How to Set Up Google Customer Reviews for Your Ecommerce Shopify Store

According to statistics, 72 percent of customers read reviews before purchasing a product. If you want customers to trust your brand and store, then you need to set up a Google Shopping product reviews feed to start collecting reviews from you customers. 

Have I also mentioned that  customer reviews in Google are also great for your Google Shopping ads? Why? Because it’s like a SIGNBOARD to customers showing how awesome your store is! With customer reviews on your Shopify website, you’ll be getting more eyeballs on your store and build a great reputation in the process.

But before anything else let us go back to the basics by defining Google Customer reviews. If you don’t know how to set up Google customer reviews in Google Merchant Center, don’t worry! I got you! In this article, I will show you the step-by-step process and full tutorial of setting up Google Shopping reviews on your Shopify store. 

What are Google Customer Reviews?

Google is a delight to every eCommerce business owner because it offers a handful of the best free programs to Google merchants. And one of those free goodies is Google Customer Reviews—a great tool that all online business owners should take advantage of. 

Customer feedback is essential for eCommerce business to grow and pivot and with Google customer reviews, eCommerce store owners like you can collect feedback from your customers and add them to your products and Shopify website.

First impressions always last and you want to apply that rule in your eCommerce store. The more reviews and stars you have on your Google Shopping ads and Shopify website, the better you will look to your target customers. Therefore, knowing how to set up Google Shopping reviews can make a huge difference for your business.

Two Types of Reviews in Google AdWords

There are two types of reviews in Google Adwords: Google Search Reviews and Google Shopping Reviews. In this article, we will be focusing on the latter but allow me to differentiate the two for you.

Google Search Reviews

When someone searches for your products in Google using a keyword you hopefully bid on, their search will trigger your search ad to appear in the “ad sponsored” section of the search results page. 

This is what a Google Search ad looks like. The red arrow shows the review and rating for this particular product.

If you have created a high-quality ad, added a compelling ad text, showcased product ratings, then your potential buyer will surely click your ad, visit your site, and hopefully make a purchase.

Google Shopping Reviews

Unlike search ads that focus more on keywords, Google Shopping Ads use existing product data in your Google Merchant Center account to let Google decide when and where to show your ads. While search ads are pure text, Google Shopping Ads allow you to add product images that will entice more customers to click and buy.

Look how great those customer review stars look in this ad. This tells you that people who have previously purchased from your store loved your product so much that they gave you 5-star reviews.

Google Customer Review Features

Google Customer Reviews have 5 main features: opt-in, survey, review badge, product ratings and seller ratings.

Google Customer Reviews Opt-In

The Opt-in feature is an offer that customers get right after checkout. Users who decides to opt in will receive an email from Google Customer Reviews, asking them to rate their buying experience with your store.

Google Customer Reviews Survey

If the customer clicks “YES, SEND ME THE SURVEY” button above, they will receive a survey that consists of questions that Google asks customers to rate your store according to their buying experience.

This is the email and the “standard” survey that your customer will receive.

Google Customer Reviews Badge

Who doesn’t want shining badges? If you enable the Reviews Badge in Google AdWords, users will easily identify your site with the Google brand. A seller rating score of 1 to 5 stars will also be displayed on your store ads. The reviews badge helps you to easily tell you customers that you really mean business. It basically adds to your store’s awesomeness. But another cool thing about the Reviews badge is that can be linked or placed to any page on your store. How cool is that?

Product Ratings

Product ratings are similar with the seller ratings the only difference is that its intended for your products. How’s the quality of your product? How was the product being shipped? Product ratings helps your customers determine which products to buy basing from the star ratings that they have which is 1 to 5.

So there will be features that you have probably enabled  and usually pop ups will appear before a user to give them an option to participate in the Google customers review survey.

The pop ups usually look like this to the users or shoppers. “No, Thanks” button or the “Yes, send me the survey.” which is very common for a popup.

If the user  clicks YES and chooses to participate in the survey then Google will email them a survey right after their order has arrived. 

The collected review ratings  that you have gained are then displayed on your Google Customer Reviews badge, Search Ads, and in Google Shopping. Search ads like the Google product listing ads or Google PLAs.

Seller Ratings

The seller ratings of your store depends on the customer reviews that you have. Google Merchant Center will use those customer reviews to aggregate scores that will appear on both Google Shopping and Search ads along with the Google Customer Review Badges.

