Over 93% of consumers take online reviews into account when making a purchasing decision. And 60% of consumers look at online reviews every single week.
That means that reviews, whether they are positive or negative, have a big impact on a business’s sales.
That’s why brands are recommended to regularly seek out reviews from their customer base. And consumers are increasingly contacted to leave ratings, reviews, and feedback on their recent purchases.
We recommend that you use these product ratings and reviews in your email marketing campaigns to boost engagement and results!
But with so many review sites now available, it’s almost impossible for a business to have a presence on every single one. Instead, they should focus on one or two review sites that are the right fit for them.
And to help brands out, here are 5 of our favourites.
Trustpilot
Trustpilot is one of the most recognisable review sites available today.
They boast an incredible 4 million reviews every month. Making them one of the largest consumer-facing review sites in the world. And one of the world’s most popular websites, with an Alexa ranking of 19 in the UK.
As well as Trustpilot’s size and popularity, one of the reasons we love this review site is its focus on transparency and authenticity.
Firstly, it’s free to create a business profile on Trustpilot. So both brands and consumers can start benefiting from reviews without being held back by costs.
They take a strong stance on review authenticity, offering customised fraud detection software and a Content Integrity Team of 70+ members. This includes a process where brands can report reviews for further investigation if they suspect they are not authentic.
Another element of trust and authenticity that Trustpilot offers is their licensing agreement with Google, which makes them one of Google’s review partners. This means that Google recognises Trustpilot as a trusted source of transparent and legitimate customer reviews.
Yotpo
Yotpo position themselves as more than just a review site.
Instead, they are an eCommerce Marketing Platform that offers advanced solutions for reviews, visual marketing, loyalty, and referrals. This means that eCommerce brands can collect customer reviews, photos, and Q&As from one single platform. With the aim of increasing traffic, social proof, and sales.
Yotpo is another official partner of Google, but also has partnerships with Facebook and Shopify Plus. Making it simple for eCommerce brands to leverage their customers’ content across every marketing channel.
And that’s one of the things we really love about Yotpo, their focus on user-generated content (UGC) that isn’t just review and ratings oriented. With consumers increasingly focused on visuals to support their shopping experience, Yotpo’s progressive approach to reviews and ratings is ideal for any visual brand.
More specifically, Yotpo offers brands the ability to combine UGC with customisable display options to engage customers and enhance brand presence. This UGC can be showcased across websites through beautiful, shoppable galleries. Or utilised in Instagram and Facebook ads, dynamic retargeting ads, or a social push.
Feefo
Feefo is an independent review platform that is targeted towards enterprise businesses, boasting customers such as Expedia, Vauxhall, JCB, and TUI.
Similar to Trustpilot and Yotpo, Feefo is also a Google partner. With reviews generated by Feefo counting as Google Seller Ratings and also showing up on Google search results. Again, this is always a positive sign of how trustworthy and respected a review site is.
What we love most about Feefo is their suite of tools. Due to being aimed at an enterprise market, Feefo doesn’t hold back when it comes to features and functionality.
Some of their key features include machine learning-powered integration tools and SEO auditing reports. All of which help to boost review visibility and increase sales. Brands can also customise their review-invite campaigns, and create a portfolio of feedback from verified customers.
In terms of analytics, Feefo doesn’t disappoint. They offer in-depth analytics reporting to help brands keep track of important data sets, such as overall sentiment, changes in website traffic, and consumer insights. Helping brands to see how their review strategies are directly influencing end-sales.
Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice are comparable to Feefo in that they are aimed at large and established retailers. They boast thousands of customers, some of which are the largest brands in the world, such as Kraft, Dell, Pepsi, Asda, and Samsung. And similar to Yotpo, Bazaarvoice’s focus is on UGC, not just reviews and ratings.
What we love about Bazaarvoice is their focus on using UGC throughout the entire customer journey. They offer a one-stop-shop for all UGC needs, from reviews, to social content, advertising, and more.
They cleverly position this offering in four stages: driving revenue, scaling brand, gaining actionable insights, and building customer loyalty. This is across retail, social, online, and even in-store, where they work to connect retailers with their customers.
Overall, Bazaarvoice offers some of the most advanced review and UGC functionality out of our favourites, but with a price tag to match. However, for large enterprise brands, it offers a wealth of opportunities.
G2
The previous review sites and platforms we have recommended have been geared towards eCommerce. G2, on the other hand, is one of the largest review sites focused on the SaaS space.
It boasts an impressive 1m visitors per month, alongside almost 1.5m product reviews.
The site encourages deep-dive reviews of platforms and features, but the sheer volume of feedback on the site means that users can gain a reliable high-level overview from as many people as possible.
We love G2 not only because it is a solid offering for SaaS businesses, but also due to the site’s focus on community. G2 users can upvote and downvote other reviews, adding an extra level of reliability, and also reflecting the overall sentiment that users feel about a SaaS brand. For instance, if a brand is keeping their customers happy, they can expect to see lots of upvotes on positive reviews.
This also means that the community itself encourages sensible, measured reviews and responses. So if a disgruntled user decides to rant about a small bug, chances are the community will call them out.
Want to know how to integrate your customer reviews with your email marketing?
Learn how Pure360 can help you integrate your customer reviews and ratings into your email marketing campaigns including abandoned basket, newsletters and even welcome campaigns. Accelerate your email marketing results today! Our friendly team would love to chat. Get in touch here.