Improve Google AdWords Performance with Ratings & Reviews

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1 Improve Google AdWords Performance with Ratings & Reviews Feedback you can trust to increase Click-Through Rate, reduce Bounce Rates and lower Cost Per Click.

Presenting The Feefo PPC Whitepaper Index About This Whitepaper... 3 Seller Ratings... 10 Who are Feefo?... 5 Product Ratings.

2 Presenting The Feefo PPC Whitepaper Index About This Whitepaper... 3 Seller Ratings Who are Feefo?... 5 Product Ratings Why Feefo & How Does It Work?... 7 Quality Score What is Google AdWords?... 8 Examples Why Use Reviews?... 8 Takeaways Collecting Reviews... 9 References... 15

3 About This Whitepaper Whether you are using, or thinking of using, Google AdWords to advertise your service and / or product(s), it s important to optimise your campaigns to maximise their effectiveness. Sign up Google AdWords is a Pay Per Click (PPC) platform used by businesses to drive traffic and sales. Due to its popularity, having your advert seen, and more importantly clicked on, has become more competitive and difficult. Difficult, yes. Impossible, no. This whitepaper will show you how customer reviews and ratings will: Enhance your advert Improve Click-Through Rate (CTR) Increase Quality Score Reduce Cost Per Click (CPC) 3

4 Who are Feefo?

Who are Feefo? Feefo are the No. 1 consumer ratings and reviews platform in the UK, enabling both online and offline companies to collect and utilise customer feedback.

Only those who have made a purchase or transaction can to leave a review, making Feefo the trusted supplier of ratings and reviews.

5 Who are Feefo? Feefo are the No. 1 consumer ratings and reviews platform in the UK, enabling both online and offline companies to collect and utilise customer feedback. As an invite-only feedback platform, reviews and ratings from Feefo are trusted as they are collected from genuine customers. Only those who have made a purchase or transaction can to leave a review, making Feefo the trusted supplier of ratings and reviews. #DidYouKnow Feefo reviews can increase your AdWords Click-Through Rate (CTR) by an average of 17% (Source: Google) Used by more than 2,500 merchants in all markets across the globe More than 30 million reviews left to-date Feefo generates a review every 2.4 seconds A response rate of up to 25% Testimonials Heels.com PPC efficiency has gone up since we've implemented Feefo because our Feefo feedback helps qualify new customers. We've seen higher click through and conversion rates for new visitors because we have established at the top of the funnel that we are a reputable website. Austin Caldwell Marketing Director Gopak & ThoughtShift This study highlighted a huge 28.72% increase in CTR when ads contained a star rating compared with when they didn't. The results were so impressive that the campaign was nominated for a Drum Search Award in 2015 for Best B2B PPC Campaign. Helen Trendell Managing Director On the Beach When we started to see the Google star ratings appear on our PPC ads driven by the positive feedback from customers using Feefo to score On the Beach, we saw an increase in Click through Rate of between 2% and 4%, this in turn improved our Quality Score and improved PPC ROI which in turn allows us to bid more aggressively. Thank you Feefo! Alistair Daly CEO 5

6 Why Feefo and How Does It Work?

7 Why Feefo & How Does It Work? 1 Easy Setup We offer seamless integration of both service and product reviews directly on your website. 2 Collect TRUSTED Reviews Only genuine customers can leave reviews making a Feefo review the most trusted. We ll automatically your customers after they have purchased an item on your website. 3 Increase Traffic As an official Google Content Partner, all Feefo reviews are 100% verified and sent directly to Google. Reviews can appear as Seller Ratings within search adverts and as Product Ratings within Google Shopping. According to Google, ratings can increase Click-Through Rate (CTR) by an average of 17%, but our own studies show an increase of up to 28.72% [2]. 4 Improve Sales & Cost Efficiency Displaying ratings on product and service pages can increase conversion rates and sales. For example, a Feefo merchant experienced an increased conversion rate of 6.77% [9] with improved sales of 2.94% [10]. Improved traffic and conversions helps to reduce bounce rates, which can have a positive impact on Quality Score. One merchant experienced a reduced bounce rate of 8.09% and a reduced Cost Per Click (CPC) by 12% year-on-year[2]. 5 Gain Business Insights Learn and improve safe in the knowledge that your reviews, collected by Feefo, are 100% trusted. 7

8 What is Google AdWords? Google AdWords is an advertising service for businesses wanting to display adverts on Google and its advertising network. The ad service is largely focussed on keywords, such as brand, service or product names. When a user searches for these keywords, the advert of a business appears within Google's paid listings. There are three main types of Google AdWords adverts: Search Adverts Display Adverts Product Listing Ads (PLAs) also known as Google Shopping Seller ratings can be integrated within search ads and product ratings can be integrated within PLAs. In both instances the number of reviews will appear alongside a star rating. This rating is calculated based on the number of reviews provided and their each individual rating. For consistency, Google rescale the rating to appear on a scale of 1 5. [4] Why Use Reviews? There are a number of reasons as to why companies use ratings and reviews in their PPC campaigns. These include: T R U S T Google Recommend It Google themselves say that ads with Seller Ratings get a 17% higher CTR than the same ads without ratings. This in turn will lead to increased traffic and conversions. [5] Increase Conversions PPC Hero say that for one e-commerce client, we saw conversion rates increase by 25% and conversions increase by 50% once seller ratings became eligible. [6] Users Trust Reviews 90% of customers say that buying decisions are influenced by online reviews. [7] 88% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. [8] 8

