If your company or brand is serious about online marketing then you will be well aware that the way you are perceived by your potential customers can have a massive impact on your conversion rates. Google have just announced the introduction of consumer ratings in AdWords. These allow up to three ratings to be shown below the text of your AdWords ad.

The ratings are generated from Google Consumer Surveys.  These surveys can be found on a variety of news and entertainment websites and by taking a survey the user is allowed access to premium content without paying. These ratings are then agglomerated to produce results that can then be used as an extension to your AdWords ad.

I know from my own experience that often when searching for a product or service online I will pay a lot of attention to online reviews of that product or service before making a decision. The problem with many reviews is that you do not know if they are genuine or have been generated artificially to enhance a company’s reputation. With Google Consumer Surveys you can be pretty sure that the results are authentic.

By adding Consumer Ratings to a Google AdWords ad you are able to tell potential customers that you really are fabulous at what you do. Imagine a scenario where you are searching on Google and at the top of the results page there are the standard three paid for ads before you get to the organic results. All three ads have been well crafted, all contain a call to action and sell the product or service in an effective manner but that only one of the ads includes consumer ratings and they show that the company in question has a 9.5/10 rating for customer service. Suddenly that company stands out from the competition and is likely to generate more clicks.

The ratings are based on a minimum of 100 surveys and more often are based on at least 1000 surveys and this does tend to mean that the surveys do favour larger brands who have a wider customer base.

I can see that including consumer ratings would be beneficial not just for advertisers but also for Google. By incorporating these ratings in ads and not organic results Google’s hope will be that more people will click on sponsored ads rather than organic results. When it comes to ads on Google people generally fall into two camps, those that click on them and those that don’t. I often hear two different arguments about ads, one states that they don’t trust an ad and prefer the organic results and the other, less popular argument, is that if a company is prepared to invest their own money in appearing on Google then they must be serious about what they are doing. Consumer ratings will help to address the concerns of those that are hesitant about clicking on ads by helping to establish the advertiser’s reputation.

At this stage Consumer Ratings are available in the UK, US and Canada. If you think that including consumer ratings would be beneficial and are interested in adding them to your AdWords campaigns then Google have a form that they would like you to complete.