Google launches product ratings in PLAs in UK, France, and Germany PowerReviews approved aggregator for product ratings on Google in new markets at launch Partnership will help merchants drive more qualified traffic
PowerReviews, a leading provider of ratings, reviews and question and answer technology, has been approved by Google as a partner for product ratings on Product Listing Ads, as the product ratings officially launch in select European markets today (26th March). This launch further builds on PowerReviews’ existing partnership and collaboration with Google.
The product ratings featured by Google, have now launched in the UK, Germany and France after debuting in the United States in September 2014. Product ratings appear in the form of stars, and review counts on Product Listing Ads across google.com, Google Shopping and their respective country sites, and can improve web traffic and boost sales.
This five star rating system represents aggregated rating and review data for specific products, compiled from multiple sources including merchants, third-party aggregators, editorial sites and users.
As a Google Shopping partner for product ratings, PowerReviews can share its product review content with Google so that it is included in Product Listing Ads. This means it can provide a direct syndication feed of trusted reviews to Google on behalf of its e-commerce clients.
The partnership is a boon for PowerReviews’ customers in Europe as incorporating review data into the product ratings program gives consumers valuable information at that crucial online decision-making moment and enables retailers to be more visible to shoppers at the ‘zero moment of truth.’
CEO of PowerReviews, Matt Moog said:
“Being selected as a Google Shopping partner for product ratings is evidence of our leadership and commitment to innovation and consumer engagement.”
He added: “Ratings and reviews help shoppers make more informed purchase decisions and help retailers increase conversion rates and drive more traffic. It can also have a positive impact for retailers looking to acquire more customers through SEO or natural search as it essentially makes products and retailers more visible in Google to the hundreds of millions of shoppers browsing every month.”
Google’s product ratings is a five star rating system that represents aggregated rating and review data for the product, compiled from multiple sources including merchants, approved third-party aggregators, editorial sites and users.
Product reviews:
- Help to differentiate products across google.com and google.com/shopping
- Help merchants to drive more qualified traffic
- Provide critical information to shoppers making purchase decisions
Notes to Editors:
For more information please contact Sharon@brandcontent.com or Louisa@wearecampbellbrown.com. In the US, contact Meghan.Spork@walkersands.com.
About PowerReviews:
PowerReviews delivers software that more than 1,000 brands and retailers use to collect, display, and syndicate reviews on more than 5,000 websites. An essential resource for consumers as they search and shop online and in-store, reviews drive traffic, increase sales, and create actionable insights to improve products and services. With a syndication network that reaches more than 500 million in-market shoppers each month, PowerReviews makes it easy to delivers more reviews to more consumers.
Learn How Customized Reviews Support your Brand Identity
“If this business were split up, I would give you the land and bricks and mortar, and I would take the brands and trademarks, and I would fare better than you.”
– John Stuart, former CEO of Quaker Oats
Brands have quantifiable value. Three decades ago as much as 95% of the average corporation’s value consisted of tangible assets, according to a report by Thomson Reuters and Interbrand highlighted by Forbes. By 2010, the same study found that 75% of an average corporation’s value is intangible.
A Brand’s Market Value is Tied Directly to Its Reputation
More recently, Deloitte published findings by the World Economic Forum that more than 25 percent of a company’s market value is directly attributable to its reputation. Forbes Insights 2013 Global Executive Survey on Strategic Risk found that reputation damage was the number one risk concern for business executives around the world.
Visual Identity: Recognition, Emotions, and Premium Pricing
A brand with a strong visual identity allows consumers to immediately recognize the brand and respond emotionally based on previous interactions with the brand, either personally or through advertising and other media. The Quaker Oats Man, the Nike swoosh, McDonald’s arches, and Disney’s mouse ears all bring immediate recognition and personal memories which allows their owners to charge a premium for their products and services.
Ratings and Reviews Support your Visual Identity
PowerReviews recognizes that in today’s e-commerce world, visual brand identity plays a critical role in establishing a company image and building customer loyalty. Customized ratings and reviews can easily and effectively support your brand and effectively engaging your consumers.
The PowerReviews platform powers ratings and reviews and Q&A solutions that are easy to implement and most importantly, customize. PowerReviews allows customers to use industry-standard CSS to customize ratings and reviews across mobile, desktop, and tablet.
Here are a couple of examples of how PowerReviews’ industry-standard CSS provides your consumers the flexibility to customize their ratings and reviews.
Custom Review Display
Customizable templates allow the application of a simple treatment that matches the company’s brand, while retaining the readability of review content.And because PowerReviews uses CSS for customization, your user experience is consistent mobile/tablet and desktop.
