How To Get Google Seller Ratings On Google Ads – December 2021

How to Get Seller Ratings

Need to learn how to add seller ratings to Google Ads? We will be talking about Free vs. Paid seller ratings, how to get them, and show examples. Google gathers seller ratings from the 29 approved 3rd party review partners, Google Customer Reviews, Google Consumer Surveys, and Google-led shopping research. All ratings are syndicated into your Google Ads account and show on your CPC text ads and Google Shopping (if you run an ecommerce site).

Free vs. Paid Google Seller Ratings

Google Customer Reviews

You might end up spending $5,000-10,000 USD because you’ll need a team of programmers

SEE MORE DETAILS

---

$0/mo*

• Google Seller Ratings
• Product Ratings
• For Enterprise Businesses
• For Ecommerce Companies Only
• Not for Service-Based Companies

See It

OUR #1 PICK

Shopper Approved

30-Day FREE Trial

No Credit Card Needed

SEE MORE DETAILS

---

$199/mo

• Google Seller Ratings
• Product Ratings
• Q&A (like Amazon’s Q&A section)
• Video Reviews
• Social Evidence
• Survey Destinations (Get reviews across the web)
• For Small/Medium Businesses
• For Service-Based Companies
• For Ecommerce Companies
• Unlimited Reviews for Locked-In Rate……

FREE DEMO

Get Demo w/Eric or Tanner

Verified Reviews

You only get UP TO 400 review “requests” per month. That doesn’t mean you will get 400 reviews.

30-Day FREE Trial
10% Discount
No Credit Card Needed

Pricing is based on # of orders.
If you cancel, your reviews will still show on Verified Reviews.
SEE MORE DETAILS

---

$99/mo

• Google Seller Ratings
• Product Reviews
• For Small/Enterprise Businesses
• For Service-Based Companies
• For Ecommerce Companies

See It

Yotpo

Pricing is mainly based on monthly orders.
SEE MORE DETAILS

---

$799/mo

• Google Seller Ratings
• Product Reviews
• For Enterprise Businesses
• For Ecommerce Companies
• Not for Service-Based Companies

See It

TrustPilot

$599/mo starting for Product Reviews.

Subscription must be paid annually.

Pricing is based on “# of Email Invitations” sent, not on actual reviews collected.
SEE DETAILS

---

$199/mo

• Google Seller Ratings
• Product Reviews
• For Enterprise Businesses
• For Service-Based Companies
• For Ecommerce Companies

See It

Feefo

Based in UK
You’re paying for SEO, CRO, Insights, Reviews, etc.
SEE DETAILS

---

£99/mo

• Google Seller Ratings
• Product Ratings
• For Enterprise Businesses

• Google Seller Ratings
• Product Reviews
• For Enterprise Businesses
• For Service-Based Companies
• For Ecommerce Companies

See It

*WARNING – Google Customer Reviews program is “Free”, but you’ll need a team of experienced & trusted programmers for the technical integration and then to maintain it. Above is a pricing table of the top Google Seller Rating companies.

ALL PRICES ARE STARTING RATES AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE. IN SOME CASES, THERE IS NO PRICING ON THESE SITES, BUT PEOPLE TELL US VIA LIVE CHAT WHAT THEY ARE CURRENTLY PAYING OR WHAT THEY WERE QUOTED. YOUR SITUATION WILL BE UNIQUE SO PRICING IS GOING TO VARY.

Many of the thirty 3rd-party review partners (seller rating companies) are not in English (eg. Japanese, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, etc). Of the 29 Google Approved aggregators, we narrowed the selection to 6 English-speaking companies. Make sure they fit your budget and what you’re looking for. Don’t get upsold into features you’ll never use.  In addition to Seller Ratings, there are 28 3rd party reviews aggregators approved by Google to display “Product Ratings” on Google Shopping PLA ads (we’ll talk about this later). Seller Ratings should not be confused with Google Reviews for Google Maps. 

What Are Google Seller Ratings? [with examples]

Google Seller Ratings are the star ratings that show on Google CPC text ads and on Google Shopping. Service-based businesses, ecommerce sites, and local retail businesses can all gather seller ratings. Below are 3 images illustrating what Google Seller Ratings look like. Seller ratings show as an aggregated 1-5 star rating along with the number of ratings. Sometimes you may see a qualifier like “Average Delivery Time” or “Order Accuracy”, etc.  For ecommerce sites, Google Shopping ads & the free shopping listings show the ratings and a percentage. 

