Testimonial videos, customer experience videos, case study videos, recommendation videos—dear child has many names. Whatever you call them, testimonial videos are one of those tools whose benefits nearly all marketers agree on.
Potential customers need reassurance before making a purchase decision, and what better way to build trust than by sharing real experiences from your existing customers?
The challenge, however, is often how to get those videos in front of the right people at the right stage of the buying process. Testimonial videos don’t help much if they’re gathering dust somewhere deep in your website, far from where customers actually go during their decision-making process.
It’s also worth noting that different stages of the funnel call for different methods and content formats. That’s why utilizing testimonials is something of an art form—and why we created this guide for you.
After all, even the best hammer is useless if you try to use it on screws instead of nails.
A practical guide to using testimonial videos at different stages of the buyer’s journey
There are many ways to model the buyer’s journey, but one of the most common frameworks divides it into three stages: top of funnel, middle of funnel, and bottom of funnel—or awareness, engagement, and sales.
Stage 1: TOFU (Top of Funnel): Awareness – Build awareness and spark interest. Reach your audience.
Stage 2: MOFU (Middle of Funnel): Engagement – Support information gathering. Help your customer learn.
Stage 3: BOFU (Bottom of Funnel): Sales – Assist in decision-making. Overcome purchase barriers.
As we all know, the buyer’s journey is increasingly digital, which also means our ability to influence purchase decisions has grown significantly. While testimonial videos typically work best in stages 2 and 3, they can also be used to build awareness effectively—when used right.
Let’s break down how to utilize testimonial videos at each stage of the buyer’s journey:
- TOFU – Awareness – Build awareness and spark interest
- Social media advertising
- Organic social media
- YouTube video ads
At the awareness stage, your potential customer likely hasn’t heard of your product or service yet. That means they’re not ready to spend much time getting to know you.
Testimonial videos can still be effective at this stage—especially short social clips that cut straight to the point. The first three seconds are crucial for grabbing attention and determining whether someone will watch the rest of the video.
Don’t try to use full-length testimonial videos here. Instead, break them into short, punchy social snippets tailored for this stage.
- MOFU – Engagement – Support the customer’s information gathering
- Remarketing
- Search engine optimization
At this stage, the potential customer is already interested in your offering but is still gathering information. They may spend weeks—or even months—in this phase before making a decision.
They’re engaged, but not yet committed.
The most effective ways to support them here are through remarketing and SEO.
Search Engine Optimization
With SEO, you reach the user when they’re most open to learning. There are two primary ways to use testimonial videos here:
- Embedded on your website as supporting content
- Uploaded to YouTube to directly address user queries
Let’s take a roofing company as an example. Useful video placements for SEO could be:
- Roofing service pages
- Customer experiences with roofing page
- General experiences with the company page
Often, items 2 and 3 can be the same page—but in some cases, it’s worth keeping them separate.
One underused SEO tactic is video schema markup. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a helpful article from Semrush: https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-to-use-video-schema-markup-on-your-video-pages/
In short, schema markup is structured data that helps search engines understand your video content. With the right markup, a Google search for “roofing experiences” could show your testimonial video right in the search results.
The same logic applies to YouTube, which is both the world’s largest video platform and the second-largest search engine overall. Google also pulls YouTube results into its own listings—something many companies miss if they focus solely on their own website.
Remarketing
Remarketing involves showing ads based on users’ previous behaviors—such as site visits, video views, post engagement, and more.
The most common platforms for this are Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and Google (YouTube pre-roll, Search Ads, Display Ads).
Since the information-gathering phase can last quite a while, the key here is variety. Repurpose your videos into different edits and formats to keep your ads fresh and effective. This helps avoid fatigue and keeps the audience engaged over time.
- BOFU – Sales – Support the purchase decision
- Remarketing
- Google Ads
- Sales presentations and calendar invites
- Website conversion optimization
At this final stage, the customer is ready to act. The question is: which provider will they choose?
Google ads
Google Ads is often the most effective channel at this stage—especially when paired with high-quality landing pages. One important factor in Google’s ad pricing is landing page quality, and including testimonial videos can positively impact this score.
Some users prefer to watch rather than read, and offering video content can give your campaign a competitive edge.
Longer testimonial videos typically work best at this stage, where the customer is already interested and willing to invest time.
Remarketing to Support Decision-Making
Here, the time window is short. The customer is close to converting and more willing to watch longer content. This makes full-length testimonials or compilations highly effective.
Focus your remarketing efforts tightly: for example, target only those who’ve visited pricing or contact pages—not just anyone who briefly interacted with a video earlier in the funnel.
Keep your campaign cycle short (around a week) and ensure enough frequency to deliver the message clearly and overcome last-minute doubts.
Sales Presentations and Calendar Invites
In many industries, sales reps play an active role in finalizing decisions. One of the best ways to use testimonial videos is by including them in sales presentations.
A common frustration among salespeople is the lack of relevant case studies to support their conversations. The key is to have a variety of testimonials available for different scenarios, so your reps can tailor their pitch accordingly.
An often-overlooked opportunity is embedding videos in calendar invites. Especially in remote sales, “no-shows” are a recurring challenge. Adding a testimonial video to the meeting invite can reduce doubt and increase the likelihood that prospects show up.
Website Conversion Optimization
This is perhaps the most obvious—but also the most misunderstood—use case for testimonial videos.
Too often, companies just create a “Testimonials” page in the main navigation and expect visitors to find it on their own. In today’s mobile-first world, site navigation matters less and internal links and contextual content matter more.
Yes, it’s worth creating a dedicated testimonial page—for SEO and user trust—but the conversion-driving pages are where videos truly shine:
- Service pages
- Product pages
- Pricing pages
- Contact pages
Videos should appear early enough on these pages to influence decisions—but not necessarily right at the top. (There are exceptions, of course.)
If your service page is miles long—as is sometimes warranted—don’t bury your video at the very bottom. It won’t make an impact on conversion rates.
For best results, use a heat mapping tool (like Hotjar) to see how far visitors scroll and tailor your video placement accordingly.
Summary
There are countless ways to use testimonial videos, but they’re most effective near the end of the buyer’s journey. Think of your own purchases—how often do you buy anything online without first seeing what others have to say?
The most cost-effective approach is to start with a longer video for the bottom of the funnel and then create shorter clips to use throughout the journey.
In this algorithm-driven age, it’s essential to constantly have fresh video content for search engines and social media. But that doesn’t mean you need to constantly film new material—one shoot can yield a wide variety of formats and edits.
Especially short clips tailored for social platforms.