Custom Star Ratings
While many brands are happy to use actual stars, some may want to use anchors, buttons, tea leaves or coffee cups. PowerReviews allows you to customize not only the color of the star but also the shape of the “star” to any graphic that will support your brand.
Hey Jim, show me more!
Want to see more? You can watch our on-demand webinar recording featuring CTO Jim Morris to see more examples of customized Ratings and Reviews. Or contact us and we’ll show you.
Using Consumer Photos to Boost Sales and Conversions
User-generated photos are among the most authentic and compelling brand assets available today—and thanks to the mass adoption of smartphones and the explosive growth of Instagram and other photo-sharing platforms, they’re also ubiquitous. Nearly one trillion photos were taken in 2014, or 25% of all the pictures snapped in the first 170 years of the medium’s existence. Presently, Instagram’s 300 million active users post 70 million photos per day, and 350 million photos are uploaded daily to Facebook.
While this so-called “selfie revolution” presents an unprecedented opportunity to leverage visual user-generated content (UGC) to drive sales and build invaluable brand equity, most brands are just beginning to explore how best to tap into its incredible potential. Following is a quick overview of how visual commerce is changing the way we shop, and some best practices for using UGC photos for optimal results.
Shoppers use and trust customer photos
How much trust do shoppers place in visual UGC? In short: a lot—and it’s growing every day. In fact, 63% of U.S. consumers trust customer photos more than brand or retailer photos, while 54% have postponed or decided against a purchase due to unhelpful product photos.
UGC photos convert browsers into buyers
Visual UGC drives measurable results. On average, Olapic clients see a 4.6% conversion rate when customer photos are displayed on a product detail page, which jumps to 9.6% when visitors interact with these photos (nine per visit on average)—meaning interaction nearly doubles conversion.
Photo placement makes a difference
How customer photos are displayed on product pages and within galleries matters. Recent Olapic tests indicate that aligning customer photos with product photos and displaying customer photos above text reviews and related items lead to higher conversion rates.
Mix UGC and high-quality product photos for best results
When it comes making UGC “shoppable,” it’s all about the mix. Seamlessly complementing the authenticity of customer photos with the crispness and consistency of high-quality studio shots maximizes the interplay between earned and owned content, inspiring shoppers to buy.
Promote visual UGC with compelling calls to action
Prominent, on-brand calls to action shine a spotlight on customer photos. Place them on your most-visited pages and at key points throughout the customer journey—such as social posts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), TV commercials, packaging inserts, email, and even billboards—to drive engagement.
Savvy brands are leveraging UGC to boost their bottoms lines
The list of brands capitalizing on the power of visual UGC in innovative ways gets longer literally every day. For example, when Olapic client New Balance launched a UGC campaign to celebrate a new collaboration with Heidi Klum, it collected over 6,000 Instagram shots tagged #HKNB and linked them directly to products, resulting in a whopping 39% conversion rate increase.
Top brands like Anthropologie, Calvin Klein, Guess, Hard Rock, Lancome, West Elm, Unilever, and Ulta now populate product pages with customer photos—and are reaping the rewards.
About the Author
Olapic is the leading visual marketing platform that empowers brands across multiple verticals such as apparel, beauty, CPG, luxury and travel to leverage consumer-generated photo and video content to drive sales and increase customer engagement. Prior to joining Olapic in January 2013, Daniel was a senior account executive at Lotame, where he worked closely with online publishers, advertising agencies and direct brands. He double-majored in Chinese and Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Growing customer base, key additions to staff and plans for international expansion prepare leading ratings and reviews provider for continued success in 2015.
Mar. 2, 2015 – CHICAGO – PowerReviews, the leading provider of ratings, reviews and question-and-answer technology to more than 1,000 brands and retailers, announced today record growth marked by new customer wins, key additions to the company’s board of directors and staff, along with plans for international expansion in 2015.
Significant Customer Wins
PowerReviews has experienced explosive customer growth, with more than 50 new enterprise client wins over the past six months. As one of the largest providers of ratings and reviews technology. PowerReviews serves more than 50 customers with more than $1 billion in revenue, including leading retailers such as Toys “R” Us, Sports Authority, Dillard’s and Staples, and leading brands such as Keurig, Crocs, Vans, Steelcase and GoPro. The company was recently recognized as a top service provider to the Internet Retailer 500, working closely with more than 80 of the list’s top retailers whose combined revenues exceed $27 billion annually.
“The world’s largest brands and retailers are choosing PowerReviews not only because ratings and reviews have the proven ability to increase sales, drive traffic and provide actionable insights, but our clients also see tremendous value in PowerReviews’ unique ability to offer superior customization, better service and a lower cost of ownership,” said Matt Moog, CEO of PowerReviews. “Through our large syndication network, we’re able to reach more than 500 million shoppers across more than 5,000 e-commerce websites at the moment of truth – when the shopper is evaluating which product and brand to choose.”
