Trust signals are evidence points that appear online to help customers feel more secure in their decision to purchase from a business or buy a product or service.
Trust signals were described in an article published in the March 2000 edition of the ''
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
The ''Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication'' JCMC is a quarterly open access peer-reviewed academic journal that covers the interdisciplinary field of computer-mediated communication. It was established in 1994 and is published by Oxford Un ...
'' as trust badges or seals from organizations such as the
Better Business Bureau and
TrustArc TrustArc (formerly TRUSTe) is a privacy compliance technology company based in San Francisco, California. The company provides software and services to help corporations update their privacy management processes so they comply with government laws a ...
on
e-commerce websites
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
. At that time, consumers were more skeptical of providing their credit card information and other personal details to a website; trust signals helped visitors overcome their fears.
A 2022 book, ''Trust Signals'' by Scott Baradell, was published on the subject.
In current
internet marketing parlance, trust signals fall into three major categories:
* Trust signals that encourage visitors to complete a purchase or take an action;
* Trust signals elsewhere online that drive visitors to a website;
and
* Trust signals that visitors might not notice, but that
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
uses for ranking.
A 2019
neuroimaging
Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Incre ...
study in the ''Journal of Interactive Marketing'' studied 29 subjects who participated in an experiment simulating an online purchase. The analysis revealed that seals of approval from third-party organizations were most trusted, whereas rating systems were less trusted because they elicited feelings of ambiguity and risk.
[Luis-Alberto Casado-Aranda, Angelika Dimoka and Juan Sanchez-Fernandez,]
See also
*
Privacy seal A privacy seal is a type of trust seal or trustmark granted by third party providers for display on a company's website. Companies pay an annual fee (usually ranging from a few hundred to several thousand U.S. dollars) to have an image of the thir ...
*
Trustmark (commerce) A trustmark is an image, logo, or badge that is typically displayed on an E-commerce website, indicating that the site has passed certain digital security tests or is operated by a member of a professional organization. The trustmark is intended to ...
*
Trust seal
References
{{reflist
E-commerce
Marketing strategy