Nowadays, global brands are bigger than ever before, most likely due to social media and the boom in online shopping leading to increased demand for products worldwide. The international e-commerce market is expected to total $6.3 trillion in 2023.

By marketing their products on social media and pushing customers to their international sites, global brands can sell their goods to almost anyone, which might not have been as possible 20-30 years ago. But, how can you attract shoppers when you’re only appealing to one segment of people? It’s difficult.

It’s not easy to cater to 8 billion people in one fell swoop. 42% of consumers say they never purchase products and services in other languages. So just as “one-size-fits-most” clothing fits very few people, we know that content marketing is not “one-size-fits-all” across the globe. 

This is where local content can save the day. But, how do you localize your content for international audiences in today’s shopping ecosystem? 

What is content localization?

Content localization is the process of adapting content to be relevant for multiple, local audiences. This means understanding language and cultural differences, symbols, references, colloquiums, and more before going to market globally. Content localization matters because whether you’re already a global brand, or looking to expand internationally, it’s what consumers want to see:

Not only does a content localization strategy require your business to have a strong brand image, but it also demands a rich understanding of various groups and cultures, which you can achieve through education and research. 

If these audiences aren’t kept in mind when creating a marketing strategy, it will be increasingly difficult to show up a cohesive, all-inclusive brand.

Tips for successful content localization strategy 

Are you looking to become a global brand? Or Follow these five proven tips for appealing to multiple audiences with local content and becoming the brand people associate with your product or service.

1. Get social

The more your brand can show up on social media the better — especially when it comes to reaching people far and wide. Shoppers, more than ever, are spending time discovering products, doing their research, and reading reviews on social, so take advantage of this and focus your efforts on your socials.

One way to successfully build a worldwide presence is by spreading out your content across multiple channels and even handles. For example, using different Instagram handles for various locales enables your content to last longer and live in more places. If your business has large communities in the US, Europe, and Australia, consider building separate social accounts for each segment. This way, you can get more specific and tailored with your content depending on the region.

Take Sephora for example – they manage multiple Instagram handles successfully by understanding the intricacies of their global communities. Sephora’s main account, for their U.S. market, mentions U.S. based sales, products, and services. However, their handle dedicated to Australia includes solely Australian based user-generated content (UGC), events, products, and more. By profiling Australian Fashion Week, an event that’s otherwise not very relevant in other countries, Sephora established themselves as a brand that knows how to tap into current events and appeal to their patrons in Australia. 

So, before committing to multiple handles, take time to understand your audiences. How do they shop? What content performs best? What social platforms are they showing up on? Dive deeper into your social analytics and take a good look at the data – it never lies. In doing so, you can develop your specific KPIs and objectives for each audience. 

Your followers will provide you with free market research, as long as you spend the time reading their comments, understanding where their knowledge gaps may be, looking at what gets the most likes, and more. Each region will have different priorities when it comes to shopping – brand trust, convenience of product, price, and more. 

Spend time both surveying and sharing content on your social media platforms. This is how you go from good to great when building a global brand.

2. Get real translations

It sounds like an obvious strategy, but content localization needs to start with translating your content. Translate it, then localize it.

Obviously, translation isn’t the only thing that companies must do to reach a global customer base, but it’s certainly one of the fastest, easiest, and most frequently overlooked.

Nataly Kelly, VP of Localization, Hubspot

Most of us aren’t experts on multiple languages — that’s just how it is. But, language, as we all know, can say a lot, and you want to make sure it’s saying the right thing. 

When it comes to creating local content or translating from one language to another, it’s important to find real people who can translate rather than relying on AI or other online tools. One mishap could cost you a lot or completely misdirect your audience. This is a simple mistake that can be avoided with quality translation. 

KFC went through a bit of a translation fail when their famous “finger-lickin good” slogan got translated into Chinese. If they were to have consulted a native Chinese speaker, this likely wouldn’t have happened and would’ve caused less of a ruckus when a passerby sees this sign. 

Although incorrect translations can sometimes be harmless, it does show you put little care in accommodating to that specific place. Why would someone want to buy from a brand that doesn’t think to even fit into their culture or language?

A good way to collect local content and talk like your customers (wherever they are) is through product reviews. Specifically, transcending borders by translating your product reviews. Your customers are already talking in their own language so they’ll be there ready for new customers in a new location to find.

Brother International, for example, used translated reviews to expand into seven new markets and found that customers who interact with these reviews are 2x more likely to click a call-to-action.

3. Learn social norms

The key part of content localization is, obviously, making your content local. Once you’ve spent the time doing your due diligence on social media, you’ll discover there’s social norms that are quite specific to a region.

