Want more clicks, signups, and sales from your emails? Add proof that other people already buy from you.
That's social proof, and it works at every stage of your email marketing: on your signup form, in your welcome email, and in every promotional message you send. Below you'll find real social proof examples and exactly where to put them in your emails.
For example, AWeber uses these testimonials from successful customers in order to show the value of our platform and specific ways customers have seen success with it. These testimonials provide online proof that real people with real businesses use and like our tools.
What is social proof in marketing?
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon. It’s actually related to the fear of missing out, or FOMO.
Here’s how it works: When someone is thinking about making a decision — whether it’s a purchase, signing up for an email list, or anything else — they regularly look for advice from others.
Here's why it works. When someone needs a new dentist, they ask a friend. But when they're deciding whether to buy your course, join your newsletter, or try your software, they probably don't know anyone who has. So they look for the next best thing: evidence from strangers. Reviews on Trustpilot. Comments on social media. A number like "trusted by 300,000 creators."
That evidence does the convincing for you. Instead of claiming your product is great, you show that other people already think so.
Social proof statistics worth knowing
Over 90% of people read at least one review before making a purchase decision.
The takeaway: your prospects are already looking for proof. The only question is whether they find it in your emails or have to go hunting for it somewhere you don't control.
Types of social proof
You have more options than you might think. The most common types of social proof are:
1. Customer reviews — from Trustpilot, Google Reviews, Yelp, Amazon, or Facebook. If your business is more than a few months old, you probably already have these. 2. Testimonials — quotes you collect directly from happy customers, ideally with a name, photo, and title. 3. Case studies — a customer's full before-and-after story, told in detail. 4. Customer data — numbers like "join 25,000 subscribers" or "4.8/5 stars from 2,000 reviews." 5. Social media feedback — screenshots of posts, comments, and shoutouts from real users. 6. Expert and influencer endorsements — recommendations from people your audience already trusts. 7. Award and trust badges — industry awards, certifications, security badges, and "best of" lists. 8. User-generated content — photos and videos customers post of themselves using your product.
New business without reviews yet? Start with customer data ("join 500 subscribers") or ask your first happy customers for a one-line testimonial. You don't need hundreds of reviews — you need one credible voice.
How to use social proof in your email marketing
Here are five places to put social proof, in the order your subscribers will encounter them.
1. Add a testimonial next to your signup form
Before anyone reads your emails, they have to subscribe. A testimonial next to your signup form answers the question every visitor silently asks: "Is this worth my inbox?"
Find a review from someone who likes your business — on a review site or social media — and place it directly above or beside your form. This works on a blog, landing page, or website.
The strongest version: a testimonial that specifically describes the value of your emails. Ask one of your most engaged subscribers what they get out of your newsletter, and quote them.
Always include a picture, name, and title. A quote from "Sarah M., founder of a 6-figure Etsy shop" earns more trust than an anonymous one.
Use the AI Signup Form Builder in AWeber to spin up a high-converting form in minutes. Ask the AI to drop your best testimonial right beside it.
2. Put a review in your welcome email
The first email after signup is your best chance to convince a new subscriber to keep opening your emails, move you out of the promotions tab, and engage with your content.
You earned their address, now earn their attention. Add a review or testimonial (a different one than the one next to your signup form) as a section in the middle or end of your welcome email. A third party backing up your claims is more convincing than anything you can say about yourself.
Promotional emails convert better when the pitch comes with evidence.
Say you sell a course on financial stability. Your sales email should explain what the course covers, how long it takes, and who it's for — and then include a review from someone who already took it. Look for a review that names a specific result: "I paid off my student loans eight months after finishing this course" beats "great course!"
Want to go further? Build the entire email around one customer's story. Start with the problem they had, then show how your product solved it. Case study emails are also a gift for anyone who struggles with what to write — let your customers write the email for you.
4. Use trust badges to drive referrals
Referrals are recommendations from friends (the original social proof). Put them to work for your list.
Add a short section to your emails asking subscribers to forward the message to friends or coworkers who'd find it useful. Then back up the ask with authority: if you've won awards or earned certifications in your field, include the badges. Subscribers share content more readily when sharing it makes them look credible.
Someone added your product to their cart and left. An abandoned cart email reminds them — and social proof gives them a reason to come back.
Keep these emails short. Then add one piece of proof: a funny social media post that shouts out your product works especially well here. It catches attention, lowers the pressure, and reminds the prospect that real people love what they almost bought.
Social proof email examples
Want to see what this looks like in practice? Three formats to steal:
The stat header: open your sales email with one number ("4.9 stars from 1,200 students") before you say anything else.
The testimonial block: a single customer quote with photo, name, and title, dropped between sections of a regular newsletter.
The all-testimonial email: an entire promotional email made of nothing but customer reviews. No pitch needed — the customers make it for you.
Start adding social proof to your emails
You don't need a big production. Find one good review, put it next to your signup form, and add another to your welcome email. That's a 20-minute job that compounds with every new visitor.
AWeber gives you the signup forms, landing pages, and email templates to do it including layouts with built-in testimonial blocks. Start with AWeber for free for 14-days and put your happiest customers to work.
Here’s the question every social media manager eventually faces: Is this tool worth what I’m paying for it?
It’s a fair one. When you’re comparing price tags across platforms, it’s easy to see a lower number and assume you’re getting a better deal. But price and value aren’t the same thing, and in social media management, the gap between the two can cost you more than you realize.
