How to Make a Product Review Video That Earns Attention

A product review video is exactly what it sounds like: a video review of a product or experience that’s filmed by a creator and posted online. Unlike testimonials, which are usually created at a company's request, product reviews are made by creators to share an opinion, not to collect a check from the brand.

Why make a product review video?

If making a product review video can’t explicitly make you money (beyond any monetization you have across your whole channel), why even bother? Because it can help you in ways that go beyond direct revenue.

• Secure a brand deal in the future. Watch any number of review videos, and you’ll notice quite a few of them end with the person looking into the camera and cheekily asking the company to sponsor them. If you make a glowing video about a product you love and it gets the attention of the brand that makes it, you may find yourself with a deal down the line.
• Build connection with your audience. Recommending great new products—or telling viewers to steer clear of ones you don’t particularly like—is a great way to make connections within your content creation niche, as well as with other people who like those same products.
• Engage with a whole new type of video making. Many channels are primarily or solely dedicated to reviews. Even if that doesn’t sound like your calling, making a series within your niche (a cooking account might cover cookware, an actor account might cover dancewear, etc.) can open up a whole new world of video making.

2 essential elements of a product review

• Say what you think. The most important part of any review video is exactly that: the review. Be sure to express how you feel about the product in question, and be specific. What did you like about it? When might you use it? How has it made your life easier? Would you recommend it to a friend? If you wouldn’t recommend it, that’s OK, too. There are still questions worth answering: What didn’t work? Is the product simply not a great fit for your needs but potentially perfect for someone else, or does it have flaws that make it unlikely to work for anyone? Gather your thoughts before filming so you can express yourself clearly and concisely.
• Showcase the product. If the review is the most important part of the video, the product is a close runner-up. Viewers should immediately see it (ideally front, center, and in focus) and immediately understand what it does. If possible, try to demonstrate using it as part of the video. Apart from the obvious showcasing, having something to do during your review can help keep the footage engaging and dynamic.

1. Make an engaging video. 

Now that all the necessary info is out of the way, make sure your video is something people would actually like to watch! Use all the usual tools in your content creator toolbox (engaging hook, nice lighting, eye-catching editing, fun and relatable delivery) to make a reel worthy of the rest of the videos on your account. If you’re new to content creation in general and need some pointers, check out our helpful guide.

2. Keep it casual. 

Half the fun of being a content creator is getting to be yourself online. Don’t let the pressure to give an informative review get in the way of bringing the same relatable energy you’d bring to any other kind of post. Yes, it’s important to share your opinions on a product, but that’s a moot point if the video isn’t also fun to watch.

3. Create a familiar structure. 

If you decide you’re going to do multiple reviews as part of a series (or maybe even as the main focus of your account!), a replicable format can help build brand identity and make sure that anyone who is interested in one of your videos recognizes—and chooses to watch—the next one.

4. Find the balance between thorough and long-winded. 

There is such a thing as too long, and the algorithm will punish you for it. Instagram, for example, won’t recommend reels over three minutes long to viewers who don’t already follow you. Some of this can be solved in editing—you can cut any dead air or redundant phrasing to make a tighter video—but you should aim for a certain level of brevity from the beginning. It’s much easier to trim a three-minute video down to 90 seconds than it is a 20-minute one.

5. Be (tactfully) honest. 

While we wouldn’t recommend needlessly slandering a product online, you owe it to your followers to give your real opinion. If you loved something, great! Explain how much you enjoyed it and why. But if you didn’t love it, it’s best to be straightforward about it. It can be scary to admit you weren’t a fan (especially if it’s something the rest of the internet seems to be raving about), but it’s important to maintain the credibility you’ve built with your viewers and say what you really think.

1. The product round-up

Why wax poetic about one product when you can talk about a whole bunch of them at once? Fashion and beauty Instagrammer @lindseyrem posts videos in which she reviews all of her recently emptied beauty products at once. It’s a smart approach: Followers who presumably trust her judgment get several verdicts in a single sitting as she spends a sentence or two on why each item did or didn’t work. She links everything in the description in case anyone decides to purchase. If you think empty containers mean everything was a hit, think again—Rem employs a little of the tactful honesty mentioned above to note that one product molded and won’t be repurchased.

2. The before-and-after approach

Creator @historyinhighheels employs several different tactics in a video reviewing shoes that transform from flat to heel. There’s a lot she does well here. She folds the review into a get-ready-with-me format, giving the audience a familiar structure to engage with, then explains why she was interested in trying the shoes, walks through how they work, shows them clearly, and makes a point of mentioning that she isn’t being paid by the company. What makes the video particularly interesting, however, is that she films that entire segment before spending the day in the shoes, heads out on her walking commute, and checks back in to tell viewers how they held up. It makes for a longer runtime, but it’s a clever trade: That hint of suspense is exactly what makes you want to finish the video (spoiler alert—the shoes were a hit).

3. The themed review channel

As noted above, sometimes the best way to make sure a review gets views is to make a habit of it. Foodie @kaitlyneats set out to eat at every restaurant on The New York Times’ annual ranking of the 100 best restaurants in New York City—a yearlong quest she completed in spring 2025 before starting over on the updated list. In each installment, she pairs beautifully shot footage of the food and interiors with unvarnished reactions. Lavery is quick to flag her must-order dishes for future diners, and though she’s always diplomatic, she’s not afraid to say when something misses. Beyond the craft of the videos themselves, turning reviews into a running series has made her content genuinely addictive, with each new entry racking up thousands of views.

4. The trusted friend approach

You don’t need a tasting menu or a designer handbag to make a review worth watching—sometimes a $4 cookie will do. TikToker @thelavelleshow, who has built an audience of roughly 1 million followers on grocery-aisle taste tests, opens nearly every video the same way: by calling the viewer “friend.” That one choice does a lot of work. It reframes a review as a conversation, establishes the casual tone that keeps people watching, and makes the final verdict land like a tip passed across a shopping cart instead of a pitch. Lavelle’s take on Walmart’s Marketside cookie pizza—a nine-ounce chocolate chunk cookie baked in the shape of a pie and sold for roughly $4—drew more than 200,000 likes with no sponsorship and no splashy product. The takeaway? A consistent persona can be worth as much as what you’re holding up to the camera. 

Looking for paid product reviewing opportunities? Check out our call board.