Your customers describe your product in words you would never think to write, and those words often make stronger ads than polished copy. This guide shows you how to find review quotes worth using, how to turn them into ad copy, and where the FTC draws lines around testimonials. This is general information, not legal advice.
What makes a quote usable
Most reviews are too vague to carry an ad. "Love it, great product" tells a stranger nothing. Look for reviews that name a specific situation, problem or result.
- ✅ Names the problem the customer had before buying
- ✅ Describes a concrete detail: a feature, a moment, a comparison with what they used before
- ✅ Sounds like a person talking, not like a slogan
- ❌ Generic praise with no detail
- ❌ Mostly about shipping speed or customer service, unless that is what you are advertising
Collect quotes by theme
Do not pick quotes at random. Group your reviews by what customers praise, then pull two or three quotes from the themes that come up most often. A theme that many customers raise unprompted is a selling point you can stand behind.
- Theme: What the praise is about, such as comfort or ease of setup
- Quotes: Two or three short ones per theme, copied word for word
- Source: The product and the review date, so you can find it again
Three ways to use a quote
You can use the customer's words directly, or let them shape your own copy.
| Approach | Example |
|---|---|
| Quote as the headline | "Finally a tote that survives the school run" |
| Quote as proof under your own headline | Your headline, then the quote and the reviewer's initials |
| Customer language in your own copy | Reviews keep saying "doesn't dig into my shoulder", so your copy leads with strap comfort |
What the FTC says about testimonials in ads
The FTC's Endorsement Guides apply when you use a customer's review in advertising. The FTC's guidance page "FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking" on ftc.gov says you can ask customers about their experiences and feature their comments in your ads. It also sets out limits.
- Honest opinion: An endorsement must reflect the honest opinion of the endorser
- No borrowed claims: An endorsement cannot be used to make a claim you could not legally make yourself
- Typical results: If you do not have proof that the reviewer's experience is what people will generally achieve, the ad must make clear what the generally expected results are
In practice, be careful with quotes about health, performance or savings results. A quote that says "cured my back pain" is a claim you need proof for, even though a customer said it.
Keep the quote true to the review
Shortening a quote is fine. Changing what it means is not.
- ✅ Trim for length and keep the meaning
- ✅ Ask the customer before using their name or photo
- ✅ Keep a record of the original review
- ❌ Lifting a positive phrase out of a negative review
- ❌ Rewording a quote and keeping the quotation marks
Doing this at scale
ReviewLens reads the product reviews already in your store, groups them into themes and scores sentiment for each theme, with verbatim customer quotes attached. That gives you a starting list of themes and exact customer wording to draw from. See ReviewLens.