According to a 2025 Total Economic Impact™ study conducted by Forrester Consulting, Sprout Social customers achieved a return on investment of 268% and a net present value of $1.3 million over three years, with a payback period of less than six months. That’s not a marketing claim, it’s an independent third-party finding.
Sprout Social pricing
Find the plan that fits your team
From Essentials starting at $79/seat/month to Advanced, nearly all Sprout Social plans comes with a 30-day free trial. No credit card required.
Essentials – $79/mo Standard – $199/mo Professional – $299/mo ★ Most popular Advanced – $399/mo Enterprise – Custom
So before you let sticker shock steer you toward a cheaper tool, let’s break down what each Sprout Social plan delivers, how it stacks up against “cheaper” alternative tools and which plan is the right fit for your team’s goals.
What Sprout Social plans are available?
Sprout Social offers four core plans, plus a new entry-level option for publishing-focused teams.
Here’s a quick overview of all five plans before we break each one down:
Plan
Price
Best for
Key capabilities
Essentials
$79/seat/mo billed annually
Solo practitioners, freelancers and small businesses building a publishing foundation
Publishing across 5 profiles, AI-powered Optimal Send Times, profile and post-level reporting, collaborative content calendar, SproutLink
Standard
$199/seat/mo billed annually
Small teams managing customer conversations and brand monitoring across multiple networks
Smart Inbox, keyword and location monitoring, review management, unlimited AI-generated alt text and collaboration tools
Professional Most popular
$299/seat/mo billed annually
Growing teams managing multiple profiles, campaigns and competitive reporting
Unlimited social profiles, competitor and paid insights, message tagging, approval workflows, Enhance Post by AI Assist
Advanced
$399/seat/mo billed annually
Cross-functional teams where social is a customer care channel and business intelligence source
Sentiment analysis in Smart Inbox, Message Spike Alerts, Sprout API, helpdesk integrations (Salesforce, Zendesk), Enhance Reply by AI Assist and customer care reporting
Enterprise
Custom contact sales
Global organizations managing social across multiple brands, regions or business units
Everything in Advanced, plus white-glove onboarding, dedicated SSO setup, tailored plan configuration, priority support and a dedicated implementation partner
Essentials: $79/seat/month (billed annually)
The newest addition to the Sprout Social lineup, Essentials is built for social media professionals who need a clean, powerful publishing workflow without the full enterprise feature set.
What’s included:
Connect up to 5 social profiles
Optimal send times to increase visibility
Profile and post-level reporting
Best for: Solo practitioners, freelancers, or small teams focused on content scheduling and basic performance tracking. If your main goal is consistent, optimized publishing across a handful of profiles, Essentials gives you the tools to do it right—without paying for features you won’t use yet.
The ROI case: Even at the entry level, Sprout Social’s AI-powered ViralPost® technology takes the guesswork out of timing. You’re not just scheduling posts—you’re scheduling them to land when your audience is most likely to engage. That’s a meaningful edge over manual scheduling or basic free tools.
Standard: $199/seat/month (billed annually)
Standard is where Sprout Social’s full platform capabilities begin to open up. It’s designed for small teams managing a focused set of social profiles across multiple networks.
What’s included:
5 social profiles
Consolidated Smart Inbox and collaboration tools
Keyword and location monitoring
Unlimited AI-generated alt text
Review management
Best for: Small marketing teams at growing businesses who need to centralize their social management, respond to customers efficiently and start building a data-informed strategy. The Smart Inbox alone—which consolidates messages, mentions and comments from every connected profile into one unified feed—is a workflow game-changer for teams juggling multiple platforms.
The ROI case: Before using Sprout Social, customers’ social teams spent 70% of their time scheduling and publishing posts, listening, replying on social media channels and planning campaigns. Standard directly addresses that time drain. When your team isn’t context-switching between five different platform inboxes, they’re spending more time on strategy—and strategy is what drives results.
pay.com.au, a fast-growing B2B payments platform, used Sprout Social’s publishing, listening and reporting tools to go from a 20% response rate to 98%—in just one week.
“With the help of Sprout’s Publishing, Listening and Reporting, we were able to quickly test, learn and optimise our content format across a range of social channels.”
David Walsh, Head of Digital, CX & Marketing, pay.com.au Read the full story
📋 Editorial Note
The customer success stories featured within each plan section, including pay.com.au, Salesforce, ScottsMiracle-Gro, Lemonade, and Papa Johns, are included to illustrate real-world outcomes achievable with specific Sprout Social features. Their placement within a given plan tier may not reflect the subscription plan those organizations are on. Some may be on Custom Enterprise plans or use premium add-ons to support their full operational scale.
Professional: $299/seat/month (billed annually)
Professional is Sprout Social’s most popular plan and it’s easy to see why. It’s built for teams handling high-volume engagement across a large number of profiles.
What’s included:
Unlimited social profiles
Message tagging
Extensive competitor, tag and paid insights
Enhance Post by AI Assist
Best for: Mid-market marketing teams, agencies and brands managing multiple product lines or regional accounts. The jump to unlimited social profiles is significant—it removes a ceiling that can otherwise force teams into workarounds or additional tool costs. The addition of competitor insights and paid performance data also makes Professional the right choice for teams that need to prove ROI across both organic and paid social.
The ROI case: Sprout Social customers saw an 80% reduction in social media reporting time and a 25% time reduction in influencer management, while generating $130,000 in additional revenue through employee advocacy programs. Professional gives teams the analytics depth to surface those insights and act on them.