Benefits of Google Seller Ratings

You may be wondering why should you pay extra money every month to get the stars? Well, the real answer is you may be making more money and your average CPC (cost-per-click) should drop. This would be highly likely if you are in an industry where none of the competition is doing this.

In addition, you should “Add Note” within Google Ads on the day you have started getting the stars on your CPC text ads or Google Shopping and check to see if conversion rates have increased starting that day. Also, you can embed your Seller Reviews onto your website and build trustworthiness. Most seller rating aggregators include that feature.

---

How To Get A High Seller Rating Average

This is a question we get all the time via live chat and even from our own clients! Planet Marketing has some clients that have poor ratings because they don’t ask for reviews. Well, guess what? The only people who will leave a review are upset customers. So here’s a quick list of how to get high seller ratings, fast!

Send Your Review Link Only To Your Past Happy Customers

Make sure that the company you choose has the capability to generate a URL to survey your past customers. Send it in a blast email if you can. Use this method especially if you have poor ratings.

Reach Out To Unhappy Customers

Sometimes it’s as easy as reaching out to a customer who had left a bad review and ask them if they can change it if you can correct the problem. 

Ask for a Positive 5-Star Rating

Normally any of these software companies will automate the sending of the emails. What you can do is, in the email template, say something like, “Please leave us a positive 5-star rating along with a comment in the review! We would greatly appreciate it. “If” for some reason you cannot leave us a positive 5-star rating, reply to this email and I’ll see what we can do on our end. THANKS!”

Criteria, Problems, Solutions, Tracking

Google Seller Rating Criteria

To qualify for Seller Ratings, you need:

• 100 unique reviews with comments (less than 100 reviews for certain businesses) within the last 12 months via 3rd-Party Review Partners, Google Customer Reviews, Google Consumer Surveys, or Google-led shopping research.
• Must have a rating of at least 3.5 stars or higher
• The URL on your ad must match the domain Google has for the rartings

Each country you advertise in gets its own Seller Ratings. For instance, if you have 1000 ratings in USA, but only 150 in UK, 1000 will show on Google.com while 150 will show on Google.co.uk. Also, each rating must have its own comment from within the country you’re searching in.

[SIDE NOTE: 100 reviews is a lot for a mom & pop company, so if you need help, contact me on live chat. Alternatively, you can send a special URL to all your past customers to get a jump start to reach the 100 mark].

Google says these ratings are free, but in my experience, you pretty much have to pay one of the Google approved 3rd-party review partners or hire a programmer $10,000+ to handle the Google Customer Reviews integration. In my opinion, yes it is free to have the stars appear on your Google Ads, but it’s not free overall because you will be paying a monthly subscription. However, you need to beat your competitors anyway!

Also, you’re not allowed to offer gift cards or financial incentives to receive seller ratings. 

Learn more about the seller rating criteria here.

Problems

Sometimes you won’t see your seller ratings on Google. Google doesn’t guarantee that seller ratings will show 100% for every ad impression. Want to see how many reviews Google has indexed for you? Change bhphotovideo.com in the URL to your site. Do not put https or www in front of your domain. https://www.google.com/shopping/ratings/account/lookup?q=bhphotovideo.com.

There’s a country selector at the top which shows the number of Seller Reviews in a given country. Pick “United States”, or your country, to see the difference. Use this to see if Google is indexing your seller ratings.

Google seller ratings are part of Google Ads Automated Extensions. This extension is automatically enabled, but if for some strange reason you need to opt-out, you can. Go to Google Ads > Extensions > More (Advanced Options) > Turn off specific automated extensions > Select “Seller ratings”. Here’s a snapshot.

If you have a 3.5 average or below, we recommend temporarily opting out by turning off seller ratings, getting great ratings to offset the bad ones, then turning it back on.

Solutions

If you don’t see your seller ratings on your Google Ads, contact your 3rd-party review partner. Sometimes Google will update its requirements, but the seller rating company hasn’t gotten around to updating their own platform. All of the 29 companies that Google has a partnership with MUST submit an XML feed in order to get seller ratings into Google. Sometimes the XML feed may break. So don’t forget to contact your 3rd-party review partner. Also, remember that Google will not always show your ratings for every search query.

Tracking performance of seller ratings

Above, we mentioned that you use this URL to check the number of ratings: https://www.google.com/shopping/ratings/account/lookup?q=example.com

However, if you go to Google Ads > Extensions > Automated Extensions, then you can get to a report similar to the image below. This shows that the actual activity whenever seller ratings appear along with the ad. LOOK AT THAT CLICK-THROUGH RATE! Seller ratings really do make a difference.

