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Reviews: How They Can Support Your PPC Strategy
A successful customer feedback strategy should never be underestimated. Often the most important consideration a purchaser makes, when choosing a company to do business with, will be based on third party reviews.
A single shortage of materials or a work van breaking down can have a large knock-on effect, potentially resulting in a flurry of bad reviews; immensely damaging for even the most established and reputable of companies.
On the flip side, achieving regular good reviews can allow businesses to reap a large host of rewards such as:
- More sales
- Better brand equity and authority
- Increased trust
- Higher fees (customers will pay more to work with a highly reputable company)
You most likely already knew about these, but did you know reviews also play a big role in your Paid Media strategy?
One study found that Google Ads conversion rates increased by up to 33% when brands achieved a rating of 4.5/5 stars compared with those that had below 3.5/5 stars. This isn’t too surprising, considering the current generation of internet-savvy consumers who are prone to doing their own research before making a purchase.
Inside Google Ads there is a special feature called ‘seller rating extensions’. This feature allows businesses to prominently display their star rating and number of reviews inside their ad. Research shows that this can increase click through rates (CTR) by up to 10% – an astounding increase considering ads have an average CTR of 2%.
In the example above you can see the ad with seller ratings shines brightly over the other two ads, despite competing with two giants in the industry. This is merely one example of seller ratings allowing advertisers to stand out from their competition.
Google doesn’t just collect reviews from its own Google Reviews platform, they also work with a variety of review websites that can be used for seller ratings, including Trustpilot & Reviews.io. If you have reviews on other websites you can find out whether they’re eligible to show on seller ratings here.
So, how can you leverage seller rating extensions? There are a few criteria that you’ll need to meet:
- Google has received/collected at least 100 verified reviews in the last 12 months
- You have an average star rating of at least 3.5/5
- Your website’s URL is the same as the one listed on the review websites.
Once eligible, seller ratings will show within 21 working days and will automatically appear on your ads.
For those using Microsoft Ads (previously known as Bing Ads) – don’t worry!
Microsoft have introduced a similar feature called ‘merchant ratings’. These work in the exactly the same way as Google’s feature, except you only need 30 reviews instead of 100.
If you’d like help running your Paid Media campaigns and would like to stay up to date with all of the cutting edge features that Google & Microsoft have to offer, get in touch with our team of PPC marketing experts today!
This entry was posted in Purplex News