Salesforce manages 150+ social channels through Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox and reporting tools – saving 12,000 hours in their first year and moving 10x faster on community management.
“We’re reporting faster and in real time and sharing information continuously with our stakeholders. We’re also moving 10 times faster per day with community management by using Sprout’s automation and workflows. That gives our team more time to focus on strategy and bring our creative vision to life.”
Mikaely Quaranta, Senior Manager, Social Media Strategy, Salesforce Read the full story
Advanced: $399/seat/month (billed annually)
Advanced is built for cross-functional teams and complex workflows. It’s the plan for organizations where social media isn’t just a marketing function—it’s a customer care channel, a crisis management tool and a business intelligence source.
What’s included:
Enhance Reply by AI Assist
Sentiment analysis in the Smart Inbox and Reviews
Sprout API and Helpdesk integrations
Team productivity and social customer care reports
Message Spike Alerts
Best for: Enterprise-adjacent teams, customer care organizations and brands where social media response time directly impacts customer satisfaction and retention. The addition of sentiment analysis means your team isn’t just reading messages—they’re understanding the emotional context behind them. Message Spike Alerts ensure you’re never caught off guard by a sudden surge in brand mentions.
The ROI case: Sprout Social customers saved 60% of their time managing social media, generating $223,800 in savings over three years by consolidating into one platform. They also saw an 80% reduction in employee time spent on social media reporting by using embedded AI to ease workflows and surface insights faster. Advanced is where those savings compound.
ScottsMiracle-Gro integrated Sprout Social with Salesforce Service Cloud to centralize all social customer care – cutting case resolution time by 50% and reducing average time to action by 91%.
“It was a game changer. Social training used to be a whole day thing, now it’s an hour. The system is so user intuitive. That’s one of our favorite things about it.”
Enterprise is designed for organizations with large-scale social media operations that require tailored solutions, dedicated support and seamless SSO setup.
What’s included:
Everything in Advanced
White-glove onboarding and implementation
Plan tailored to your enterprise business
Dedicated service for hassle-free SSO setup
Priority customer support
Best for: Global brands, large enterprises and organizations with complex compliance, security, or integration requirements. Sprout Social grew its number of customers contributing over $50,000 in ARR to 1,947 customers as of September 30, 2025, up 21% year-over-year—a signal that enterprise-scale teams are finding sustained, growing value in the platform.
How does Sprout Social Essentials compare with alternative tools?
When you’re evaluating social media management tools, you’re choosing between three categories – and each one serves a different stage of growth.
Free and entry-level scheduling tools
These tools are built for simplicity. They let you queue posts, manage a handful of channels and get basic engagement data. For a solo creator or a brand just getting started, that’s often enough. But these tools are designed to do one thing: help you publish. When your goals shift from “posting consistently” to “understanding what’s working and growing from it,” they hit a ceiling fast.
There’s no way to see how your content is performing across profiles in aggregate, no intelligence on when to post for maximum reach and no path to connecting social activity to business outcomes.
Mid-tier platforms
These tools add more: scheduling at scale, some analytics and maybe basic inbox management. But the features that matter most for growing teams: AI-powered send time optimization, cross-network reporting, integrations with your content planning stack, are often locked behind higher-tier plans or sold as add-ons. You end up paying more than you expected for a tool that still doesn’t give you the full picture.
Sprout Social Essentials
Sprout Social Essentials is built for the team that’s ready to move from tactical to strategic, without paying for features they don’t need yet. At $79/seat/month (billed annually), it’s a meaningful investment. But it’s one that’s designed to pay for itself.
Here’s what you get that some entry-level and mid-tier tools don’t offer at this price point:
What you need
What Essentials delivers
Publish to multiple networks without switching tabs
One compose window: Customize captions and media per network, all in one place
Know when to post for maximum engagement
Optimal Send Times, AI-powered scheduling based on your audience’s actual behavior
Plan campaigns with your team
Collaborative content calendar: Strategize, plan and execute in a shared view
Drive traffic from social
SproutLink: A visual link-in-bio landing page for Instagram
Look professional in every post
Built-in image editor + unlimited AI-generated alt text
Connect your existing content tools
Integrations with Canva, Adobe, Google Drive, Dropbox, Bynder and more right in Compose
Prove what’s working
Downloadable, intuitive reports your team will read and share
Keep stakeholders in the loop
Shareable calendar links give anyone a live view of your publishing schedule
The difference isn’t just a feature list. It’s the difference between a tool that helps you post and a platform that helps you grow. Essentials gives you enterprise-grade infrastructure, the same platform used by global brands at a price point built for businesses that are still scaling.
And when you’re ready for more, more profiles, inbox management, competitor reporting, approval workflows, the path to Professional is a natural next step, not a platform switch.
Which Sprout Social plan is right for you?
Choosing the right plan isn’t just about features, it’s about finding the one that matches where your team is today and where you’re headed. The wrong plan in either direction costs you: too little and you’re working around limitations that slow you down; too much and you’re paying for capabilities you’re not ready to use.
The profiles below are designed to help you cut through the noise. Each one describes a real stage of social media maturity: the team size, the goals, the friction points and the moments that signal it’s time to move up. Read through them and find the one that sounds like you.
When to choose Sprout Social Essentials
Choose Sprout Social Essentials when you’re building your social presence and need a professional platform that works from day one without the complexity or cost of a full enterprise suite. Essentials is for teams that are done cobbling together free tools and ready to operate with intention. It gives you everything you need to publish smarter, track what’s working and lay the foundation for a social strategy that scales.
