You may already be familiar with Google’s Consumer Surveys. If you’ve been wondering what Google intends to do with the information it’s collecting from users about brands and their websites, we learned that one way Google is leveraging that data is through consumer rating annotations on Google AdWords.
“Consumer ratings annotations highlight industry-specific ratings based on consumer surveys. Up to three of your best ratings show below the text of your search ads, along with a link to more ratings. These annotations—which need no setup—help drive website traffic with the power of consumer opinion,” AdWords said in its help files.
AdWords said it runs surveys through Google Consumer Surveys where “at least hundreds, and in most cases, over a thousand people are surveyed for each business,” and that respondents self-identify as customers.
“The surveys AdWords runs begin by finding out if respondents are customers of a particular business, using a question like ‘What airline have you flown with recently?’ or ‘Which mobile service provider do you use?’ Then, the surveys ask about experience with that business.”
AdWords said it only shows “your business’s highest survey ratings, emphasizing the areas where your customers notice you’re doing a great job,” and that data gleaned from Google’s Consumer Surveys represents a more objective picture of a business because “people respond to Google Consumer Surveys in order to access web content that they’re interested in reading (on online news, reference, and entertainment sites), or to earn Google Play credit through an Android app. This means that you get feedback from a wide array of customers, rather than seeing disproportionate responses from people who are disgruntled (or thrilled).”
With consumer rating annotations, when people click on an ad’s rating, they can drill down into a more detailed view of rating scores.
Clicks on ratings and clicks on a business’s homepage from the survey details window are free, and aren’t reported in performance statistics, said AdWords.
The advertising platform also said the scoring system “is the same for every advertiser, regardless of the advertiser’s spending on AdWords or elsewhere on Google.”
Consumer ratings are specific to the country the ads are being shown in. “For example, people searching on google.co.uk will see ads with consumer ratings from U.K. brands only. Also, consumer ratings are available in English only, so people searching in other languages won’t see consumer ratings,” said AdWords.
Right now, there isn’t any setup needed, meaning this can start showing in your ads at any time. For more information or to opt in or out, check out this information from AdWords:
- No setup needed: Consumer ratings are available for several hundred businesses in the U.S., U.K., and Canada, from surveys run by the AdWords team on the Google Consumer Surveys platform. If AdWords has ratings for your business, and predicts that showing ratings will be beneficial to your campaign, ratings show without any setup on your part.
- If you need to opt out: When consumer ratings show, it’s likely that you’ll see a higher clickthrough rate. If you need to opt out of using consumer rating annotations, contact us.
- Tell us you’re interested: You can submit a request if you’d like to show survey scores for your company. If survey scores aren’t yet available for you, you can still highlight glowing reviews by adding review extensions.