Testimonials: Automation Rules

The Automation Rules page enables you to choose which testimonials are automatically accepted and displayed, left inactive (waiting for your action), or rejected (shows as inactive in the testimonials list).

Introduction

Clicking on 'Testimonials' in the sidebar gives you two further options; 'Tags' and 'Rules'. We want 'Rules'. 

Quick Start

On this page there are two sections; 'Approvals' and 'Rejections'. In each section you will an 'Add Rule' button. 

After clicking 'Add Rule' in either section, you will see 3 input select boxes in a row:

• The first selection has two criteria; 'Rating' and 'Testimonial Source'.

If we select 'Rating':

• The second box has a list of operators for the rating number.
• The third box contains a list of ratings, from 1 to 5.

If we select 'Testimonial Source':

• The second box has 'Equals' or 'Not equals to'.
• The third box contains a list of testimonial sources.

Using a combination of these settings, it gives you full control over the automated acceptance or rejection of each testimonial you collect from the available testimonial sources.

Approvals

Here we choose the type of testimonials that you wish to automatically accept and display, without needing our intervention. 

Let's see some examples.

Example #1: Rating

Aim: only testimonials with a rating of 4 or more will be automatically accepted and displayed.

• For the criteria, select 'Rating' in the first box.

• Next choose the operator 'Greater than or equal to' (second box)
• Then select the rating '4' (third box).

And that meets the objective for example #1.

Example #2: Rating and Testimonial Source

Aim: display testimonials automatically with a rating of 5, except from Facebook. For those, we want to automatically accept any that have a 3 or higher rating.

In other words, any testimonial with a rating of 5 can be automatically accepted, regardless of the source. Let's start with that.

• First, 'Add Rule'
• Select 'Rating' as the criteria.
• Choose the operator 'Equals'.
• Select '5' as our accepted rating (third box).

Now we move on to testimonials from Facebook. 

• Again click 'Add Rule'. 

Note: You will notice 'OR' appears between our rules (because either the first rule or this new rule will allow automatic acceptance)

• Select 'Testimonial Source' as the criteria

• Then select 'Equals' (second box)
• Now for the testimonial source, choose 'Facebook'

Now below the boxes, click 'AND'

• Select 'Rating'.
• Next choose 'Greater than or equal to'.
• Then select '3' for the rating (third box) 

Review Forms are customer-facing testimonial capture forms, which are sent to your customers via SuperLinks. Each property (Your business) has its own Review Form.

This guide will take you through the steps required to set up your Review Form.

Firstly, head to the ReviewForm page

Step 1: Form settings

This tab allows you to create the look and feel of your Review Form, including:

— Logo
— Theme color
— Introduction text
— Avatar syncing (customers can pull through social media avatars in a few clicks)
— Agency branding
— Custom Domains

Step 2: Fields

Here you can specify which data you'd like to collect from your customers as well as customising the field labels.

You can choose from:

— Avatar
— Name
— Company
— Position (job title)
— Location
— Rating (stars: 1-5)

Step 3: Submission settings

This tab allows you to choose what happens after a customer sends their testimonial. You can edit the text that's displayed, as well as the following powerful features:

— Publish to other services

You have the option to send customers to other platforms in order to post the same review. Simply turn a platform on and paste the link to your review page. 

On the live form, your customers' comments are automatically copied to the clipboard and they are given instructions to post the corresponding review. 

We support these platforms by default: 

— Facebook Pages
— Google My Business
— Yelp
— Trustpilot

And you can add any other platform you like, using the "Add a custom service" section:

— Incentivised request

Reward your customers for leaving their testimonial by adding an incentivised request. Here you can specifiy the reward, be it a discount code or unique link to a reward page. 

On the live form, the reward will be displayed only once the testimonial has been sent. 

— Visit button

Create a button to send your users to a destination of your choice after leaving their review. A great way to drive engaged customers back to your site.

Step 4: Localization

Your Review Form can be automatically translated into any language using the "Localization" tab. 