Profile of an Essentials plan user:
You’re at the beginning of building a real social media operation. You might be a solo social media manager, a marketing generalist wearing multiple hats, or a small business owner who’s been posting natively across platforms and knows it’s time to get more organized. You don’t need a full enterprise suite, you need a professional platform that works from day one, without a steep learning curve or a price tag that doesn’t fit your margins.
Your day-to-day looks like this: you’re creating and scheduling content across a handful of profiles, trying to post consistently and starting to wonder whether your timing and content choices are working. You want data, but you don’t have a data analyst to interpret it. You want to look professional, but you don’t have a design team behind you.
Essentials is built for exactly this stage. It gives you the publishing infrastructure, the AI-powered send time optimization and the reporting foundation to operate like a brand that has its act together, without overcomplicating what should be a straightforward workflow.
You’re a solo practitioner, freelancer, or small business managing 1–5 social profiles.
Your primary need is consistent, optimized publishing across your active channels.
You want to start building performance data before scaling up your strategy.
You’re transitioning from native tools or a free platform and want a meaningful upgrade without full enterprise overhead.
You need a platform that’s intuitive enough to master quickly and professional enough to grow with.
When to choose Sprout Social Standard
Your social operation is growing and you need more than a publishing queue, you need a platform that helps your team stay organized, responsive and informed. Standard is for teams that are managing real customer conversations, monitoring their brand across the web and starting to connect social activity to business outcomes. It’s where Sprout Social’s full platform capabilities begin to open up.
Profile of a Standard plan user:
Your social operation has outgrown what one person can manage alone. Or the complexity of what you’re managing has grown beyond what a basic publishing tool can handle. You’re dealing with real customer conversations: questions, complaints, mentions coming in across multiple platforms and you need a way to manage them without things falling through the cracks. You’re also starting to think more strategically: what are people saying about your brand? What are competitors doing? How do you prove to leadership that social is working?
Standard is where Sprout Social’s full platform capabilities open up. The Smart Inbox alone changes how your team operates. Instead of logging into five different platforms to check messages, everything lands in one place, organized and actionable. Keyword monitoring means you’re not just responding to what’s directed at you; you’re tracking the broader conversation around your brand and industry using social listening. And review management brings your reputation across platforms into a single workflow.
This is the plan for teams that are done reacting and ready to start managing social with intention.
You’re a small team of 2–5 people managing a focused set of social profiles across multiple networks.
You need a centralized Smart Inbox to manage customer messages, mentions and comments without platform-switching.
You want keyword and location monitoring to stay on top of brand conversations beyond direct mentions.
Review management across platforms like Google, Facebook and Yelp is part of your customer experience strategy.
You’re starting to build the reporting habits that will help you prove social’s impact to stakeholders.
You need collaboration tools that let your team work together on content and responses without stepping on each other.
Lemonade, the AI-powered insurance company, used Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox and tagging to action 99% of messages within 24 hours—and saw a 1,373% increase in engagements in a single year.
“Sprout helps us craft insightful takeaways about the pulse of our customers on social. We understand their pain points and what resonates with them.”
Your team needs competitive benchmarking to demonstrate performance against industry peers. You require custom workflows to manage content approval across multiple stakeholders. Basic reporting no longer satisfies leadership’s demand for actionable insights. You’ve hit the profile limit on Standard and adding profiles as add-ons costs more than upgrading.
Profile of a Professional Plan user:
Your social operation has matured past the basics. You’re managing more profiles than a single plan tier allows, running campaigns that span multiple channels and fielding requests from leadership for data that goes beyond basic engagement numbers. You might be a mid-market marketing team, a growing agency managing multiple client accounts, or a brand that’s expanded into new product lines or regional markets, each with its own social presence to manage.
The friction you feel is specific: you’re hitting profile limits that force workarounds, your reporting doesn’t give you the competitive context you need to make a case to leadership and your informal content approval process means posts go live without the right eyes on them. You know social is working but you just can’t prove it at the level your stakeholders expect.
Professional removes those ceilings. Unlimited social profiles means you stop making trade-offs about which accounts to manage. Tag-based social media reporting and paid insights mean you can show not just what happened, but why and how your performance compares to competitors. Approval workflows and message tagging mean your team operates with the kind of structure that scales.
You’re managing more than 5 social profiles across brands, products, or regions and the profile cap on lower plans is creating real operational friction.
Your team has grown to the point where content creation, review and publishing involve multiple people and you need approval workflows to keep quality consistent.
You need competitive reporting to benchmark your performance against others in your space and make a credible case to leadership.
You’re running paid social alongside organic and need a unified view of performance across both.
Tag-based reporting is the next step in your analytics maturity and you want to understand which content types, campaigns and topics are driving results.
You’re ready to use AI Assist to speed up content creation without sacrificing the quality and brand voice your audience expects.
When to choose Sprout Social Advanced
Social media has become more than a marketing channel for your organization, it’s where customers come for help, where crises surface first and where your brand’s reputation is built or broken in real time. Advanced is for teams that need to operate at that level: with the intelligence to understand sentiment at scale, the integrations to connect social data to the rest of the business and the early-warning systems to stay ahead of what’s coming. This is the plan for organizations where social isn’t just strategic, it’s mission-critical.
Profile of an Advanced Plan user
Social media isn’t just a marketing channel for your organization, it’s a customer service channel, a crisis early-warning system and a source of business intelligence that reaches beyond the marketing team. You’re managing inbound volume that requires more than a unified inbox: you need to understand the emotional context behind messages, route them to the right people and measure your team’s performance against service-level expectations.
