You know that giddy feeling you get when your business wins an award or receives an accolade? I don’t know about you but I want to climb to the top of a mountain and announce all of that positive press to the world. But in my case, that mountaintop is Google, and Review Extensions are my megaphone.
Released in 2013, Review Extensions show with your ad and feature either an exact quote or paraphrased quote from a credible, third-party source. Think about how awesome it is to have your ad, your business, associated with a reputable source that’s writing good things about your company. For this reason, review extensions are certainly worth considering using should you have the opportunity to do so.
More importantly, using ad extensions of any type creates the opportunity for more real estate on the SERP’s, which can help increase traffic, and ultimately lead to more conversions. Like other extensions, Google has reported that review extensions can boost ad CTR by up to 10%. From my personal experience, I’ve seen account CTR increase from 2.98% to 3.30% in the 30 days since implementing account-wide Review Extensions vs. the 30 days prior to not having them active.
Review Extensions must click through to the third-party source. As such, you’re not charged for clicks on the extension itself, only when someone clicks on your ad. Listed below are a few other major items to remember when creating review extensions below. In simplified terms: Avoid using “...a Masterpiece” as your Review Extension when the source actually called it “Not Even Close To a Masterpiece.”
- Relevancy: Use a review that’s less than a year old
- Accuracy: Use the review directly from the source and don’t change the review; if you’re paraphrasing a quote, be sure to include ellipses where applicable
- Credibility: Don’t use individual customer reviews and testimonials, paid endorsements, or content from press releases that were created by the advertiser
- Visibility: Ensure the source website is accessible to the public and that no sign-in is required to see the review
Keep in mind that Google manually reviews Review Extensions. We’ve noticed in a few cases that paraphrased quotes were easier to get approved vs. exact quotes. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for two major reasons:
- While an exact quote may be preferable to use in certain cases, going the paraphrased route allows you, the advertiser, to be a little more flexible with what you want the Review Extension to read. It doesn’t need to be a word-for-word quote pulled from the source.
- In either situation, the source always shows with the quote so the credibility remains even if you use use paraphrased content.
Pro Tip: If Google disapproves your Review Extensions, refer to the Policy Details column in the AdWords dashboard (shown below) to see the reason for the disapproval and make adjustments. If Google disapproves an exact quote, re-submit it as a paraphrased quote and see if it gets approved that way.
Have you experienced anything notable with Review Extensions?
