How to Create a Certificate of Authenticity

Create, send and manage certificates of authenticity (COA) that are secure.

Sep 13, 2022
6 min
|      by
Sucharita Myakal
digital badges education

Looking for a way to make your product more valuable and sought-after with a touch of genuineness? A certificate of authenticity (COA) can help you in this quest.

If you’re unsure how to create a certificate of authenticity from scratch in under 10 minutes, this article is for you.

Want to try your hand at creating one before we jump right in?

Certificate of Authenticity Button

Let’s first understand why having a certificate of authenticity makes a huge difference in selling your product.

Why is a Certificate of Authenticity Important?

Art enthusiasts around the world, for instance, love purchasing exclusive and exciting original art. But unfortunately, most products are either forged or ripoffs of original creators. 

Also, digital art and NFTs are creating quite a buzz lately. But when authenticity is concerned, many fail to satisfy buyers. Therefore, a certificate of authenticity for NFTs with art pieces can portray them to be the most credible creations and boost sales.

Without a certificate of authenticity (COA), it can be hard to portray yourself as a professional artist or creator. When you have a high-quality COA, you ensure your product is safe from forgery and showcase it to be worth a ton of money. It is highly recommended that a COA be tagged to your products to instill more confidence in buyers.

And no, you don’t have to hire an expert to design a certificate. With Virtualbadge.io, you can create impressive and credible certificates in a few simple steps.

Before that, do you know what goes into a professional-looking certificate of authenticity?

What Should You Include in a Certificate of Authenticity?

Your COA must include every key element that is easier for the reader to understand and helps sell your art or product faster. 

Here’s what you can include:

  1. Name and signature of the artist or creator.
  2. Title of the artwork or product featured.
  3. Your company’s logo. if applicable.
  4. The creation date of the artwork or product.
  5. Dimensions of the artwork or product.
  6. A brief statement of authenticity.
  7. Include additional details about the piece to add more realness.

Following these best practices ensures your customers perceive your creation as more trustworthy and worth investing in.

How to Create a Certificate of Authenticity: A Step-By-Step Guide

In this section, we take you through creating your first ready-to-use certificate of authenticity with Virtualbadge.io.

1. Sign Up or Log In to a Virtualbadge.io Account

You can access it here.

2. Check Out your Dashboard

Your Virtualbadge.io Dashboard
Your Virtualbadge.io Dashboard

Virtualbadge.io provides an easy-to-use dashboard where you can track your created certificates in a single place. 

In-progress certificates are saved under Draft, so you do not have to worry about losing your unfinished work.

You can click on Add new collection under Certificate Collections to group your certificates if you’re creating them for more than one purpose.

3. Launch Certificate Creation 

On the top right corner of your Dashboard, click on Create new Certificate to launch the editing page.

To edit your certificate details.
To edit your certificate details.

Virtualbadge.io takes you through a five-step process to create a one-of-a-kind, genuine certificate of authenticity.

The quick 5-step process:

Step 1: Enter Basic Details

  • Enter the Course Name, and in this case, the title of the art project or product name.
  • Select the name from the dropdown if you have created an exclusive Certificate Collection on your dashboard.
  • If you are a publisher or own an art business, upload your logo to add more authenticity to the piece.
  • For artworks up for auction on social media or products that need more online visibility, we suggest you select the Enable option for the Social Media button.
  • Does your COA have an expiration date? Select or enter the date.
  • Enter your business’ Website URL if present.
  • You’re all set. Click on Continue to start designing your certificate.

Step 2: Design your Certificate of Authenticity

Virtualbadge.io provides two options to create your certificate: start with a blank canvas or use an existing template.

Prefer a template over a blank canvas? Choose one.
Prefer a template over a blank canvas? Choose one.

Step 3: Time to get creative - Edit your certificate template

Start editing your certificate template
Start editing your certificate template

On the left pane of your editing screen, you have multiple options to Add Elements such as text fields, import images, add custom shapes, add backgrounds, and so on.

And on the right pane, you can choose to align your text, change font types, colors, etc. To edit text, select the desired text element on the template, and edit text on the right pane.

Once you're done designing the certificate, click on Save to proceed.

Here’s a sample Certificate of Authenticity for an artwork designed with Virtualbadge.io:

Example of Certificate of Authenticity

4. Setup a Campaign

If you’re creating the COA for an artist or a creator or making your own certificate more secure, you can set up a campaign with Virtualbadge.io for easier sharing.

Setup an email or social media campaign
Setup an email or social media campaign

You can customize the email content as desired on your email editor screen. Enter the email header with the sent from name and an apt subject line

Virtualbadge.io sends this customized access email to the recipient and the certificate preview. 

Want to give your product or artwork a shout-out for more reach? You can also create a Twitter campaign once you click on Continue.

To make your certificates fool-proof and forge-free, Virtualbadge.io creates a unique Credential ID for every certificate in the final stage of campaign setup.

Unique Credential ID
Unique Credential ID

5. You’re Almost Done - Drop in your Email or Recipients 

If you’re a publisher or an agency that needs multiple COAs to be sent at scale, Virtualbadge.io lets you upload a single CSV file with recipients’ names and email addresses. So, you do not have to re-edit each certificate anymore.

Or, if it's just yourself, click on Add Single to add your email.

Upload a CSV file with recipients 
Upload a CSV file with recipients 

6. You’re All Set - Send The Certificate of Authenticity

Post adding the desired emails, click on Send emails to send the COA access email to the recipients instantly. 

Here’s what the final overview would look like:

The final overview of actions
The final overview of actions

In this window, you can add more recipients, view statistics over the sent email, access recipient’s view, and more.

Worried about the access email falling into the wrong hands?

7. Access Your Certificate Securely

How does Virtualbadge.io provide an additional layer of security? 

The recipient is redirected to the Access your Certificate page after clickin on the link that they receive via email.

To access the certificate

The recipient can access the validation page via email and click on Validate with email to proceed. Once successfully validated, they can access, share, or download their certificate of authenticity!

Most artists are clueless about displaying a proof of originality for their artworks. But with a tool like Virtualbadge.io, artists can easily validate the authenticity of their artwork. And no matter the number of certificates issued, they can all be traced back to the original creator.

Let’s start creating. Try Virtualbadge.io today to safeguard your product with a high-quality certificate of authenticity

An intelligent and easy-to-use certificate generation tool to create and send highly secure, unique, and authentic certificates on the go.

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* You can find the organisation ID in the URL when you access your LinkedIn Company page as an admin.

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