Just think about simple phrases that are wildly different in New York versus London — tired vs knackered, elevator vs lift, trash vs rubbish, etc. Or the fact that red is generally a negative color but in Chinese culture is considered lucky. Even time and date formats differ the world over. Specific content localization items to think about include:

When brands are hoping to show up globally, it’s crucial to acknowledge that some content may work in some places and not others. Businesses must carefully consider the visuals of your UGC and promoted posts before going ahead and posting them. 

For example, McDonald’s, arguably the world’s most recognizable fast-food chain, doesn’t reuse ads or marketing assets for all their audiences because, for example, promoting Big Macs with cheese to people in Israel isn’t necessarily appropriate or fitting.

If you go to any McDonald’s around the world, you’ll find region-specific food in each one, and this is something they’re proud of. This is why you’ll see, across their social media, ads, promotional videos, and more, they acknowledge the intricacies of the community.

However, it’s important to educate yourself first before jumping on what you may assume is a social norm. In reality, that social norm could actually be a stereotype that’s dated or inappropriate nowadays. It’s better to loop in a regional source when building your global marketing strategy than just simply guessing. 

4. Tailor UGC on regional sites and marketing campaigns

If it’s winter in Australia, Australians don’t want to see swimsuits and flip-flops, which makes total sense. For this reason, make sure to be tailoring your content accordingly. 

If your e-commerce site is full of UGC and brand-owned content, you’re most likely already seeing incredible lifts in average order value, time on site, and conversion. But, if you’re using the same content over and over across your regional sites, you may be missing out on lots of revenue. 

You can easily distribute and display specific content on some sites and not others with Galleries Localization. Peloton is a fantastic example of this:

Their German website caters to their German audience with unique UGC across their site, including a full page dedicated to their community’s images and videos not found on the American site. 

Galleries Localization can easily be accomplished through the Bazaarvoice Social Commerce platform, and it’s something that will save you time and money. It will help those sales skyrocket because your audience will feel seen and heard wherever they are.

5. Analyze success by region

Monitoring your marketing strategy’s performance enables you to uncover what’s working and what’s not working. When you look at metrics regarding social content, such as engagement, likes, followers, and more, you can determine what’s successful in each region. This goes for content performance and the number of reviews on site, as well. These are all performance metrics that will help you analyze your audiences better.

One thing to note is that different regional strategies can be aimed at achieving different things. It’s all about meeting your customers where they are, and that’s not going to be the same place for all communities. Don’t just evaluate total engagement rate for each localized IG account and call it a day; remember your KPIs for each locale when determining success and return to those KPI’s when you go astray. 

Get global success with content localization

Working across the globe is no small feat, especially as it means understanding more places than just your home or culture. But, showing up globally as a brand can take your business to the next level – it’s all about just knowing how to do so. 

Knowing when to enter into a new region and how to successfully pull that off will pay off in the end. Remember, 72% of consumers said they would be more likely to buy a product with information in their own language. All you need to do is learn how to localize your content. We know — the biggest global brands work with us. 

If you’re looking to expand globally, the best way to get started is with UGC. Learn more ways you can use it engage global shoppers with local content on our dedicated content localization page.

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The retail marketer’s guide to global expansion

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But scaling your business internationally often comes with a set of challenges and risks.

How will you provide support to a new customer base? How can you build brand awareness and establish your reputation? And how can you relate to a brand-new audience with different tastes and behaviors?  

The key to a successful transition is understanding how to make your brand accessible to the international market. Expanding into the flourishing world of international e-commerce holds the promise of more customers and much higher revenue, as long as you have the right marketing tools to connect with your new target market.

3 steps for international e-commerce domination

Expanding into international markets can be daunting. Where do you even begin? A safe start is by getting a feel for local customer sentiment and what they want/don’t want from brands. Hosting focus groups for example gives you these insights from prospective customers firsthand. Or running customer surveys helps you find your ideal customer and figure out how to reach them.

But while these are a good few initial steps to test the waters, how do you turn an international e-commerce strategy into action? Here’s how.

Step 1: Ensure accessibility for international markets

Creating an accessible website and marketing content for global markets, including translations and localization, leads to a smooth browsing and purchasing experience (a key factor in customer retention!). Accessibility means offering content in the local language, launching well-reviewed product pages, and localizing your e-commerce site.

i) Personalize your product pages

Personalized product pages and social media accounts improve local shoppers’ e-commerce experience, as well as their view of and connection to your brand. 

Imagine scrolling through Instagram, and you spot an item you need to have. You click on the product tag and land on the company’s product page, but when you get to the checkout stage, you realize they only ship that item within Australia. Frustrating, right? 

We know that visual and social content is important. Placing product galleries on product description pages results in a:

• 250% increase in time spent on site
• 150% increase in conversion rates
• 15% increase in average order value

The key to achieving these numbers in a new market is to personalize your content to offer localized product information. 

