Enhance Your Google Ads with the New Review Extension

You work hard to provide a quality product and excellent customer service to your customers.  Now is your chance to use those hard-earned accolades to advertise your business on Google. With Google’s new Review Extensions, you can add positive reviews and testimonials to your AdWords ads.

This week, Google AdWords third-party Review Extensions will be rolling out everyone’s account.  What this means for ecommerce stores who advertise on Google, is that starred reviews will give businesses a better chance to be viewed.  Rather than using reviews about a specific product, the review will be about your company as a whole.  Ecommerce stores that do not have access to seller rating extensions can now add some credibility and validation to their Google ads.

Many users who have used the beta version have seen powerful results.  El Al, Israel’s main airline, said, “We implemented review extensions over the last month, and after analyzing the results, we clearly see a 10% increase in click-through rate.”

The review extensions can be used to showcase positive rankings, reviews, or awards from reputable sources directly in the ads.  You can either submit a direct quote or a summary of a review.  Lakshmi Kumar Dabbiru, Software Engineer for Google AdWords, emphasizes the importance of quality reviews:

• Content displayed in review extensions must come from a reputable 3rd party source, and must comply with standard AdWords policies.
• It’s your responsibility to ensure that you’re allowed to use a specific review in your ads.
• To protect users and other businesses from deceptive claims, we use automated and human-based systems to confirm the validity and policy compliance of all review extensions.

Search Engine Land asked Google the following questions about the new review extensions in Google AdWords:

What can I use in my reviews? As the two examples above show, the review snippets can either be a direct quote or a summary from a review. Of course, you’ll need to have permission to use the review from the source publication.

Is the publication name a link?  Yes, the publication name (in blue) is a link to the publisher’s website. Advertisers can set the destination URL to the page where the review snippet is sourced from on the publisher’s site.

Do I pay for clicks on the publisher’s name? No, advertisers are not charged for clicks on links to publisher sites.

Is there a character limit on Review Extensions? Yes, the character limit on Review Extensions in 67, and that includes the name of the publication.

How will Google prevent abuse of this extension? You’re not alone if you immediately started thinking about ways scammers and spammers will try to abuse Review Extensions. Google clearly wants to make sure this extension doesn’t become rife with bogus reviews from less-than-credible sites. According to the policy, each review must come from a “reputable 3rd party source”. Google also states that ”automated and human-based systems” will be used to review and validate all review extensions.  I’m waiting to hear more on how they are qualifying a reputable source.

You can enable your review extensions today, directly from your AdWords account.  Follow these instructions to manage your review extension in AdWords:

1. Click the Ad extensions tab, and select Review Extensions from the *View: dropdown button.
2. Click + Extension and select the campaign for which you want to create the extension.
3. Indicate if this is a paraphrased review or an exact quote, add the text, source, and source URL.
4. Click Save.

After a review is submitted, it will take a few days for it to be approved.

The extension only allots for 67 characters, so you should choose your reviews wisely.  In addition, you must also make sure to get permission from the reviewer prior to posting.  Ready, set, get bragging!

To see other extensions to enhance your Google ads, click here.  Use the “Show & Tell” Picture extension to add a visual element to your ad.