Where Do Google AdWords Reviews Appear?

If you’re wondering where the heck Google Ads Review appears you can check these top three places to find them.

1. Google Review Badge
2. Merchant Center Dashboard
3. Google Seller Ratings On Google Text and Shopping Ads

Requirements to Enable Google Shopping Reviews

Hold your horses! You can’t just get review stars in an instant because Google is highly organized and strict on their rules and every Shopify store owner and digital marketer knows that. There are criteria or requirements that you will need when  joining the Google Customer Reviews features.

1.  You have to check if your country is eligible for Google Customer Reviews.
2. You will need At least 50 product reviews across your store
3. Then sign up in the merchant center and get approved for the feature

And last but not the least, You need to have a Product reviews feed Google accepts. Google may be strict but all for the right reasons of high-quality content and ads.

How to Enable Google Product Reviews?

Step 1: In your Google Merchant Center dashboard, go to Growth then click Manage programs, you’ll see other various programs on that part.

Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of the page then click Product Ratings. You will be directed to the Product Ratings Interest Form. Fill out this form. 

Step 3: Go to your website and check how many reviews your site has, check the name, merchant ID and other details that are in the form then click submit once you’re done.

Step 4: All you have to do is wait after submitting your form. Sometimes it takes one to three days before it gets reviewed  by Google.

Step 5: Once you’re reviewed you’ll be seeing a section in your Google Merchant Account  to see your ratings.

Google Customer Reviews: Free Way to Get Customer Reviews for Shopify

The first method to collect Google Shopping reviews is to use Google's review collection program: Google Customer Reviews in Google Merchant Center.

Step 1: In the Google Merchant Center dashboard, go to Growth then Manage Program. Then, scroll down until you find Customer Reviews. Click Enable.

Step 2: Read the Agreement. Click “I have read and agree to this agreement.” Then click SAVE & CONTINUE.

Step 3: Copy the code below and change the Merchant ID with your own Merchant Center ID. You also need to change the “estimated delivery date” where you can add a delay so you give enough time for your customers to receive the products they have purchased from your store.

{% if first_time_accessed %}
<!– BEGIN Google Customer Reviews –>
<script src=”https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js?onload=renderOptIn” async defer></script>
<script>
  window.renderOptIn = function() {
    window.gapi.load(‘surveyoptin', function() {
      window.gapi.surveyoptin.render(
        {
          “merchant_id”: 108768828,
          “order_id”: “{{ order.name }}”,
          “email”: “{{ order.email }}”,
          “delivery_country”: “{{ shipping_address.country_code }}”,
          “estimated_delivery_date”: “{{ order.created_at | date:'%s' | plus:259200 | date:'%F' }}”
        });
    });
  }
  window.___gcfg = {
  lang: ‘{{ shop_locale.iso_code }}'
};
</script>
<!– END Google Customer Reviews –>
{% endif %}

Step 4: When you have edited the script with your Merchant ID and replaced the estimated delivery date, navigate to your Shopify dashboard then go to Setting > Checkout. Scroll all the way down until you find Additional Scripts. Paste the script here then click SAVE.

Step 5: Test if the script works for your Shopify store. Just copy this link and open it in your browser. 

https://www.google.com/shopping/ratings/account/lookup?q=simsdirect.com.au

The Upside

1. It's 100% FREE. You can choose this method whenever you have a strain budget or if you are looking for ways to cut costs.
2. Easy to Set Up. One of its appealing feature is that it’s free and easy to setup. I’m sure eCommerce store owners like you are busy juggling many things in your store. And you want to work efficiently and easily get things done. If that’s the case then this method  is great for you!

The Downside

1. You can't import past reviews. Of course, the free program has some limitations and that include not being able to import past reviews that you worked so had to get from your past customers.
2. It only requests reviews from opt-in customers. When someone purchases and go to your “Thank You” page, there is going to be a pop up that will ask customers if they want to leave a feedback. With the free program, only the people that clicked YES will receive a request to leave a review.

This means that the number of reviews you will get is going to be less than the reviews you can get if you could send requests to every single customer who purchases from your store.

3. Worse customer experience. This method directly affects the buying experience of your customers. For example, the email they receive when they choose to opt-in is not branded. It's a standard Google email where they simply ask customers to rate their experience.

That is the free method to setting up Google Shopping Reviews for your Ecommerce store.  You can also watch the full video tutorial here.