Google Introduces Product Ratings to Shopping Campaigns

Max Braglia - August 6, 2014

Early last week, Google rolled out “product ratings” on shopping campaigns. This new ad extension will help shoppers find product reviews right at that critical moment when they’re making a purchase decision.

Product ratings, currently available in the U.S. only, will appear in the form of stars and review counts on shopping campaigns across google.com and google.com/shopping. According to Google, “this 5-star rating system represents aggregated rating and review data for the product, compiled from multiple sources including merchants, third party aggregators, editorial sites and users.”

Google confirmed that in initial tests, product ratings helped increase click-through-rates of shopping campaigns significantly. Keep in mind, however, that just because a product has reviews, Google does not guarantee that the ratings will be shown every time the ad runs.

In order for their product review data to appear in Shopping campaigns, merchants targeting the United States have until October to share their review data with Google by submitting this form:  (https://services.google.com/fb/forms/productreviews/).

Between now and October, Google will allow ratings to show on any shopping campaign ads where product reviews are available. After the grace period, product ratings will be shown only for those merchants who choose to share their reviews with Google.

Google plans to open product ratings on Shopping campaigns to countries outside of the United States in the coming months.