Your day-to-day involves more stakeholders than most social teams deal with. Customer care teams need social data to flow into their CRM. Legal and compliance teams need to know when something is escalating. Executives need reports that connect social activity to business outcomes, not just engagement metrics. And your team needs tools that help them respond faster and smarter, not just more.
Advanced is built for this level of operational complexity. Sentiment analysis in the Smart Inbox means your team understands the tone of every message before they respond. Message Spike Alerts mean you’re never caught off guard by a sudden surge in volume. Helpdesk integrations with Salesforce Service Cloud and Zendesk mean social data flows into the systems your broader organization already relies on. And Enhance Reply by AI Assist means your team can craft on-brand, context-aware responses at scale without sacrificing quality.
Social is a customer service channel for your organization and you need tools to manage response times, resolution rates and team productivity.
Sentiment analysis is a business requirement, not a nice-to-have. You need to understand how customers feel, not just what they’re saying.
Your tech stack requires deeper integrations. Social data needs to flow into Salesforce, Zendesk, or other helpdesk tools your organization uses.
Crisis management is part of your social strategy. Message Spike Alerts give you the early warning you need to respond before a situation escalates.
You’re managing AI-assisted responses at scale and need tools that help your team move faster without losing the brand voice and empathy that builds customer trust.
Your reporting needs extend beyond marketing: you’re producing social customer care reports and team productivity data for stakeholders across the organization.
When to choose Sprout Social Enterprise
Enterprise isn’t just a bigger plan, it’s a tailored partnership. Sprout’s Enterprise plan is designed for organizations where social media operations are complex, global and mission-critical.
Profile of an Enterprise Plan user:
Your social media operation isn’t a team, it’s an infrastructure. You’re managing social across multiple brands, business units, or global regions, each with its own audiences, content strategies, compliance requirements and reporting needs. The decisions you make about your social media management platform aren’t just operational, they’re strategic and they involve IT, legal, procurement and executive leadership alongside the social team.
The challenges you face are ones that standard plans aren’t designed to solve. You need SSO for seamless, secure access across a large organization. You need a platform that can be configured to your specific structure, not a one-size-fits-all package. You need an implementation partner who will work alongside your team, not a help center article. And you need the confidence that when something goes wrong at scale, there’s a dedicated team ready to respond.
Enterprise isn’t just a bigger plan, it’s a tailored partnership. Sprout Social works with your organization to build a solution that fits your specific needs, with white-glove onboarding, dedicated support and the flexibility to scale as your operation grows. The 1,947 customers contributing over $50,000 in ARR as of September 2025, up 21% year-over-year, are a signal that organizations at this scale are finding sustained, compounding value in the platform.
You’re managing social across multiple brands, regions, or business units and need a solution built around your specific organizational structure, not a standard package.
Security and compliance are non-negotiable. Enterprise includes dedicated SSO setup and white-glove implementation to meet your organization’s IT, legal and procurement requirements.
You need a dedicated implementation partner, not just a platform. Enterprise customers get priority support and an implementation team that works alongside yours from day one.
Your social operation has outgrown standard plan limits, you need custom profile configurations, custom user access structures and a plan that scales with your business.
You require the most powerful tools in Sprout Social’s ecosystem, including advanced listening powered by AI, employee advocacy and social selling capabilities.
Executive visibility into social performance is a requirement. You need reporting that connects social activity to business outcomes at a level that satisfies C-suite stakeholders.
The real cost of a “cheaper” social media management tool
It’s worth saying plainly: a tool that costs less but delivers less isn’t saving you money. It’s costing you time, insight and opportunity.
Sprout Social customers saw a 60% productivity lift, enabling social teams to focus on more impactful work that increases audience engagement and improves customer satisfaction. That productivity gain doesn’t happen with a scheduling-only tool. It happens when your platform gives you the intelligence to work smarter—not just faster.
According to the Forrester study one of our customers said: “Sprout Social gives us time to strategize around our content and make it high-quality so that people respond to it.” One customer noted, “I would have to at least triple the size of my team if I didn’t have Sprout.” Another reported a 600% increase in engagement across social media channels year-over-year.
Papa Johns consolidated their social customer care into Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox—cutting response time in half, managing 600+ cases a week and saving over 830 hours annually.
“The user experience of Sprout is great. It’s super easy to use. The transformation has been incredible and our ability to connect with our audience has never been stronger.”
Josh Martin, Director of Social Media and Brand Engagement, Papa Johns Read the full story
That’s the ROI conversation worth having.
Start where you are. Scale where you need to.
Every Sprout Social plan comes with a 30-day free trial—no credit card required. Whether you’re starting with Essentials and building toward Professional, or evaluating Advanced for an enterprise rollout, the best way to understand the value is to experience it.
Your audience is on social. Your competitors are on social. The question isn’t whether you can afford Sprout Social, it’s whether you can afford not to have it.
Think of it as a room filled with people who have come to hear you talk. If they like what they hear, they'll stick around. Many will ask questions. A bunch will purchase your products or services. And a handful will turn into advocates who bring others into the room.
To fill your room, you typically have a signup form on your website. Visitors can enter their email list to subscribe to your content.
But what happens if you don't have a website?
Don't worry: You can still gather subscribers into the room without creating a website.
All you need is a hosted sign up form.
What is a hosted sign up form?
