEO, request a free demo below.__

The new face of SEO: Answer Engine Optimisation 

The beginner's guide to site speed for SEO 

Site speed is one of the factors Google considers in their ranking algorithm. So if your site has slow loading times, it could affect your SEO.

[53% of mobile users](https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/data-measurement/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/) won’t wait more than 3 seconds for a site to load and every second that shoppers have to wait after the 3 second loading mark costs them 7% in conversion. 

And this problem can start before visitors even have a chance to reach conversion or your website. Site speed is one of the factors Google considers in their ranking algorithm. So if your site has slow loading times, fewer people will even reach your website. Potential customers coming from search could end up visiting one of your competitors instead and it may just be the competitor who decided to pay attention to site speed. 

Never forget — the average mobile site takes [15 seconds to load](https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/data-measurement/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/). So, chances are, your site speed has probably already been negatively affecting your business in terms of SEO and conversion. 

To help you clean this up, we’ve rounded up some factors to consider that can help you improve your site speed.

## Diagnosing your site speed

First things first. If you aren’t sure of your current speed, [Page Speed Insights](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-pagespeed-insights/edbkhhpodjkbgenodomhfoldapghpddk?hl=en) by Google is a great way to test your site speed and see where you are currently. Once you do this, you can figure out where to make changes to get that load time even shorter. 

In short, it’s a Google Chrome extension that will quickly give you your PageSpeed score. You’ll also be directed to some insights with further stats to help you understand the score.

## How can you improve your site speed?

### Minimize and simplify redirects

Redirects on your website are a great thing if you’ve ever had to de-index pages on your site. They help you guide your visitors where you need them to be, to find the information they want. 

But if you have too many redirects, this can [significantly impact your site speed](https://moz.com/learn/seo/page-speed). Look into your redirects and make the number of steps to the correct URL as short as you can, while still guiding your visitor where they need to be. 

### Resize your images

Are your images compressed for the web? Size and format can both affect site speed so make sure they are as small as they can be. If you have .png images you may be able to switch them to compressed .jpg images to help speed up your site. 

Image sprites in CSS may also be able to help. If you have a lot of different image files on your site (and each need to load individually) it may be easier to use a sprite to send them all to your site as a single image. There are quite a few [free tools](https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/resize-images-for-web) to help you easily do this. 

### Look into using Content Delivery Networks, also known as CDNs

[Content delivery networks (CDNs)](https://mashable.com/roundup/best-content-delivery-networks/) make data load faster because they use a group of servers that are located in different geographical locations. Wherever a user is, their pages will load from the server that is physically closest to where they are. This helps your load times decrease significantly. If your load times are higher than you want them to be and the other fixes aren’t working for you, this might be worth exploring for your site. 

### Make sure your third party apps aren't slowing you down

There are a large number of eCommerce technologies that you can use on your site to make the experience easier, and more efficient for your customers. The problem is that these sites often need to fetch a lot of data, which can significantly decrease your site speed. 

This isn’t dependent on your eCommerce platform, either. If a third party has a negative impact on site speed, it will do so regardless of which platform you’re on. 

That’s why it’s important to look into which third parties you’re working with and check how they’re ranked on site speed performance. [Yottaa](https://www.yottaa.com/), an optimization tool for eCommerce sites, puts together [this report](https://www.yottaa.com/resources/2019-ecommerce-3rd-party-index/) each year, which lets you look at the top players in eCommerce and see how working with them will affect your site. 

It’s great to have handy when you’re looking for a new eCommerce solution and you want to check their speed performance. 

## Do reviews affect site speed? 

Because customer reviews tend to be part of such a large scale database, they can be pretty bad offenders in terms of slowing down site speed. As you can see, most of the review platforms available have either an inconsistent negative performance impact (yellow) or a consistent negative impact on performance (red). 

Third Party Review Software Site Speed Competitive Analysis

Fortunately, collecting and [displaying reviews with Trustpilot](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/trustbox-widgets-the-truth-about-website-performance-and-loading-speed) has little to no negative impact on your site speed. 

In fact, this year we were the only customer review platform ranked as having little or no performance impact (green) on your site speed in Yottaa’s roundup.

Trustpilot reviews do not affect site speed

## When you improve your site speed, your SEO is sure to thank you

Let’s flashback to that stat from the beginning for a second: Every second that site visitors have to wait after the 3 second loading mark can cost you 7% in conversions. This means that, chances are, your current load time is high enough that it’s causing you to lose out on would-be customers. 