9 Collecting Reviews To collect genuine feedback you need to work with a trusted reviews provider. Google currently source data from a select group of third-party review sites, which are pre-approved aggregators. Feefo is a proud Google Licensed Content Partner, meaning that all of our reviews are fed directly to the search engine giant. Do you already have reviews? Before you launch your review strategy, it s worth seeing how many reviews Google already has indexed for your brand. Take the following URL ( and replace the text at the end with your own website. For example, for Expedia.co.uk use Your results should look like the below: If there are no reviews indexed in Google you ll see the following message: Ratings details are not available for this merchant 9

10 Seller Ratings As a Google Licensed Content Partner, our trusted reviews can appear as star Seller Ratings within your Google Search Ads. Sign up To be eligible for Seller Ratings you need: 150 live reviews At least 10 of your reviews must be in the user s Google interface language Average star rating between 3.5 and 5 Reviews can t be older than 12 months The stars increase your Click-Through Rate (CTR), which has a positive impact on your Quality Score helping to lower your Cost Per Click (CPC). Seller Ratings are predominantly used within normal text ads: Also, sometimes they appear in Google Shopping ads: 10

Product Ratings If you collect feedback at a product level, you will also be eligible for Google Product Ratings.

To be eligible for Product Ratings you need: Products to have at least 3 reviews Your domain must also have 50 reviews across all products in order to participate in the program Product Ratings only

If a search includes a qualifier like top or best then the product listing ads will be numbered in order (see example).

11 Product Ratings If you collect feedback at a product level, you will also be eligible for Google Product Ratings. Sign up Product Ratings are reviews based on an individual product rather than the service or company as a whole. They can appear for products with a star rating from one through to five. To be eligible for Product Ratings you need: Products to have at least 3 reviews Your domain must also have 50 reviews across all products in order to participate in the program Product Ratings only show in Google Shopping Ads (see example). Best Product Ads Google have recently released a new ranking treatment (accurate as of March 2016) for top rated products. If a search includes a qualifier like top or best then the product listing ads will be numbered in order (see example). [9] Whilst products with the best rating won t necessarily be ranked number one, ratings will play a huge role in selecting products to participate. Google "We believe these ratings will help differentiate products across google.com and google. com/shopping and will help merchants drive more qualified traffic through Product Listing Ads. In initial tests, product ratings also helped click-throughrates of Product Listings Ads." [10] Mike Capsambelis Product Manager, Google Shopping 11

12 Quality Score According to AdWords, Quality Score' is an estimate of how relevant your ads, keywords and landing page are to a person seeing your ad. [11] The three primary Quality Score factors are: 1. Click-Through Rate (CTR) 2. Landing Page Quality 3. Relevancy 1 Ad Level Quality Score Seller and Product Rating stars increase your CTR which in turn has a positive impact on your Quality Score, thus lowering your average CPC. 2 Landing Page Quality Score Landing page Quality Score doesn t affect your ad position but it is taken into account for your eligibility to go to auction. Your bounce rate and time on site are taken into account in your landing page Quality Score. Use positive reviews to make improvements to the URLs to which you drive traffic. Sign up Displaying relevant User Generated Content (UGC) on your landing page promotes the transparency and trustworthiness of your site. 3 Domain Level Quality Score The domain level quality score will increase if you can improve both the ad and the landing page quality score with positive reviews. 12

13 Examples Seller and/or Product Ratings can have a dramatic impact on PPC performance. At Feefo, we have a number of examples of where this is the case. Gopak Using the Google AdWords extensions tool and five months of data from Gopak.co.uk, Digital Marketing agency, ThoughtShift, performed a study to examine the impact of Seller Ratings on CTR. [12] This study revealed a huge 28.72% increase in CTR when ads contained a star rating, compared with when they didn t. The implementation of reviews on the Gopak landing pages also increased the conversion rate by 6.77% year-on-year. Within three months of hosting live reviews, their bounce rate decreased by 8.09%. Gopak's ads appeared higher in a more desirable position and Cost Per Click (CPC) reduced by 12% year-on-year. Monarch Airlines In a separate study by Digital Marketing agency Red-Eye, Feefo merchant, Monarch Airlines, saw an average increase of 6% in conversions when their review score was placed next to a 'Buy Now' button. [3] 13

14 Key takeaways and action points Companies that use official third-party product review aggregators will reap the benefits of both Seller and Product Ratings. Generating Seller Ratings and Product Ratings can Help increase Click-Through Rate (CTR) Reduce your bounce rate User Generated Content (UGC) will enhance trust and increase conversions Improve Quality Score Lower your Cost Per Click (CPC) and save you money Join Feefo for free today For more information on using Feefo with AdWords, contact one of our digital consultants today at or visit Sign up 14

15 References [1] [2] PPC-Campaign-Results.pdf [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] 15

16 Feefo Holdings Ltd, Feefo Barn, Heath Farm, Heath Road, Petersfield, GU31 4HT (0)

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