A hosted signup form lives on its own. It has a unique URL that you can share anywhere, on Facebook, Instagram, in a text message, or even printed on a business card. It's a standalone page designed to do one thing: collect email addresses and add subscribers to your list.
Already have a website? A hosted signup form is still worth creating. If your site ever goes down, you have a backup. And when you want to share a direct link to your list (no navigation, no distractions), the hosted form is what you send.
How to create a hosted signup form
The easiest way to create a hosted signup form is with the AI Signup Form Builder inside AWeber. It generates a complete, hosted signup form from a single prompt. Describe your business, and the builder creates a form with a headline, description, and design that matches your brand.
Here's how it works:
Step 1: Open the AI Signup Form Builder
Go to Pages & Forms and select AI Signup Forms in AWeber.
Step 2: Describe your business
Tell the builder what you want.
Step 3: Review and customize
The builder generates your form. Adjust the headline, colors, or layout if you want. Or leave it as-is and publish.
Step 4: Grab your hosted URL
Once published, AWeber gives you a unique link. That URL is your signup form. Share it anywhere people can click.
The entire process takes less than five minutes. No coding. No design decisions you have to make from scratch. The AI handles the first draft, and you refine from there.
Three ways to collect emails without a website
A hosted signup form gives you the tool. Now you need to put it where your audience already is.
Get your followers excited to sign up for your list by telling about all the great stuff they can expect to get in their inbox. If you write regular blog posts, tell them that by signing up, they’ll never miss a post from you.
1. Share it on social media
Post your signup form link directly on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, or TikTok. But don't just drop a link. Tell people what they'll get for signing up.
"I send one email every Tuesday with a new recipe and a grocery list. No spam, no fluff. Sign up here:"
Put the link in your bio. Pin a post about it. Mention it in Stories. The more places your link appears, the more chances someone has to subscribe.
Here's what it looks like when you share your AWeber hosted form link on Facebook: the form name you chose becomes the preview text. Make it count.
2. Include it in guest posts and collaborations
Guest blogging is an awesome way to grow your audience. If you write articles for someone else’s blog, include a link to your hosted form either within your blog post or in your signature. Let people know that if they want to see more content from you, all they have to do is sign up.
3. Collect emails in person
QR codes make this simple. Print your hosted signup form's URL as a QR code and put it on business cards, flyers, product packaging, or event signage.
Someone at a farmer's market scans your QR code, fills out your form on their phone, and they're on your list before they walk away. No website involved.
When to upgrade to a website
A hosted signup form and a landing page can take you far. But at some point, you may want a website. Here's when it makes sense:
You're ready to publish long-form content like blog posts or guides. You want to sell products or services directly online. You need multiple pages (about, services, testimonials, contact). Your audience is searching for you by name and expects to find a site.
Until then, your hosted signup form and landing pages are your home base. They collect emails, deliver lead magnets, and trigger automated workflows. That's everything you need to start building a real audience.
Learn more about creating sign up forms that get results
A Facebook Shop turns that reach into revenue. Simply put, Facebook Shops act as an online storefront for your Facebook Page. It’s a mobile-first experience that puts your products directly in front of a massive audience that’s mentally ready to shop.
Pages with active storefronts are denoted by the “Shops” tab, as highlighted by this Facebook Shop example from TOMS via desktop:
Meanwhile, you can view a business’ mobile Shop by scrolling down on a Page’s home feed. This is what the product view looks like on a smartphone for reference:
This guide will walk you through setting up a Facebook Shop. You’ll also learn how to build a solid Facebook Shops strategy that maximizes your ROI in 2026.
What is the business impact of Facebook Shops?
When you’re deciding where to put your budget, consider this: 70% of marketing leaders say Facebook drives the strongest impact on their business of any platform.
Facebook might not be the trendiest in social commerce but it’s definitely one that moves the bottom line. And it all comes down to intent. Sprout’s data shows 40% of social media users go to Facebook specifically to find new products.
A Facebook Shop helps you convert that intent into sales. Here’s how:
Reduce buying friction: Customers can browse your full catalog inside Facebook then move to your website to checkout. The handoff is smooth and mobile-optimized so you capture buying intent at its peak instead of losing it to a disjointed experience.
Reach a massive user base: With over 3 billion monthly active users, Facebook has the world’s biggest audience. Setting up shop here gives your brand access to customers across generations, interests and buying behaviors.
Connect directly to customer care: Shoppers can ask questions about sizing, availability and shipping right where they’re browsing so you answer them and close the sale in the same conversation.
Drive revenue from your content: Product tags in your feed posts, Reels and Stories turn everyday content into shoppable touchpoints which stretches the value of every piece you publish.
How to create a Facebook Shop (The 2026 basics)
Setting up a Facebook Shop starts in Meta Commerce Manager. This tool lets you manage your Shop and sales across both Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook does a good job of holding your hand through this process, breaking down each step and highlighting what you’ll need to be approved to sell.
At a high level, the setup process looks like this:
Step 1: Access Commerce Manager
Go to Meta Commerce Manager and create or select your commerce account. From here you’ll be prompted to pick a Facebook Page to host your Shop and manage your settings.
Step 2: Connect your product catalog
Your catalog contains the products you want to show on Facebook. You can create a catalog manually in Commerce Manager or connect one through an ecommerce partner such as Shopify.
The specifics of catalog setup vary from business to business, but the integration process is incredibly straightforward. Learn more about how catalogs work across Shops, ads and product tagging.