The bright side is that some of these changes are really easy to implement on your site. 

Go ahead and look into your site speed today so you can start seeing the benefits of higher conversion rates on your site. And while you’re at it, if you’re looking to [increase conversions](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/what-is-conversion-rate-optimisation) on your site, displaying Trustpilot reviews is a great way to boost conversions without dinging your site speed. 

So if you aren’t already collecting reviews with us, why not start today? 

To learn more about everything you can do with reviews, get your free copy of The Complete Guide to Reviews below. 

The beginner’s guide to site speed for SEO

A guide to SEO and reputation

In this guide, we give you four advanced eCommerce SEO strategies that you can use to crowd the search results in your niche and for your branded queries to build your brand and traffic so that you can accomplish your goal of building your business.

If you’re an eCommerce business, then digital marketing is paramount to your business’s success. You need the right products and the right platform, of course, but without great marketing, your products won’t get seen and you won’t make any sales.

Fortunately, there are many tried and true ways to grow your audience that you can leverage such as SEO, Facebook/Instagram advertising, content marketing, display advertising, sponsorships, influencer marketing, and many more.

The challenge lies in the fact that there are so many different channels and if you’re not a marketing expert, then it‘s hard, if not impossible, to know where to start or how to take your marketing to the next level.

If you’ve done the SEO basics on your site and are investing in content marketing and a link strategy with the goal of ranking better, there are ways that you can expedite that process to see results even quicker.

Today, I want to share with you four advanced eCommerce SEO strategies that you can use to crowd the search results in your niche and for your branded queries to build your brand and traffic so that you can accomplish your goal of building your business.

These four strategies are:

- Branded profiles;
- Barnacle SEO;
- Autosuggest and the information net;
- Content funnels (NBED)

### How to use branded profiles for SEO and conversions

If you’re an eCommerce business, you should absolutely own your own platform and brand. Without your own website, you will forever be paying other platforms a percentage of your sales in exchange for their audience, and eventually, you may reach a ceiling on growth because their business doesn’t completely mesh with yours.

But I’m also not arguing that you should only sell your products on your own site! Platforms like eBay and Amazon do well for a reason, mostly because they have huge capital resources and have created a place where others can easily sell their own products. So, as is usually the case, a balanced approach is needed.

If you perform a search for a brand like GoPro, you’ll see that they have crowded their branded search results with profiles on other websites such as:

- Twitter
- YouTube
- Amazon
- Instagram
- Facebook

If you are a small store, then you can leverage profiles just like these to lend your site more credibility when someone searches for your brand. You can even do this as a person:

Screenshot+2017-11-15+14.09.57

Example 1

This is also known as reputation management when an undesired article or site appears in your branded search results as a few have done for GoPro, but it can be a very strong way to show those searching for your brand that you are a legitimate business.

Of course, if you’re trying to rank 10 profiles for your branded terms, it takes dedicated effort to pull this off effectively.

When you’re trying to crowd your own branded search results, you need to:

- Vary the sites and profiles that you link to with branded anchor text when guest posting or listing your site in directories.
- Link to your important profiles from your main website to pass them link equity.
- Prioritize strong websites (use Moz’s MozBar to see their Domain Authority, an indicator of strength) and make sure your profiles there are complete and robust with unique content and whatever else you are able to have (video, etc).

The final strategy here, of course, is to find websites that allow you to also have reviews posted so that searchers trust you because of independent, positive ratings.

Screenshot+2017-11-15+14.24.22

Example 2

### Barnacle SEO for e-commerce websites

Every niche has a few main players that have most of the market share. These businesses, though, are not always the most well-loved so people often search for competitors or alternatives. One great strategy to capitalize on this, is to have your site listed when a potential customer is disenchanted with your large competitors and searches for their brand name with a “competitors” or “alternatives” modifier.

For example, let’s say that you run a tree seed eCommerce site. You sell seeds for a tree that is often seen as an alternative to maple trees, because some people don’t like maple trees.

You type "maple tree alternatives" into Google and see the following results.

Screenshot+2017-11-15+14.31.59

Example 3

There are at least five sites there that you can reach out to in order to either get them to add in another type of tree (and link to you) or add your link as a resource for their site visitors.

