Brand awareness is used to describe how familiar the target audience is with a brand or product and how well it is recognized. Organizations with high degrees of brand awareness benefit from increased trust from their consumers, higher credibility, and long-term customer loyalty. In this article we will explore how professional certification providers use digital credentials to boost their brand recognition.
Why is brand awareness important?
Brand awareness for certification programs is what keeps your organization in the mind of prospective learners when they are looking for professional development opportunities. Almost 60% of consumers prefer to buy from brands they are already familiar with which makes brand awareness a top priority. Brand awareness increases customer recall when they require your services and combined with a quality experience, improves the potential for word-of-mouth referrals. Organizations that don’t place importance on building brand awareness will struggle to get noticed in a competitive market. Using digital credentials as part of a professional certification brand awareness strategy is a great way to improve recognition of your brand while awarding learners for their efforts.
91% of HR leaders look for digital credentials when reviewing candidates.
Every credential your learners share is a brand impression in front of the people who make hiring decisions. Source: 2025 State of Credentialing, Accredible
But brand awareness through credentialing doesn’t happen automatically. Most certificate programs issue a credential, send an email, and move on, leaving the credential sitting in a learner’s inbox, unseen and unshared. No referral traffic. No LinkedIn impressions. No data on whether anyone ever opened it. The programs that build real brand awareness are the ones that treat the credential as the start of a growth loop, not the end of a transaction.
How can digital credentials be used in brand awareness campaigns?
Digital credentials are used to increase brand awareness through consistent branding, recipient sharing, and engaging with the target audience.
Consistent branding
Research has shown that consistent presentation of a brand across platforms, social media channels, marketing campaigns, and promotional materials can increase revenue by up to 23% (Lucidpress). This applies to use of the brand image, the brand name, and ensuring a consistent brand voice. A key part of delivering a digital credentialed program is the digital credentials that are awarded to recipients. Depending on the type of program being offered, the issuer will need to create digital badge and/or digital certificate designs. To support brand awareness through consistent branding, digital credentials should be designed according to the brand style guidelines, including colors, imagery, typography, and layout. Digital credentials are shared by your recipients to their social networks, and credentials designed in line with branding guidelines become instantly recognizable as belonging to the issuing organization.
Recognizable digital credentials help boost brand awareness and drive referrals. When an individual sees a digital credential shared by a peer and sees the engagement and career outcomes that follow, they want to achieve the same for themselves. Issuers can also set a primary design that will be visible in the share preview for their digital credentials.
To further promote trust and recall, branding can be made consistent across the entire recipient experience including the credential delivery email, the dedicated credential page, and the recipient credential wallet. Issuers delivering digital credentials through Accredible can choose additional branding which enables them to:
- Customize the appearance, included links, and sender address of the credential email
- Add their issuer logo to the dedicated credential page
- Host their live digital credentials on a preferred vanity URL
- Create a branded version of the credential wallet, showing credentials only from the issuer
Full branding control is available through optional white-labeled credentials, which provide all the benefits of the branding package with additional control over the credential page. Issuers can replicate the environment of their own site using customized headers and footers and control over page styling, making the credential page look and feel like an extension of their website.
See how Accredible handles credential branding and white-labeling
Recipient sharing
Shareability is one of the most powerful benefits of digital credentials. Recipients can post their achievements to their social media timelines to celebrate with friends, family, and peers, embed their digital credentials into their email signatures or on a personal webpage, and add their digital credentials to their LinkedIn profile. The recipient gets to showcase their newly gained skills and knowledge and improve their employment or promotion prospects, while building brand awareness for the issuing organization.
80%+ share rate vs 20-25%
The Maker Group’s share rate more than tripled when they switched to Accredible’s one-click model, up from 20-25% on a platform that required account creation. The difference between those two numbers comes down almost entirely to friction. Source: Paul Voisard, The Maker Group.
One thing that determines whether a credential gets shared is how easy you make it. Requiring a learner to create an account before they can claim or share their credential introduces friction that kills sharing: 34% of people abandon an online task that asks them to create an account (Baymard Institute, 2021). Accredible’s One-Click Acceptance removes that barrier entirely, so recipients can claim and share their credential without ever creating a login.
Recipient sharing serves as a form of authentic marketing. It works by harnessing the reach of recipients to boost the visibility of the brand, their credentials, and their programs through shares and testimonials. Recipients who share their credentials to their professional networks become organic influencers and advocates of the brand. As the connections within a recipient’s social network often share a crossover with the target audience of the issuing organization, this is an effective way to build brand awareness.
Issuers can motivate their recipients to share their digital credentials through targeted call-to-action buttons within the credential delivery email. Using action-driven CTAs such as ‘Share Credential’, ‘Share to Social Media’, and ‘Add to LinkedIn Profile’ provides clear instruction for the recipient and increases the engagement rate.
Accredible’s Email Campaigns feature lets you automate this outreach at scale, sending a congratulations email on issue, a sharing reminder a week later, and a re-enrollment nudge at expiry. George Washington University’s College of Professional Studies saw a 133% LinkedIn add rate using a multi-touch email sequence. Accredible also supports sharing to over 40 platforms beyond LinkedIn, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky, expanding your brand’s reach well beyond a single channel.
+112% referral traffic. Share rate: 19% to 92%
Northwestern Kellogg grew program referral traffic by 112% over three years as their credential share rate climbed from 19% in 2020 to 92% in 2023.
Engaging the target audience
Once a recipient shares their branded digital credentials to their social network, the issuer has an opportunity to engage to further boost their brand awareness. A simple ‘Congratulations!’ or ‘We hope you enjoyed the program!’ follow-up on the recipient post can go a long way to building trust with prospective candidates. They can also reshare posts to their own network to boost visibility of their recipient’s success. Once the recipient’s peers see this, they are more likely to click on the presented credential to learn more about the credential and the program. From the dedicated credential page, they can click through to the issuer’s website to learn more about the organization and other available programs.
