AdWords Extensions: Reviews
For more info on different kinds of AdWords extensions, check out our Retailer’s Guide to AdWords Extensions.
Review Extensions
AdWords review extensions are a relatively new ad extension that are underutilized by a lot of ecommerce advertisers. They’re a great complement to seller ratings annotations since they can validate any good seller rating (the stars) that you have going for you.
At a top-level, highlighting reviews in your ads can enhance your ad with social proof. Digging deeper, review extensions are just another opportunity to physically increase the size of your ad placement, allow your ad to stand out more, and further incentive the shopper to click through.
Google’s claim is that “Review extensions can boost clickthrough rates by up to 10%.” They can come in 1 of 2 forms:
- Exact quote: The example review extension above is an exact quote review from a 3rd party review service.
- Paraphrase: ex. “The #1 Rated Furniture Seller Online – Business Insider.” These type of paraphrased awards/reviews are often included as part of the ad copy, but a review extension will allow you to just reference it here and give you more room to provide useful info in the actual ad copy.
Of course, the big thing here is that any review, whether paraphrased or quoted, will have to be verified by Google. Reviews can also only show up on campaigns running on the Search Network. From a content standpoint, the review can only relate to your store as a whole OR a specific product which you’re the OEM for. You should refer to Google’s very specific review extension policies before submitting one for validation.
So the main question here is, where can these reviews come from? Google notes that these can come from a “reputable third-party source,” though we’ve found that it’s difficult to define this and get reviews approved. It seems like Google is pretty strict on the “reputable” part, though I’d imagine if Huffington Post or CNET referenced your store, a review from them would be approved. Reviews can also be taken from Google Trusted Stores if you’re a Trusted Store. You must be aware of when these types of publications talk about your business.
How to Add Review Extensions
Of course, if this were you setting this up, you would use a real link so that Google can verify your review on that link. Couple things to note here:
- You can enter only a maximum of 67 characters for the paraphrased or exact quote review AND the source itself.
- If you submit multiple reviews, only the first one that gets approved will show up for your ad
As with all extensions, you can track the effects of adding a review in the Ad Extensions tab, and you should take special note of how it affects CTR.
Check back for more setup and strategy best practices for other AdWords Extensions, or view our overview of the 9 different AdWords Extensions here.
- Seller Ratings Annotations
- Sitelink Extensions
- Call Extensions
- Consumer Ratings Annotations
- Social Annotations
- Previous Visit Annotations (no set up necessary here)
- App Extensions
- Location Extensions
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