This strategy is similar to using Google’s autosuggest to find new keywords to target.

### Autosuggest and the information net

When thinking about SEO for your eCommerce website, you should consider the wider group of questions and modifiers that people search while they are conducting research before they ultimately make a purchase (and hopefully from you!).

Ecommerce businesses can’t just worry about your product and category page rankings. Yes, these are your most important keywords to rank for of course, as they directly drive traffic to you that you know will convert. And if they convert, then they’re great for ranking as well as for driving paid traffic to via SEO, Google Ads, and Facebook/Instagram.

But they are only a piece, albeit a large piece, of the larger SEO puzzle for your eCommerce site. Further up the conversion funnel, your potential customers are doing research before they buy.

This is where a bit of research on your end can pay big dividends by creating the content that answers your potential customer’s questions so that they learn about your brand and are more likely to buy from you in the future. If you build your strategy well, you can also use this to gather email addresses so that you can continue to market to them with a well-optimized email marketing strategy.

Here’s how the autosuggest SEO strategy works so that you can expand your net of keywords.

First, use any or all of the following tools to understand the autosuggested search terms from Google and which ones could drive traffic to your site:

- Soovle
- UberSuggest
- Longtail Pro
- Keywords Everywhere

When I use UberSuggest to search “nike vs” combined with Keywords Everywhere, I get a list of the brands that people are comparing Nike to. If you run a shoes ecommerce site, then this can be a great way to educate your users as well as funnel them to buy from you:

Screenshot+2017-11-16+10.37.13

Example 4

Imagine if you could get your eCommerce website ranking among these publishers. The competition is small and the traffic is high. What more could you want?

The goal is to identify all of these buckets of keyword phrases that your potential customers use when they are in the discovery phase of their search so that when they are ready to buy, they know and recognize your brand and are more likely to buy from you.

### Leveraging reviews on other sites to grow your own organic traffic

Finally, what post on Trustpilot would be complete without talking about reviews?

As an eCommerce site, you need reviews not only of your company but also of your products. If you are a product manufacturer as well as a seller, then you’re probably using other platforms to sell your products.

Let’s take the outdoors industry as an example. The North Face is not only a seller, but they actually manufacture the products as well.

Perform a search for a product of theirs, such as their Thermoball hooded jacket. My query is "the north face men’s thermoball" and I come up with the following sites:

- TheNorthFace.com
- Amazon
- Moosejaw
- Dicks Sporting Good
- REI
- Backcountry.com
- Youtube
- SteepAndCheap.com

All of these results except for Moosejaw have star results showing in the search results. Here's a screenshot of the first four results.

Notice what The North Face has done.

Screenshot+2017-11-16+15.53.39

Example 5

They have built their own property to allow it to have reviews that are then shown in the search results. So they own their own platform, which is absolutely necessary for the longevity of the brand.

They also, however, sell through all of the major providers and both rely on them to get reviews as well as probably actively solicit reviews on those platforms. If everyone rates the jacket well, as is the case with the Thermoball, they are building trust with their potential customers that the product is quality and people are happy.

So what’s the takeaway here?

If you are selling your own product, you should also be using the platforms available to you to tap into their audience and sell more of your products. Own your own platform and optimize your website properly, but this can be another great way to grow your business if the economics make sense.

The same works for your brand since customers might buy a product, but they ultimately buy from a brand. In today’s social media and values driven world, the work you do on your brand influences your customers, builds loyalty with them, and gains repeat buyers. Investing your brand by getting feedback from your customers is one of the best ways to improve your business, regardless of your search rankings. And the best part is that reviews also help your search rankings and clickthrough rates when review stars show in the search results.

__What about you?__

What strategies have you used to build your brand through SEO that don’t involve your own website?

How to use SEO to build your eCommerce reputation — a quick guide

Der Einfluss der Corona-Pandemie auf das Banking und den Zahlungsverkehr


Hoe COVID-19 de financiële sector verandert - Ontdek de financiële trends in 2021; de impact van de coronacrisis op het bankwezen en het betalingsverkeer; de sterke opkomst van challengerbanken.

Consumenten over de hele wereld hebben een turbulent jaar achter de rug, geconfronteerd met de dubbele dreiging van een wereldwijde pandemie en een economische crisis. 