Choosing a 3rd Party Review Partner

Let’s face it, there are many review sites out there. Maybe you even use one of them, but those reviews will not show star ratings in Google Ads or Google Shopping if it’s not approved by Google. As mentioned before, there are 29 companies that are approved by Google. These companies are in different countries and the languages range from English to Japanese. You can also see a list of them here.

When you start talking to these companies, they are always going to say that their product is better than the competition. It all comes down to you getting the stars on your Google Ads. Some will allow you to reach out to your past customers and ask them for reviews. Others will charge for that feature. For our clients, it was imperative that they asked past customers for reviews by sending a link to the review survey. It gave my clients a jump start on the review campaigns.

Some companies charge based on how many monthly orders you get or by how many email invites are sent (TrustPilot & Verified Reviews). Others only charge based on the number of reviews you get (I like this one most). And still, other companies (…Yotpo…) mash every feature together into the pricing, making it hard to tell what you’re really paying for.

Over the years, I have done research on many of the 29 Google-approved third-party review sites and found that some of them do contracts for 1 year. I would recommend going with one that is a monthly subscription, with no contract, can guarantee results or you get your money back.

Types of Companies That Should or Shouldn’t Use Seller Ratings

BEWARE – Read 1st before buying from a 3rd party review partner!

1) Do NOT pay for features you’ll never use. For instance, if you don’t need the “Loyalty & Referrals” program from Yotpo, don’t pay for it.
2) Always remember this: Google is the one who runs the Seller Ratings program on Google Ads. All the 3rd party review partners need to submit reviews in a pre-formatted Google Seller Ratings XML feed into Google Ads.

Your goal is simple: GET STARS ON GOOGLE ADS. Don’t get distracted with all the upsells these companies will use to make themselves look different & get more of your hard-earned money. They are nice features to have if you can afford them. All the companies have to use the same formatted XML feed (see sample feed) as required by Google.

If you need help picking a 3rd party review partner, contact us on live chat. I have worked with all these companies.

List of Best Google 3rd Party Review Partners (aka Seller Ratings Companies)

Shopper Approved Conclusion

Shopper Approved is based out of Ogden, Utah. I, Francisco, have been to their office. They are very humble people. Shopper Approved offers an unlimited number of reviews for a locked-in rate. Usually, these are for accounts that pay annually. They also have a “Pay As You Grow” plan, which charges for the number of reviews collected over the lifetime of the account, but it’s being phased out soon.

Try Shopper Approved completely risk-free for one (1) full year, and if they haven’t completely over-delivered on their promise to get you more reviews, more traffic, and more sales, they will gladly give you your money back in full for each promise they don’t deliver on, up to TRIPLE what you paid them – NO QUESTIONS ASKED! Why on Earth would Shopper Approved do this? Because Shopper Approved gets REAL results that you can see, guaranteed.

Shopper Approved Perks

---

#2 – Verified Reviews

---

#3 Yotpo

Yotpo Conclusion

Yotpo (weird name) is awesome and has a lot of features. These guys are here to stay. Take a careful look at their features and talk to the company before subscribing. The owner’s name is John-David Klausner and he’s a cool guy. Yotpo’s pricing starts at around $799. Guess what? Pricing is based on the features you want.

Read our Yopto Review here.

---

#4 Trustpilot

Trustpilot Conclusion

Trustpilot is AWESOME if you have a high-volume eCommerce website doing 10,000+ transactions per month. It’s built for medium to large-sized businesses. Many of their clients are in the USA and in the UK. If you want to try out TrustPilot for free and simply get ratings on your Google Ads, start by getting a one-on-one demo using our TrustPilot partner link.

---

#5 Feefo

Feefo Conclusion

We put Feefo on the list because they would hit all our requirements if we were an eCommerce site (just like the others). They have a LOT of other features (like SEO Audits, Social Sharing, SMS Feedback Requests, etc) which they bundle into the pricing. Feefo doesn’t have a structured price so make sure you’re not paying for stuff you don’t need (like SEO Audits).

---

#6 Google Customer Reviews

Google Customer Reviews Conclusion

While this option is ‘free’, you’ll need a programmer to handle the technical integration. Depending on the software your site is running on, this can cost $5,000-10,000 USD. If you have an in-house programmer, assign Google Customer Reviews as a project.

---

Quick Tip

If you’re using Google Ads, then Google Seller Ratings can definitely help increase sales. If you have no intention of using Google Ads, then you probably don’t need Google Seller Ratings. If your company has no intention of advertising on Google, but need local reviews, then you should look into something like Local Reviews.