Step 3: Customize your Shop
Once your catalog is connected, customize the Shop layout. Choose featured products, create collections and organize items in a way that makes browsing easier. For example, you could group products around themes, seasons or campaigns.
After Meta reviews and approves your setup, publish your Shop. From there, keep improving it. Update collections, refresh product images, monitor performance and connect your Shop to the content your audience likes to engage with.
Note: As of September 2025, Facebook Shops no longer supports native checkout. You will send shoppers to your website to check out. That means while your Facebook catalog listings still matter, your website also needs to be optimized for closing sales.
How to build a Facebook Shops strategy
A winning Facebook Shops strategy in 2026 takes more than uploading a catalog. You need content that builds trust, collections that make browsing easier, excellent customer service, carefully planned offers and data that guides your next move.
Let’s explore these tips in more detail.
1. Leverage short-form video for product discovery
Short-form video shows your product in action which is why it belongs at the center of your selling strategy. Shoppers want to see how your product looks, works and fits into their lives before they click. A bite-size clip delivers that context better than any static image.
The data backs this up: Sprout’s research found that when it comes to branded content, Facebook users (48%) are most likely to engage with short-form video (<60 seconds).
Reels also increase your product’s reach beyond existing followers. They’re built for recommendation-based discovery so your videos can show up for people who are already watching similar content.
What to do:
Tag the exact product shown. Add product tags to Reels and Stories so viewers can directly move from video to checkout. No need to search your catalog manually.
Use your tools. You can use the social commerce features built into Sprout to tag products in your scheduled Facebook posts. Our integrations with Shopify and FB Shops mean you can quickly publish posts featuring shoppable products directly from your dashboard.
Focus on a single product or use case. Show one skincare product in a morning routine or one jacket styled three ways. Too many products in one clip can dilute the message.
Show your product in action. Instead of telling viewers a jacket is water-resistant, show rain beading off it.
Turn FAQs into short explainers. If people often ask about sizing, ingredients or care instructions, answer those questions in video format.
Don’t ignore text-only posts. Short-form video leads on Facebook but text posts come in second at 32%. Use them to share quick product updates alongside your videos.
2. Organize products into curated, seasonal collections
Collections help shoppers find the right products faster by grouping items around how people browse: best-sellers, seasonal needs, gifts, routines or specific customer types.
For example, lululemon separates their products by style and product type. This sort of organization emulates an actual ecommerce shop and gives their store a sense of professionalism while making it intuitive for customers to browse.
Sorting products by category reduces decision fatigue and improves your customer’s shopping experience which translates into more sales for your business.
What to do:
Build collections around buyer intent. Categories like “Accessories” or “Tops” are great but make it more practical. Create collections that match how people shop such as “Summer travel essentials” or “Workwear best-sellers.”
Use your best-sellers as entry points. Best-sellers already have proof behind them. For example, Pura Vida’s “Top Rated” selection signals their most popular products and puts them at the front of the line within their Store.
Refresh on a calendar. Tie collections to seasons, holidays and product launches.
Pair collections with your content. Let’s say you run a Reel series on “how to style linen pants.” Link it to a “Linen Edit” collection in your Shop so viewers who love the look can shop it faster.
3. Connect your shop to social customer care
Shopping generates questions: what’s the material? Is there a sizing chart? When will it ship? If you don’t respond quickly enough you lose the sale.
On Facebook, your customers are asking questions in the same place they discover and shop your products. Sprout’s research found that Facebook is the top channel for social customer service, with 45% of users turning to it for support.
So if your Shop is active, your inbox needs to be ready too. A fast, helpful response removes doubt and moves them closer to buying.
What to do:
Simplify customer care with a unified inbox. Use Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox (available on Standard plan and higher) to bring comments and DMs from Facebook into one view.
Watch comments as closely as DMs. Shoppers don’t always message privately. They may ask product questions under Reels, posts or ads. Responding publicly can help the original shopper and anyone else with the same concern.
Plan for busy sale periods. Product drops, flash sales and seasonal campaigns usually bring more questions. Make sure your team is prepared before the campaign goes live.
4. Showcase products through user-generated content (UGC)
Consumers trust other consumers over brands which is why user-generated content (UGC) is one of the fastest ways to build trust and drive sales.
A brand can tell shoppers the fabric feels soft or the serum works well under makeup. But when a real customer says it or shows it, the message feels more believable because it comes from actual experience.
If possible, include more than just a single static image of your products in your catalog. Include lifestyle images and dynamic content that shows them in action.
What to do:
Feature customer content in your feed. Reshare photos and videos of people using your products and tag the exact items so viewers can shop the look. Always ask for permission before you repost.
Make submitting easy. Create a branded hashtag and include instructions in your post-purchase emails so customers know how to share.
Request it, don’t just wait for it. Follow up after a purchase asking for a photo or quick review and incentivize it when it makes sense.
Use reviews as social proof. Pull happy customer reviews into text posts, graphics or short videos.
5. Create surprise-and-delight moments with exclusive drops and sales
Flash sales, deals and limited-time offers create urgency which gives your audience a reason to act now instead of later. This can create immediate spikes in sales and keep customers coming back to your Page.
Consider promoting a Facebook Shops exclusive sale. This ultimately makes products from your Facebook feel more exclusive, providing all the more incentive for people to follow you and regularly check out your deals.
Note that shoppers can naturally sort items by sale or price. Having a few sale items in stock is perfect for appealing to bargain-hunters.