De verschuiving van bankzaken en contante transacties naar online bankdiensten, contactloze betalingstechnologieën en digitale portemonnees is door de huidige situatie in een stroomversnelling terechtgekomen

In dit whitepaper gaan we dieper in op de resultaten van een onderzoek dat in zes verschillende landen — waaronder Nederland — is uitgevoerd, evenals op interviews met financiële dienstverleners, om meer inzicht te krijgen in de veranderende houding van consumenten ten opzichte van bankzaken en kredietproducten. We onderzoeken hoe zowel traditionele als challengerbanken hun diensten, marketingcampagnes en communicatiemethoden aanpassen om vertrouwen bij klanten op te bouwen. Hieronder beschrijven we de vijf belangrijkste conclusies.

__1. Contactloos in opkomst__

De grootste veranderingen in het bestedingsgedrag van consumenten in het afgelopen jaar waren onder meer het toegenomen gebruik van contactloos betalen en de afname van contante transacties.

Van de zes onderzochte markten zeggen zes op de tien (61%) consumenten sinds het begin van de coronapandemie vaker contactloos te betalen. Bovendien zegt meer dan de helft (54%) van de respondenten minder snel contant geld te gebruiken.

__2. Opkomst van de challengerbank__

Terwijl bijna driekwart van de consumenten (72%) vandaag de dag nog steeds alleen gebruikmaakt van een traditionele bank, gebruikt bijna een kwart (24%) nu een online challengerbank, hetzij uitsluitend (6%), of als aanvullende bank (18%).

__3. De voordelen van challengerbanken__

Maar liefst twee derde van de consumenten (66%) zei vooral geïnteresseerd te zijn in challengerbanken omdat ze diensten aanbieden tegen lage kosten, of zelfs gratis. Andere factoren zijn goede customer service (59%), betere digitale ervaring (50%) en de mogelijkheid om snel een account te openen (49%).

__4. Nieuwe zorgen van de consument__

Door de pandemie en de daarmee gepaard gaande recessie maken consumenten zich meer zorgen over de tarieven van hun financiële dienstverleners. Dit gold voor 38% van alle consumenten, tot zelfs 56% van de Amerikaanse respondenten. Op alle onderzochte markten gaf 34% aan nu meer aandacht te besteden aan veiligheid.

__5. We vertrouwen vooral reviews en mond-tot-mondreclame__

Tegenwoordig kiezen consumenten financiële dienstverleners op basis van kosten, customer service en digitale ervaring. 

De onderzoeksresultaten bevestigen dat consumenten steeds bewuster financiële beslissingen nemen. Ze vertrouwen daarbij vooral hun leeftijdsgenoten. 86% van de ondervraagden heeft een hoog of gemiddeld niveau van vertrouwen in mond-tot-mondreclame en reviews, terwijl ze social media en reclame als relatief onbetrouwbaar beschouwen.

### 1. Contactloos krijgt de voorkeur

Het bewijs dat COVID-19 wordt overgedragen via besmette oppervlakken en aërosolen in de lucht heeft natuurlijk geleid tot een dramatische afname van het gebruik van contant geld in 2020. Uit ons onderzoek blijkt dat consumenten in de VS en Europa steeds meer contactloos zijn gaan betalen. 

Hoewel contactloze technologie niet nieuw is, heeft de pandemie veel meer mensen ertoe aangezet deze te gebruiken om de risico's van contant geld te vermijden. Over het algemeen geven shoppers over de hele wereld er nu de voorkeur aan om via een betaalkaart of hun e-wallet te betalen voor een maaltijd of winkelaankoop. Deze twee methoden zijn steeds meer gekoppeld aan apparaten zoals smartphones en zelfs horloges.

Meer dan de helft van de consumenten in de zes markten zei dat ze sinds het uitbreken van de coronacrisis vaker contactloos betalen (figuur 1), waaronder twee derde van de ondervraagden in het Verenigd Koninkrijk (66%) en Frankrijk (67%). In totaal zegt slechts 8% van de consumenten — vermoedelijk vooral mensen die hun huis niet vaak verlaten — dat ze minder gebruikmaken van contactloze betaalmethoden.

Alleen in Zweden, waar de sociale beperkingen minder streng zijn dan in andere landen, zegt een meerderheid (57%) dat contactloos gebruik gelijk is gebleven. Gemiddeld over alle onderzochte landen geeft meer dan de helft van de consumenten (54%) aan dat ze sinds het begin van de pandemie minder snel contant geld zullen gebruiken voor persoonlijke transacties (figuur 3).


