Do Google reviews impact PPC? Yes, Google reviews impact PPC by increasing click-through rate, raising Quality Score, lowering cost per click, and getting better ad positions.
Google reviews impact pay per click (PPC) advertising in the following ways:
- Increase click-through rate (CTR)
- Raise Quality Score
- Lower cost per click (CPC)
- Get better ad position
- Minimize cost of acquiring customers
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Increase click-through rate (CTR)
Google reviews impact PPC ads by increasing each ad’s CTR.
You can get your Google reviews to display in your Google Ads by getting Google’s seller ratings ad extension. To get the extension, you need 100 or more reviews within the past 12 months in the same country, and an average star rating of 3.5 stars or better.
After Google review star ratings appear in ads, the ads’ CTR rises.
That’s because the stars themselves attract attention, so more people look at the ad, and then the positive star rating gives them enough confidence in your business to click on the ad.
Raise Quality Score
Google reviews impact PPC ads by raising each ad’s Quality Score.
Google Ads uses a metric called Quality Score to determine which ads to show and which not to show. Simply put, the Quality Score is a score from 1 to 10 that measures how well an ad satisfies the need that searchers have when they search on a particular search term. An ad that is exactly what the searcher is looking for may have a Quality Score of 10, while an ad that is highly unrelated to what the searcher is searching for may have a Quality Score of 1.
An ad with a high Quality Score pays a lower cost per click, wins better ad placements, and gets shown to searchers much more often. Keep reading below for more on this.
And the #1 factor that determines an ad’s Quality Score is CTR.
As we covered in the last section, Google reviews boost CTR by attracting attention and giving searchers confidence that clicking the ad will lead to the solution the searcher is looking for.
So when Google reviews appear in PPC ads, the reviews increase CTR and then contribute to raising Quality Score.
Lower cost per click (CPC)
Google reviews impact PPC ads by lowering CPC.
When a Google Ads PPC ad shows reviews in the ad itself, increasing the ad’s CTR and Quality Score, Google is willing to show the ad at a lower CPC than other competing ads.
Yes, you read that right. Your ad can actually bid less money than a competitor’s ad and win the ad placement, even though the competitor is willing to pay more for the same ad placement.
How can that be true? Why would Google be willing to show an ad that bids less over an ad that bids more?
Simple: Google gets paid when someone clicks the ad. So if an ad has a higher chance of getting clicked, it’s worth more in revenue to Google than an ad that’s less likely to get clicked.
Let’s take an example.
Let’s say you have an ad with a CTR of 1.0% and your competitor’s ad has a CTR of 0.5%. And let’s say you’re willing to pay $1.00 per click, while your competitor is willing to pay $1.50 per click.
If Google shows your ad 1,000 times, Google can expect to make $10 (1,000 impressions x 1.0% that get clicks x $1.00 per click).
If Google shows your competitor’s ad 1,000 times, Google can expect to make only $7.50 (1,000 impressions x 0.5% that get clicks x $1.50 per click).
So why would Google give impressions to your competitor rather than you when Google knows it can make more from your ad, since your ad is more likely to get clicks… even if each of those clicks earn Google less?
Get better ad position
Google reviews impact PPC ads by winning better ad positions.
As we mentioned in the last section, a higher CTR and Quality Score let your PPC ads win against your competitors who have lower CTRs and lower Quality Scores, even when your ads bid at a lower CPC.
This also means that your ads can win better ad positions, since Google uses CTR and Quality Score to decide which ads get the most prominent placement at the top of search results vs. at the bottom.
The same math that applies to lowering CPC also applies to ad placement. Why would Google want to show an ad that’s unlikely to get clicked at the top of its list of ads when it could show one that’s much more likely to get clicked?
Minimize cost of acquiring customers
Google reviews impact PPC ads by minimizing the cost of customer acquisition.
We’ve shown how showing reviews in Google Ads leads to higher CTR and Quality Score, and therefore lower CPC and better ad placement.
The net effect of all of this is that your customer acquisition cost falls.
When you get more new customers from more click-throughs, but at a lower CPC, that means that the average amount you spend on PPC to acquire each new customer goes down. And lower customer acquisition cost means higher profit margins.
Google reviews are important for both organic search ranking and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Google uses reviews as a signal of quality, which means that businesses with more positive reviews tend to have higher organic search rankings and may also pay less per click for their PPC ads. Try Rising Star Review’s Google review management tool and improve your ranking in organic and also in PPC.
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