This also provides additional points of communication for new customers. If they see that the issuer is active on social media, they are more inclined to follow and potentially reach out and ask questions about their credentials and programs. The more active a brand is on social media platforms, the more likely they are to remain top of mind for their candidates and potential customers. On average, it takes between five to seven impressions for new audiences to recognize and remember a brand. Staying on top of engagement with the target audience and recipients will directly impact the frequency individuals see the issuer’s branding and help them to connect the logo with the issuer in the future.
Building a public showcase of certified learners
Beyond social sharing, a Spotlight Directory gives your certified learners a permanent, branded home where employers and peers can find and verify credentials directly. Accredible’s Spotlight Directory is an issuer-branded, publicly searchable hub of certified learners, and employer searches have grown 5x year over year with over 800,000 learners opted in across 60+ organizations in 2025. For certification programs trying to build brand awareness with hiring managers and enterprise buyers, a Spotlight Directory is one of the most direct ways to put your brand and your learners’ achievements in front of the right audience.
When consistent branding, friction-free sharing, and a Spotlight Directory work together, they create what’s known as the Credential Flywheel: a credential is earned, shared publicly, seen by peers, and converted into new program enrollments, which produces more credentials, more shares, and more impressions. It’s the difference between a credential program that grows itself and one that requires constant marketing spend to stay visible.
How do you measure brand awareness for a credential program?
Before launching with digital credentials or starting a new brand awareness campaign, it’s important to take benchmark metrics. This makes it easier to track the success of a campaign and identify which strategies are working well or need to be improved. The way awareness of your brand is measured will also depend on the brand awareness objectives.
For example, if the objective is to focus on the effectiveness of using digital credentials for brand building on social media, the metrics to record and track will include followers, engagement rates, and profile visits of the brand’s social media platform.
From Accredible’s analytics dashboard, the specific metrics to track include:
- Credential share rate (industry average: 18%; programs using one-click sharing typically see 80%+)
- LinkedIn adds and social platform breakdown
- Program referral traffic (clicks from shared credentials back to your website)
- Influencer identification (which learners are driving the most shares and referrals)
- Email campaign option and click-through rates
In a case study with brunchwork, a leading provider of modern business education, they attributed a 78% increase in their monthly LinkedIn profile views between November 2020 to February 2021 to their digital credentials. It was the biggest change they made to their LinkedIn strategy during the time and found their alumni were eager to share their credentials to their social networks.
How does Accredible support brand awareness for certification programs?
Accredible is a digital credential platform built around one outcome: making sure the credential you issue keeps working after it lands in a learner’s inbox.
Accredible enables certification programs to:
- Design fully branded credentials on a custom URL with no Accredible branding in the learner view
- Remove login friction with One-Click Acceptance, so recipients share instead of abandoning
- Track share rates, LinkedIn adds, and referral traffic in a single analytics dashboard
- Run automated email and SMS campaigns that remind learners to share at the right moment
- Publish a branded Spotlight Directory that puts certified learners in front of employers
For professional certification providers, workforce training teams, and academic institutions. See how it works ->
Frequently asked questions
How do digital credentials increase brand awareness?
When a learner earns a credential and shares it to LinkedIn or social media, their professional network sees the issuing organization’s brand alongside the learner’s achievement. Each share generates impressions without ad spend, and because it comes from a peer rather than the organization, it carries more weight.
What credential design best practices improve brand recognition?
Credentials should follow your brand style guide: consistent color palette, typography, and logo placement. Hosting credentials on a custom URL rather than a vendor domain ensures every share reinforces your brand, not your platform provider’s.
What’s a good credential share rate?
The industry average is 18%. Programs using frictionless one-click sharing with no account creation required typically see share rates above 80%. The gap between those two numbers is almost entirely explained by the login requirement.
How do you measure the brand awareness impact of digital credentials?
Track credential share rate, LinkedIn adds, program referral track (clicks from shared credentials back to your site), and follower growth on social channels. Accredible’s analytics dashboard surfaces all of these alongside share benchmarks so you can compare your program to industry averages.
Do digital credentials drive program enrollment as well as brand awareness?
Yes, and that’s the Credential Flywheel in action. A shared credential is seen by peers who match the same professional profile as your current learners. Northwestern Kellogg saw referral traffic increase 112% as share rates climbed from 19% to 92% over three years.
In summary
Brand awareness isn’t something that happens without input. Issuers need to ensure their digital credentials are designed according to their brand style guidelines to ensure consistency and help their brand recall. They should encourage their recipients to engage and share their credentials through action-driven CTAs in their credential delivery emails. Removing login friction with one-click sharing is the single most impactful change most programs can make, as the difference between a 20% share rate and an 80% one often comes down to that single barrier. Finally, they need to be ready to engage with their recipients and target audience through comments, likes, and reshares. For programs ready to go further, a Spotlight Directory and a structured analytics baseline turn brand awareness from a hope into a measurable outcome.
Learn more about how Accredible can help generate brand awareness and drive program growth using digital credentials by booking a platform demo. Our team is happy to provide examples of recipient engagement, the benefits of branding and white-labeling, and show you how to get started with digital credentials.
Further Reading
Learn how to utilize digital credentials to drive program growth in our Increase Enrollment for Professional Certification Guide. The guide explores how digital credentials use contextual data, shareability, and engagement to boost enrollment and increase referral rates.
Download the guide and research how to:
- Identify the demand for professional certification programs
- Establish what learners and the target audience want from professional certification
- Boost enrollment and engagement rates for professional certification programs
- Use digital credentials to motivate and increase referral rates