Figuur 1: Maak je sinds het begin van de COVID-19-crisis meer of minder gebruik van contactloos betalen?

Figuur 1

Deze overstap naar contactloos draagt bij aan het toegenomen gebruik van elektronische portemonnees van aanbieders van contactloze betalingen, met name in de Verenigde Staten (Figuur 2). Meer dan een derde van de Amerikaanse consumenten gebruikt Google Pay (35%) en Apple Pay (ook 35%), terwijl meer dan een vijfde (22%) Venmo van PayPal gebruikt.

Deze cijfers worden weerspiegeld in afzonderlijk onderzoek van Mastercard, waaruit bleek dat bijna een derde van de Amerikaanse consumenten (en tot 43% voor degenen onder de 35 jaar) tijdens de pandemie is overgestapt van contant naar contactloos betalen.

Figuur 2 laat ook zien dat consumenten in Frankrijk het minst geneigd zijn om een van de vermelde contactloze betalingsproviders te gebruiken.


Figuur 2 - Welke methode gebruik je voor contactloos betalen?

Figuur 2

Contactloos betalen is natuurlijk niet overal beschikbaar en beperkt zich tot relatief kleine bedragen. Het gat dat is ontstaan door het afgenomen gebruik van contant geld wordt dan ook deels opgevuld door het toegenomen gebruik van creditcards en betaalpassen (figuur 3).

De toename van het online winkelen als gevolg van de sluiting van fysieke winkels is een andere belangrijke verklaring voor de afname van het contant geldgebruik. De kans dat consumenten hun creditcard of pinpas vaker zullen gebruiken, is drie keer zo groot als voorheen.

Fiona Anderson, UK Head of Everyday Banking bij HSBC, wijst erop dat de verschuiving naar contactloze, mobiele en online betalingen al ver gevorderd was voordat het coronavirus uitbrak. Toch heeft de pandemie het gebruik van digitale en mobiele bankdiensten enorm versneld.

*"COVID-19 heeft de verschuiving in consumentengedrag naar digitaal versneld, en deze trend zal zich naar verwachting voortzetten"*, zei ze.

*"Er is een aanzienlijke groei in het gebruik van mobiele betaalapps, app-logins en het aantal online betalingen. We zien ook een nieuwe trend: consumenten gebruiken meer kaarten dan contant geld om te betalen. Contactloze betalingen vertegenwoordigen nu meer dan een kwart van alle kaarttransacties, vergeleken met slechts een vijfde op dezelfde datum vorig jaar."*

Figuur 3 - Maak je sinds het begin van de COVID-19-crisis meer of minder gebruik van de onderstaande betalingsmethoden voor persoonlijke overschrijvingen?

Figuur 3

### 2. Traditionele en challengerbanken

Consumentenbehoeften veranderen snel naarmate ons leven digitaler wordt, met bovendien steeds betere contactloze en mobiele betaaltechnologie. Banken zijn niet langer enkel een plek om documenten in te vullen, geld op te nemen of cheques uit te wisselen, maar zijn virtuele ruimtes geworden die digitale ervaringen en vlekkeloze klantenservice op afstand bieden.

Traditionele banken zoals Capital One en Wells Fargo in de Verenigde Staten of Barclays en Lloyds in het Verenigd Koninkrijk zijn nog steeds het eerste aanspreekpunt voor bankbehoeften, zoals het ontvangen van salaris en het betalen van maandfacturen via automatische incasso. In 2020 speelden challengerbanken echter een cruciale rol in het consumptiegedrag. Deze indrukwekkende groei zal naar verwachting doorzetten in 2021 dankzij de aanhoudende investeringsboom bij fintech.

Challengerbanken, ook wel 'neobanken' genoemd, zijn doorgaans alleen online, en zijn al jarenlang beschikbaar voor consumenten in de VS en Europa. Voorbeelden van challengerbanken zijn Axos, Atom Bank, Chime en Monzo.

Deze banken proberen allemaal wereldwijd op te vallen met gratis diensten en geavanceerde digitale functies. Sommigen gaan zelfs zo ver dat ze gepersonaliseerde bankkaarten aanbieden, evenals de mogelijkheid om gratis internationale overschrijvingen te doen.

