Google Ads Seller Rating And Product Reviews: Step-by-Step Guide

Search engine rankings and reviews are one of the most critical success factors for online retailers. In our new post, we give you a step-by-step guide to implementing and maintaining seller and product ratings in Google Ads.

Due to new post-COVID habits, eCommerce traffic and transactions have surged to unprecedented levels. As a result, we see that the volume of online sales is as never before. Yet, people are still buying some products for the first time. So they look for proof of the quality and reliability of the seller and product before purchase. According to a 2020 PowerReviews study, 37% of customers said the importance of reviews has increased for them, while for only 2%, it has decreased.

When Google seller ratings are showing up

Google Ads Seller Rating is an automatic extension that appears as stars in your listing and allows you to highlight the ad unit in your search results. Google Ads reviews are displayed in both text ads and shopping campaign ads.

The Google Seller Rating is displayed as a separate block consisting of several parts:

⊛ rating on a 5-point system;
⊛ the number of ratings (total number of reviews);
⊛ general characteristics of the seller (delivery speed, customer service).

The Google Seller Rating is calculated separately for each country. So, for example, 300 clients from the UK and 100 clients from Poland evaluated the seller, and when you search for a seller in Poland, you will see the rating results based on 100 local evaluations.

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Important: Reviews are assigned to the domain name, so if you change the domain or run ads, on a subdomain, for example, the rating will not be displayed. In this case, the field of business does not matter.

How are Google seller ratings generated?

Google uses several rating metrics.

The score is displayed as stars and characterizes the online resource used in a text or product advertising campaign.

Product rating

The product rating is a measure of the quality of a particular product. It is displayed in product ads in Google Search and Google Shopping:

Google reviews

These features are displayed in Google Maps. When calculating the rating, reviews from other services are not taken into account, but sometimes reviews from maps are taken into account.

How to check if you have a seller rating?

To do this, insert the following request into the address bar of your browser:

https://www.google.com/shopping/ratings/account/lookup?q={your_site_address}

If your site meets all the requirements for showing up the rating, the page that appears will display all the information about the store and the seller rating. In addition, you can switch between different countries to view the indicators for each separately.

How to get a Google Ads seller rating?

Google Ads seller rating is turned on automatically when the site meets the minimum requirements for the program:

1. More than 100 reviews left by users from the same country in one year in Google Reviews or any Google affiliate service. In some cases, the system can show the rating even if the store has up to 100 reviews, but this is rare, especially if a small company outside the US owns the site.
2. The system rated the site using Google Surveys. But for small businesses, this is also not very common.

Terms for displaying the seller rating in search results:

1. The average score is no lower than the minimum threshold of 3.5 points (but sometimes Google Shopping shows a lower score).
2. The adverts show exactly the domain to which the rating is given (the rating is given to the domain name, not the brand or name of the brand).

These are mandatory conditions, but even if they are met, other factors may influence the rating, such as the type of device the user has or the advantages of the auction. Google’s algorithms decide for themselves in each situation whether to show different extensions in their ads.

How to speed up the rating process:

1. Send a request to your customers asking for feedback. Loyal customers who have made purchases more than once are likely to leave positive feedback.
2. Introduce automatic surveys after the sale. This option is widespread and may bore some customers, but even a few reviews will benefit.
3. Respond to negative reviews. Small negative feedback can be turned to your advantage: a friendly and clear answer from the seller to a dissatisfied customer demonstrates care, responsibility, and willingness to meet the client’s needs.

How Google rating is aggregated

Google Customer Reviews collect information for ratings. The mechanism looks like this: the seller adds these features to their site, and the system monitors purchases and sends notifications to customers at the end of transactions asking them to rate the store’s performance.

Integrating the survey module into the site

First, you’ll need to set up an account in the Merchant Center. To do this, follow the instructions from Google.

Now that you have created a Google Merchant Center page, you can incorporate Google Customer Reviews. To do this, follow these steps:

• sign up for Google Customer Reviews;
• sign in to your Merchant Center account;
• make sure the URL and site ownership are approved;
• click “Account Development” in the navigation bar on the left side;
• select “Manage Programs”;
• open the “Customer Feedback Program” card;
• click “Join”.

Then you need to install a questionnaire module on the site, which will send information about transactions to Google and invite customers to share their opinions. There are detailed instructions in the search engine guidelines.

Product rating

Google search results include items with a rating, which are also displayed as stars. The consolidated rating of each product is based on feedback from customers who have purchased via Google Shopping.

How to set up product rating

To do this, enter “Manage Programs” in the Merchant Center and select the “Product Rating” program. After clicking the “Get Started” button, a form will open in which you need to submit a request to connect to the program.

Who can connect to the Product Rating program:

• accounts that have connected to the Google Customer Reviews program with a GTIN submission;
• accounts with 50+ reviews and have submitted a specially formed feedback feed to Merchant Center (See Google’s help for how to upload feeds);
• accounts that have collected reviews through aggregators (Google’s list of approved aggregators).

GTIN is a unique international product identifier, compiled according to generally accepted standards — a barcode.

The best way is the first one, by implementing GTIN fields in the feed. The product rating is consolidated by GTIN in the Merchant Center and then displayed in Google Shopping ads. GTIN is written for each item in the feed in the following format:

3234567890126

If the Customer Feedback program has already been implemented and the GTIN settings are correct, all that remains is to wait for the automatic connection of the product rating.

How to add a Google customer reviews member icon to your site

You’ll be able to add a member icon to your site once the Customer Reviews program is enabled.

To do this, go back to Settings, where you previously took the code to integrate the questionnaire into the site, and at the very bottom, find the block with the code to place the icon:

The code is placed where you want to put the icon on the site. Learn more about how to integrate the icon code.

This tutorial describes the basic things you need to implement Seller Rating and Product Rating for your online store. You can do it yourself or address it to paid traffic channel management specialists. Promodo specialists have been helping the most significant players in Ukrainian and foreign markets to get the maximum return on investment in advertising.

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