Tap "Add new", then select a language from the dropdown. Ever piece of text on the Review Form is displayed along with auto-generated translations. 

You can edit the translations to anything you like. Once you've finished, tap "Create localization". 

Now when a user views your live Review Form, if their browser language matches the localization you've created, the form will automatically display in their language. To force a particular language, simply append "?lang=lc" where lc is the language code that represents your chosen localization. For example:

— French: ?lang=fr
— Spanish: ?lang=es
— Chinese: ?lang=zh

Finishing and viewing your Review Form

Once you're happy with your Review Form, click the green "Update form" button at the top right to save your changes. The form preview on the left hand side will be updated to the latest version of the form.

To view your live form, click "View form" — this will open your Review Form in a new tab.

Congratulations, your Review Form is complete!

Review Forms can be easily and securely hosted on your own domain. Each property can have its own subdomain.

Head to Property settings then Custom domain (make sure you've selected the correct property from the dropdown). 

Add the subdomain you'd like to use, eg. feedback.example.com.

You'll then need to add two DNS records to your hosting provider, both of the type CNAME.

The first record will appear straight away, while the second one relies upon the first having been set to ACTIVE.  

Once you've added the first record, allow it to propagate or force a DNS refresh. Then head back to The Review software. Once record one is ACTIVE, record two will appear.

Add the second record and again allow it to propagate the Internet — this may take up to 24 hours.

Once complete, your EndoForm will be available at a secure site such as subdomain.example.com.

Widgets are used to display testimonials collected by your Review software on your website. This guide talks you through how to set up your first one.

Begin by heading to the Add A New Widget page.

Add a name for your widget and choose a widget type. The options are multiple testimonials or single testmonial.

Single testimonial widgets are great for when you have an individual testimonial in mind that you'd like to embed somewhere on your website.

Multiple testimonials widgets are used most of the time. They allow you to embed up to 30 testimonials in a carousel or grid layout.

Widget settings

Both multiple and single widget types allow you to customise their appearance with various settings. Head to either section for more information on those:

Set up theme

Once you've decided which type of widget you'd like to use and chosen its settings, you can work on the look of the widget.

In this section you can select a theme for the widget from a list of options and customise the layout/colors.

Finishing off

Once you're happy with the widget's theme, click the "Create widget" button. You'll then be taken a page with details on how to embed the widget on your website

Once you've created your widget, you are taken to the Embed widget screen. 

To embed an already created widget, head to the "Widgets Section" and click the "Embed" icon in the "Actions" column.

This is the screen you are presented with:

Embedding the widget is very simple. Click "Copy to clipboard" and paste the embed code into your website exactly where you want the widget to appear. 

Head over to your website, refresh the page and as long as you have approved the testimonials the widget will display corrrectly.

SuperLinks are used to send customers to your ReviewForm (testimonial capture form) and pre-fill it with dynamically generated customer data. This guide tells you how it all works.

To create a new SuperLink, head to the "Superlink section "and click the "Add new" button. 

Step 1. Name your SuperLink

Choose a memorable name for your SuperLink to distinguish it from others you'll create in the future.

Step 2. Choose link type

There are two types of SuperLink, dynamic and single.

A single link is great when you have a specific customer in mind as you can effictively fill out parts of their form for them, reducing the time it take them to complete and increase the likelihood that they'll complete the testimonial. 

Dynamic links are what you'll use for the most part and are very powerful when used in conjuction with your current CRM, email marketing or automation software (more on that below).

Step 3. Set link data

Once you've chosen a link type, you can define which data you'd like to collect.

Single links: the data you enter into each field will be explicitly parsed into the SuperLink and pre-filled into the form for your customer.

Dynamic links:

Enter placeholder tags into the fields you'd like to populate with data available in your CRM, email marketing or automation software.  

So, for example in Mailchimp you have merge tags for contacts. A contact's first name would be represented as the tag *|FNAME|*, while their last name would be *|LNAME|*. 

So in order to pre-fill the "Name" field on your Review Form with a Mailchimp contact's full name, you'd enter *|FNAME|* *|LNAME|* into that field.