In de Verenigde Staten vertrouwt bijna twee derde van de consumenten (63%) op hun traditionele bank, terwijl slechts 7% uitsluitend gebruikmaakt van een challengerbank. Het is echter interessant om op te merken dat 17% van de Amerikanen tegenwoordig afhankelijk is van zowel een traditionele bank als een challengerbank (figuur 4). 

Bijna driekwart van de consumenten in de zes onderzochte markten (72%) maakt nog steeds gebruik van de diensten van een traditionele bank. 6% van hen vertrouwt uitsluitend op challengerbanken, terwijl 18% zowel een traditionele bank als een challengerbank gebruikt.


Figuur 4 - Wat voor bank gebruik je voor je dagelijkse bankzaken?

NL 2021 Consumer finance report - Graph 4

Figuur 4

Interessant is dat het nieuwe digitale bankieren en online betalen niet langer voorbehouden is aan millennials. Volgens online financiële dienstverlener Klarna bracht 2020 een aanzienlijke toename aan oudere gebruikers.

Samantha McCarthy, marketingmanager bij Klarna, zei: *"Voor Klarna is het shopperprofiel de afgelopen maanden veranderd. De leeftijdsgroep boven de 50 groeit het snelst. Normaal gesproken zijn het de mobiel-georiënteerde millennials. We kunnen dus zien dat de pandemie nieuwe winkelgewoonten met zich heeft meegebracht.”*

Dit nieuwe gedrag was vooral duidelijk tijdens Black Friday 2020: in slechts één dag boekte Klarna een omzet die gelijk was aan die van een volledige week in 2018.

Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat alle leeftijdsgroepen challengerbanken gebruiken, al blijft het percentage jongeren hoger dan dat van ouderen (figuur 5). Gebruikers tussen de 18 en 34 jaar maken in feite twee keer zoveel gebruik van een challengerbank — of gebruiken ze in combinatie met een traditionele bank — vergeleken met gebruikers ouder dan 55 jaar (respectievelijk 30% versus 16%).

NL 2021 Consumer finance report - Graph 5

Figuur 5

### 3. Meest aantrekkelijke bankdiensten en functies

Ons onderzoek toont aan dat het zeer waarschijnlijk is dat de hedendaagse consument een challengerbank gebruikt in combinatie met een traditionele bank, in plaats van als hun enige financiële dienstverlener. Deze trend kan echter veranderen: deze neobanken krijgen steeds meer belangstelling en het kan niet worden uitgesloten dat klanten in de toekomst uitsluitend op hun diensten zullen vertrouwen.

Het is natuurlijk niet eenvoudig om af te zien van een traditionele bank, maar tegelijkertijd groeit de wens om de nieuwe digitale diensten te verkennen, wat een kwart van de markt ertoe aanzet om zich aan te melden bij een challengerbank, hetzij als hoofdrekening, of, meer gebruikelijk, als een secundaire rekening (Figuur 6). 

Misschien nog veelzeggender: het aantal consumenten dat in 2020 gebruikmaakte van een challengerbank was 3,5 keer zo groot (44%) als het aantal dat zei er minder op te vertrouwen (13%).

Figuur 7 laat zien dat lage kosten de belangrijkste aantrekkingskracht van consumenten voor dit type bank vormen. Het is de grootste drijfveer voor twee derde van de consumenten (66%), gevolgd door goede customer service (59%), een betere digitale ervaring (50%) en ten slotte de snelheid waarmee een nieuwe bankrekening kan worden geopend (49%). Hieruit volgt dat consumenten vooral geïnteresseerd zijn in een goedkope of gratis bankdienst die hen goede hulp biedt, met een eenvoudige en effectieve methode om hun geld online te beheren op alle soorten apparaten zoals pc's, laptops, tablets en smartphones.

Even interessant is dat de aangeboden diensten waar veel online banken reclame voor maken, juist minder aanspreken. Reisaanbiedingen trekken de aandacht van minder dan de helft van de gebruikers (43%), en een beter ontwerp van creditcards of betaalpassen is van belang voor slechts 23% van de consumenten. Bijna de helft van de consumenten (46%) vindt een aantrekkelijker kaartontwerp niet ‘interessant’, hoewel er duidelijk genoeg interesse is om er voor sommige banken toch een waardevol Unique Selling Point (USP) van te maken.


Figuur 6 - Maak je voor de volgende diensten gebruik van een traditionele bank of een challengerbank?