Conclusion About Seller Rating Companies

Most people who are reading this blog post only need stars to show on their Google Ads. For small companies with a limited budget, I recommend that you get two demos; one with Shopper Approved and the other with Verified Reviews. Pricing is going to be based on your needs, but their starting prices are between $100-$200/mo. If you have a nice budget and can afford the bells and whistles, get a demo with Yotpo and one with TrustPilot.

I recommended Google Customer Reviews in last place because most likely you’ll be spending way more money by hiring an experienced programmer vs. signing up with any of the 6 companies I recommended. HOWEVER, as mentioned before, if you have a programmer already, you’re in luck. Google Customer Reviews is the way to go.

In addition to Seller Ratings, all 6 companies offer Product Ratings. We would recommend the above 6 companies in this order:

1. Shopper Approved
2. Verified Reviews
3. Yotpo
4. TrustPilot
5. Feefo
6. Google Customer Reviews (if you have an in-house programmer, then this is #1)

Here is the breakdown of all the Google-approved 3rd party review partners. I did the research for you so you don’t have to. You’ll notice a lot of them aren’t in English.

Google Review Partners (updated 12/22/2021)

Google Review Partner	Description
Ausgezeichnet.org	The site is in German and the company is located in Hamburg, Germany. Use this if your target audience speaks German.
Bazaarvoice	This is a shopper network. If you don’t sell through retail channels, don’t bother.
Bizrate Insights	Run by Connexity. This is a marketplace. Stars will be on Bizrate, Shopzilla, Pricegrabber, etc. Stars will not show on your own domain, it’ll show on your shop within Bizrate.
eKomi	Awesome company based out of UK and Los Angeles, California. If you want a demo, go here. Ask for a demo from Michael (the owner) and tell him Francisco from Planet Marketing sent you)
E-Komerco	The site is in French. Use only if you’re targeting French speakers. Located in Lille, France.
Feedaty	Italian Website. Now called Zoorate.com
Feedback Company	While the site is site is in English, it’s a Dutch company based out of Netherlands
Feefo	Based in Boston, Massachusetts. We wrote a blog post here: https://planetmarketing.com/blog/feefo-review-importance-reviews-international-level/
Hardware.info	This is in Netherlands. There’s an English site, but it looks like a comparison shopping engine specializing in computer hardware. Don’t bother with this site if you’re marketing your own business
Heureka.cz	Based in Liberec, Czech Republic. Looks like some Comparison Shopping Site
KiyOh	NL, UK, Germany, Belgium. Consider them if your target audience is based in Western Europe.
Klantenvertellen	Site is in Dutch. Consider if you are targeting buyers in Netherlands
kuchikomiking.jp	Japanese site. Skip this site. It looks scary!
Poulpeo	Site is in French. Use only if your target audience are strictly French speakers.
PowerReviews	Based in Chicago, IL, USA. We wrote a blog post about these guys here: https://planetmarketing.com/blog/yotpo-vs-powerreviews-pricing-2-alternatives/
ProductReview.com.au	(Based out of Sydney, Australia. Consider them if you target AUS or New Zealand)
Reputation.com	Based in Redwood City, California, USA
ResellerRatings	I don’t recommend these guys at all. They were the 1st on the scene years ago, but bad customer service and variable pricing. You don’t know your bill the next month
Reviews.io	Good company based in UK. Call Callum, the owner, or Kehan Vale who lives in Irvine
Reevoo	Based in London, UK. These guys are new to the scene
Shopper Approved	Based in USA! They have a location in Utah and Florida. Planet Marketing uses Shopper Approved. Check out what the system looks like: https://www.shopperapproved.com/reviews/planetmarketing.com/
ShopVote.de	German language
ShopAuskunft	Based in Germany. Use if your target market are German speakers
Sitejabber	Google added Sitejabber Feb 2019. This company has been around since 2008! They have over 2.5 million unique visitors per month.
Trusted Shops	Based in Europe. They started in Spain and now in UK
TrustPilot	Trustpilot is one of the recommended companies. Check out their info above
Verified Reviews	(Get a demo by a lady named Maud. She’s awesome. A French company, but has offices in Florida, Massachusetts, Spain, France, Germany, and Brazil. Maud is in France and you’ll quickly notice her French accent.)
Yopi.de	German site. Looks like a comparison shopping engine or market place
Yotpo	Great company. Starts at $400+ per month. See the info above. We recommend this company! Heavily capitalized though through private funding. Israeli company with offices in London and USA. They are credible and expensive.

Want to learn about the other types of Google Ratings?