What to do:
Keep it real. Only run a deadline or “limited stock” claim when it’s true. Shoppers remember the brands that cried wolf so stick to honest scarcity over manufactured urgency.
Build anticipation before launch. Tease the drop in Stories and a Reel to create demand for your collection or product before it goes live.
Use specific hooks. “Sale now on” gives shoppers less reason to act versus “Only 50 units, gone Friday”. A good hook makes the cost of waiting clear.
6. Let data drive your merchandising via Commerce Manager insights
Meta Commerce Manager gives you insight into how shoppers interact with your products and collections. Use this data to decide what to feature in your catalog, shoppable content and ads.
However, make sure you’re tracking the right metrics. It’s easy to fixate on engagement because it makes you feel good but likes and comments don’t always tell the full story.
To improve your Facebook shop, look at metrics that tie directly to revenue: product clicks, collection views, website traffic, conversion rates and customer questions.
What to do:
Compare engagement with conversion. A Reel could rack up likes and barely drive any product clicks. That tells you the content is entertaining but isn’t creating enough buying interest. Make sure you have a good mix of both entertaining and purchase-focused posts in your calendar.
Promote your winners. Give your highest-converting collections and products prime placement and rework or retire the ones that don’t get as much attention.
Connect the full funnel. Checkout now happens on your site, not Facebook. Connect your Commerce Manager data with your website analytics to see the complete journey.
Share insights across teams. Visibility helps every team improve the Shop from their angle (e.g. content, merchandising, customer care). Use a tool like Sprout Social to share live dashboards and reports so everyone’s working from the same numbers.
Ready to transform your Facebook Shop into a revenue engine?
With the right strategy, your Facebook Shop can be a massive sales driver. But running it well means juggling a lot at once from content to messages to data.
A centralized tool makes it easier. Sprout Social brings your publishing, inbox and analytics in one place so you can manage your Facebook Shop without bouncing between tools.
A signup form template sounds like a shortcut. It isn't.
You browse a gallery, pick the closest match, then spend the next hour adjusting fields, rewriting the headline, swapping colors, and rearranging the layout until it looks like something that belongs to your business. You started from someone else's form and worked backward.
AI form builders, like AWeber's AI Signup Form Builder, change that. Describe what you need, upload a screenshot of a design you like, or answer a few prompts. You get a form built for your specific business from the start. No template hunting. No generic copy to overwrite.
What's wrong with signup form templates
Templates are built to work for as many people as possible. That's exactly what makes them a poor fit for you.
Every template ships with a generic headline, a default field set, and a layout optimized for nobody in particular. You get "Subscribe to our newsletter" when your offer is a free five-day email course on dog training. You get three fields when you only need one. You get a two-column layout when your brand is minimal.
The gap between "template" and "your actual form" requires real work. Copywriting, design decisions, field logic. By the time the form looks right, you've spent more time customizing than you would have starting from scratch with a clear prompt.
There's another problem: templates anchor your thinking. You start with someone else's structure and adapt around it. That's a different creative process than building for your audience from the ground up.
A bettter way: AI Signup Form Builder
An AI Signup Form Builder starts with you, not a template gallery.
To give you an idea of how they work, we'll use AWeber's as an example.
You have three core ways to create forms:
1. Describe it
Type what you need in plain language. "A simple one-field form for a free guide on meal planning for busy parents." The builder generates a form matched to that description: relevant headline, appropriate fields, copy that fits the offer.
2. Upload a screenshot
Found a form you like somewhere online? Upload a screenshot. The builder reads the design, takes cues from the layout and structure, then produces a version customized to your brand. You're not locked into copying it. You're using it as creative inspiration without the manual rebuild.
3. Use guided prompts
Answer a few questions about your audience, offer, and goals. The builder assembles a form from your answers. Specific inputs produce specific output.
After the initial build, you refine through conversation. Tell it to shorten the headline, add a checkbox, change the button text. The form updates without you touching a field editor. Each change happens in plain language, not a settings panel.
Look at the comparison of an AI form builder using AWeber versus a drag and drop builder. The speed and quality of a form created using the AI Form Builder is unmatched.
What you actually get versus a template gallery
With a template gallery, you're choosing from a fixed set of options. The form that fits your brand may not exist yet. If it doesn't, you're compromising.
With the AI builder, there's no fixed set. The form is generated from your inputs. That means the headline matches your offer, the field count matches your ask, and the copy sounds like your brand rather than a product demo.
Take this example: A fitness coach needs different copy and a different feel than a B2B SaaS tool. A template gallery serves both of them the same starting point. The AI builder starts from the description you give it.
Watch how Alycia using Stu McLaren's brand as inspiration to create a custom form using the AI Signup Form Builder in AWeber.
When a template can still be useful
Templates aren't useless. They're useful in a specific way: inspiration.
If you've seen a form that stopped you mid-scroll, that's worth saving. The layout, the CTA, the field structure. Not to copy, but to understand what caught your attention.
That's where the screenshot feature earns its keep. Grab a screenshot of any form that inspires you, upload it to the AI Signup Form Builder, and describe your business. The builder takes the structural cues from the design you liked and applies them to a form that belongs to you.
You get the inspiration without the imitation. The creative shortcut without the brand mismatch.
Build your first form in minutes
Open AWeber, select the AI Signup Form Builder, and type one sentence describing your offer. That's the starting point. No template browsing, no layout compromises, no copy you have to overwrite.
The form is ready when you are. And the subscribers it collects will get your welcome email the moment they sign up.