NL 2021 Consumer finance report - Graph 6

Figuur 6

Figuur 7 - Welke van de volgende functies of diensten van een challengerbank zijn of kunnen interessant zijn voor je?

NL 2021 Consumer finance report - Graph 7

Figuur 7

Hoewel nieuwe kaartontwerpen slechts een minderheid van de consumenten interesseert, staan de digitale ervaring en customer service van een goedkope of gratis challengerbank bovenaan hun prioriteitenlijst. Challengerbank N26 speelde hierop in en benutte zijn online roots door klanten in staat te stellen veilig te bankieren zonder dat ze naar een filiaal hoeven te gaan of hun kaart per post moeten ontvangen. 

Chief Growth Officer Alex Weber: *“Tijdens de lockdown-piek in Europa werden de postdiensten over het hele continent ernstig verstoord. Het was dus niet altijd mogelijk om bankpassen snel bij klanten te krijgen.*

*Daarom lanceerden we snel een functie waarmee nieuwe klanten direct na aanmelding een digitale versie van hun N26-kaart aan hun mobiele portemonnee kunnen toevoegen — een proces dat de meeste klanten slechts acht minuten kost, zodat ze al meteen contactloos kunnen bankieren, in afwachting van hun fysieke kaart. We werken aan de verdere ontwikkeling van deze functie om niet alleen cashless, maar ook cardless betalingen mogelijk te maken, en zullen binnenkort het dienstenaanbod van onze virtuele kaart uitbreiden.”*

Een ander belangrijk voordeel van dit model is dat mobiele en online banken tijdens de crisis minder hinder hebben ondervonden. Banken en fintech-bedrijven die al een service op afstand aanboden, bleven gewoon, als vanouds, beschikbaar voor hun klanten.

*"We hebben ons klantenbestand in slechts vier maanden verdubbeld en we zijn nu de op een na grootste instelling in het land die gesubsidieerde leningen aanbiedt aan kleine bedrijven in de Verenigde Staten in het kader van het Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)"*, aldus Kathryn Petralia, president en medeoprichter van Kabbage, een dochteronderneming van American Express.

*“Toen klanten zich realiseerden dat hun bank zijn filialen had gesloten en geen PPS-leningaanvragen meer accepteerde, konden wij onze diensten online aanbieden. Mensen zullen zich de banken herinneren die hen steunden in tijden van crisis."*

### Belangrijkste factoren bij het zoeken naar een financiële dienstverlener

De drie belangrijkste kenmerken die consumenten het aantrekkelijkst vinden in een challengerbank (figuur 7), komen nauw overeen met de drie voornaamste criteria voor het kiezen van een debet- of creditcardaanbieder (figuur 8). Lage kosten of een laag jaarlijkse kostenpercentage (APR) vormt de grootste motivatie voor de helft van de ondervraagden (50%); op de tweede plaats een sterk en betrouwbaar merk (42%), met een betere digitale ervaring op de derde plaats (41%).

Bepaalde functies die op grote schaal worden geadverteerd door banken scoren juist lager. Flexibele betalingsvoorwaarden komen op hun beurt op de laatste plaats, achter ethische waarden en loyaliteitsprogramma's.

Toch is Ricky Knox, oprichter van challengerbank Tandem, ervan overtuigd dat, nu de meeste nieuwe aanbieders gratis diensten aanbieden, het in de toekomst uiteindelijk een verschil zal maken of een bedrijf ook blijk geeft van maatschappelijke verantwoordelijkheid.

*"We hebben Tandem Bank opgericht met de missie om de geldproblemen van echte mensen op te lossen. Daarom stond het idee van duurzaamheid, zowel financieel als ecologisch, vanaf dag één centraal bij alles wat we doen.*

*In 2020 hebben we een gevestigd bedrijf voor groene woonkredieten overgenomen, zodat we nu veel klanten kunnen helpen hun ecologische voetafdruk te verkleinen door hen het geld te geven dat ze nodig hebben om hun huis milieuvriendelijk te maken. Steeds meer mensen willen actie ondernemen in plaats van alleen maar te praten over de klimaatcrisis, en daarom zijn wij van mening dat de boodschap van groen bankieren nu breder wordt gehoord en populairder is in de markt."*


Figuur 8 - Wat zijn de drie belangrijkste factoren bij de keuze voor een financiële dienstverlener?

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