Then when sending a newsletter you'd simply paste your SuperLink into your template and live merge data will be inserted into the link, thereby providing dynamic, pre-filled forms for all of your customers.

Finishing up

Once you've set up which fields you'd like to include in your link, click the "Create link" button. Your new link will be displayed on the SuperLinks page. 

To use it with your chosen CRM, email marketing or automation software, click the "Copy" button and paste the link where you want to use it.

Be sure to test it before sending to live customers. 

Congratulations, you've created your first SuperLink! 

Wall of Love is a premium feature on your Testimonial software that allows you to automatically create a beautiful, infinitely loading page that displays all of your testimonials. This guide will teach you how to set it all up.

Firstly, head to the "Wall Of Love Section". 

Settings

You only have two options for your Wall of Love, number of columns and a minimum star rating for testimonials. The Wall of Love is fully responsive, meaning that on a mobile device a 3-column page will resize to a single column.

Theme

In the same way you can customise the theme for widgets, the Wall of Love allows you to style the testimonial appearance to suit your brand.

Once you're happy, click the "Create Wall of Love" button. This will activate it and reveal the unique embed code required to make it display on your website:

First, make sure that your global tracking code is installed on your website.

Then click "Copy to clipboard" and paste the code on your website where you'd like the Wall of Love to appear.

We recommend creating a new page with a heading and introduction at example.com/wall-of-love with the embed code added below that.

FOMO Popups are a powerful, premium feature of Testimonials Software that allows you to display timely social proof as notifications on your website. They are great for increasing conversions with the fear of missing out (FOMO) factor.

This guide instructs you on how to set them up.

Firstly, head to the "Fomo Popups Section"

"Popups" tab

Here you'll see there are two types of popup you can use, Testimonials and Rating summary. To activate either, use the switch to turn them on.

Testimonials

Turning this on will allow you to display testimonials as a social proof popup to encourage visitors to become customers. You have a few options:

— Testimonial source

Recent feedback: all testimonials, ordered by featured status, then date added.   

Chosen by you is exactly that — search for specific testimonials and add them to a list. 

— Testimonial filtering

Here you can prevent some testimonials from showing by adding them to a blacklist

— Message format

Choose between two display formats, one with the testimonial comments and the other without. 

— Setup

Various options for the display of the popup as well as filters to exclude certain testimonials. 

One powerful feature here is the ability to show a call to action. This is very useful to sending potential customers to the right part of your website (for example: sign up), at the right time.

Rating summary

Turning this on will automatically display a social proof notification to your website visitors, that aggregates ratings collected via Testimonial Forms into an average.

You have a few options including the ability to show a call to action, which again is a great conversion tool.

"Display settings" tab

This allows you customise the look and feel of your FOMO popups. You have various options for colors, style, positioning and animation.

You can also set how often the popups display, how long for and the time gap between each one.

"Display rules" tab

The final tab allows you to set rules for displaying your notifications, including the ability to hide on mobile devices, toggle a close button and blacklist certain paths.

Once you're happy with all settings, click the "Save" button at the bottom, head over to your site and you'll be able to see your live FOMO Popups!

In order for Review Forms widgets, FOMO popups and Wall of Love pages to display, you need to install the global tracking code. 

Please note that the tracking code is unique to each property.

To do that, head to Property Settings. Here you'll see the tracking code in question:

The global code needs to be present on every page on which you'd like your Testimonials items to appear. 

Click "Copy to clipboard" and paste the code into your template before the closing tag.

Once you've added the code to your live website, open it in a new tab and refresh the page. You'll then see that the status in Endorsal has changed to ACTIVE:

Congratulations! Your global tracking code is now installed.

Visitors (MAUs)

A visitor is classed as a monthly active user across all properties. It does not take into account page views.

Testimonial/review submissions

New testimonials across all properties. Includes Review Form submissions and imports from other platforms.

Properties

A property is a unique domain on which the embed code is installed and for which testimonials are collected.