International Expansion and Product Enhancements
As its international customer base continues to grow across more than 20 countries, PowerReviews will continue its expansion in Europe. A new London office, which opened in January, will bring PowerReviews even closer to a growing roster of international clients. Anne Marie Olsen, Vice President of EMEA, will lead the new office.
In tandem with its plans for international growth, PowerReviews is expanding language capabilities within the platform, which supports moderation in more than 20 languages. Shoppers can toggle between multiple languages when reading reviews, and the client-facing dashboard can be localized and new languages can easily be added as needed.
Growth of World Class Team and New Board Members
To support the company’s growth, PowerReviews has more than doubled headcount across its Chicago and San Francisco offices over the past six months. This expansion includes strategic additions to the PowerReviews leadership team with appointments in sales, marketing, human resources, finance and legal.
“We’ve been committed to building a strong foundation of talented professionals, and I’m exceptionally proud of the team we’ve established,” said Moog. “Our progress thus far is a testament to the strength and leadership of our executive team.”
Additionally, PowerReviews appointed Bud Rosenthal and Dev Mukherjee to its board of directors. With a background in software and digital media, Rosenthal currently serves as CEO of the Membership and Paid Services Group at AOL and formerly as a Vice President at Yahoo. Dev Mukherjee, former CEO of Evite, Celebrate Interactive Holdings and BuySeasons, brings expertise advising e-commerce, retail and high-tech companies, including IBM, Liberty Media and Microsoft.
To learn more about PowerReviews and its technology, visit www.powerreviews.com.
About PowerReviews
PowerReviews delivers software that more than 1,000 brands and retailers use to collect, display, and syndicate reviews on more than 5,000 websites. An essential resource for consumers as they search and shop online and in-store, reviews drive traffic, increase sales, and create actionable insights to improve products and services. With a syndication network that reaches more than 500 million in-market shoppers each month, PowerReviews delivers more reviews to more consumers. And we make it easier than anyone else. For more information, visit www.powerreviews.com.
For additional information:
Andrew Cross
Walker Sands Communications
312-235-6982
andrew.cross@walkersands.com
It was 1995. It was a time when people were washing their clothes on rocks, using chickens as barter to purchase goods, and written communication was as easy as strapping a note to a pigeon. Or was it? Maybe 1995 wasn’t so long ago. Maybe less has changed in that 20 years than we thought.
HBR 1995: Psychology, Buyer Behavior, and the Evolving Ways We Learn and Engage
I was reading a couple of Harvard Business Reviews from 20 years ago…as I’m a bit of a geek about psychology, buyer behavior, consumer engagement and the reality of the rapidly evolving way we learn and engage. Two issues in 1995…one in March of 1995 with an article titled, “Do You Want to Keep Your Customers Forever?”, and another in July of 1995 with an article titled, “Real Time Marketing” really stuck out. Here are a few interesting quotes:
- “Today, consumers can get better information—information that is unbiased, comparative, accurate, and immediate—through on-line services, CD-ROM catalogs, and fax-response systems, and eventually they will be able to obtain it through interactive TV.”
- “As the continuing boom in catalog and home-TV shopping attests, consumers and organizations can buy goods and services over the phone and through dedicated on-line services as easily as, if not more easily than, in person, and security measures will almost certainly be in place soon that will make it possible to purchase products through the Internet.”
- “For retailers, the message is clear: if they want to maintain or increase their competitive advantage, they must begin establishing learning relationships with their best customers today.”
Yesterday’s eCommerce
What was “better information” back then? Marketers were dealing with an exploding set of options with which to spend their budget dollar, get their message out, and engage their consumers…in 1995. Buying goods and services from catalogs, over the phone, and through home-TV shopping was yesterday’s eCommerce. Information availability was exploding, even if it included avenues like fax-response and CD-ROM. But the advice was almost exactly the same as it is now…focus on establishing learning relationships with the consumer. Your consumers are talking about you…be a part of the conversation.
Four Strategies for Establishing Learning Relationships with the Consumer
How do you do that? The same article outlined four required strategies…that haven’t changed much in those 20 years:
- Establish an information strategy for initiating dialogues with customers and remembering their preferences
- Establish a production/delivery strategy for fulfilling what the company learns about individual customers
- Establish an organizational strategy for managing both customers and capabilities
- Establish an assessment strategy for evaluating performance
“The power of the new media lies in their ability to draw the individual customer into a conversation with the company.” Yes…this was the message 20 years ago, and it fundamentally hasn’t changed. While fax-response and CD-ROM catalogs have gone the way of washing your clothes on rocks, the question for all of us is…are we there yet?