Localized content means your customers in Latin America will only see products available to them. And your shoppers in Japan will automatically see the converted price to the local currency rather than in dollars. Localization includes adapting website content and product offerings to better suit the culture, currency, and preferences of different countries. 

In fact, one survey found that 76% of shoppers prefer when brands offer content in their native language, and 40% simply refuse to shop on websites that aren’t offered in their language. These country-specific changes lead to a more personalized, seamless online shopping experience, meaning happier customers and increased online sales. 

ii) Syndicate ratings and reviews

One of the biggest challenges of entering a new market is the lack of brand awareness among international customers. Ratings and reviews can boost your brand visibility and increase trust in first-time shoppers because they give shoppers access to additional information and authentic feedback. 

But how do you launch a successful regional website, filled with authentic reviews, when you have little to no customers? The secret is review syndication — a process that takes your product reviews from the original source and posts them on other international e-commerce websites, like online retailers and regional homepages.

Home appliance brand Beko for example used review syndication as a solution when breaking into the Australian market. Although its brand was leading the European market, it was virtually unknown in Australia. 

“When we first started doing business in Australia, people here didn’t know who we were,” said Amanda Hart, Marketing Manager at Beko ANZ. “We needed to build a swell of customer voices to validate our brand quality here. It has definitely helped support the validity of our brand among new consumers.”

With review syndication, Beko built up its review volume to 30,000 authentic reviews across international e-commerce websites, helping to boost its reputation and build brand awareness in the new market. 

“Reviews are an essential part of our successful strategy that’s getting Beko products into more homes across Australia,” said Hart.

iii) Translate syndicated content

Entering a new, foreign-language market requires brands to localize their content, including syndicated reviews, to the shopper’s language preferences to provide information and build a relationship. Product reviews are a significant source of trust for online shoppers. But if they’re written in a foreign language, the chances of making a sale are slim to none.

Home Depot Canada recognized the need for translated reviews to improve the customer experience of its French-speaking customers. Nearly a quarter of Canadians cite French as their first language, so Home Depot was missing out on providing crucial information to a large chunk of its target market. The home improvement retailer turned on Bazaarvoice’s Review Translations feature and instantly improved its French-speaking customers’ experience. 

Thousands of syndicated reviews are great, but if your customer base can’t read or understand them, it’s not doing anyone any favors. 73% of consumers want to see content in their own language, so translated reviews need to be a key component of your international e-commerce strategy.

Step 2: Adapt your social commerce strategy for each target market

The social commerce market is expected to experience a 12.2% growth annually by 2025. So adapting your social commerce strategy for international e-commerce is a smart investment. Find out:

Good places to start are sampling campaigns and working with regional influencers to get the products into the hands of potential customers in international markets (and collecting valuable consumer content in the process). 

i) Launch regional sampling campaigns

Running local sampling campaigns ensures that you’re able to gather enough local user-generated content (UGC), like customer reviews and photos, to build a strong relationship with new customers, increase brand visibility, and gather insights. 

Through sampling campaigns, you can learn about (and address) shoppers’ concerns and preferences specific to that market — like a trial run of sorts. Leading cleaning equipment brand Kärcher used this tactic to collect feedback when entering a new international market and found that its customers didn’t really understand the product’s features.

“Because the product was completely new, we noticed from reviews that many customers didn’t understand the product’s purpose or how to use it…so we adjusted our messaging on the product pages, packaging, and in the user manual to make it more clear. This is something we wouldn’t have known to do without reviews,” said Kevin Wiredu, Senior E-Commerce specialist at Kärcher.

In fact, reviews can act as a form of market research because customers freely and honestly share what works and what doesn’t. Taking this feedback and adjusting the product offerings is exactly what Kärcher did. 

“Without much market research, UGC is our way of collecting insights, especially at the time of entry,” said Wiredu.

Sampling campaigns also helped Kärcher gather high-quality UGC, which the company then incorporated into its product description pages. This collection of localized UGC allowed the brand to launch new international e-commerce product pages tailored to regional markets, making them more personalized, accessible, and informative for customers. 

These sampling campaigns resulted in an impressive collection of reviews totaling 80,000. The reviews were also syndicated across 73 retailers’ websites, putting Kärcher’s total review volume at 280,000. 

The success of this technique lies in the power of social proof: 88% of shoppers consult reviews before making a purchase. If new potential customers see reviews in their native language from customers in their region, it will be easier for them to trust the source. 

“Having reviews in place just before the retailer releases our products gives consumers the confidence to try our new products right from the start. It’s a key to our success,” said Wiredu. 

ii) Work with regional influencers

Influencer marketing helps build brand awareness, connect with customers, and boost trust. All of which are especially significant in new markets. After all, word-of-mouth is one of the oldest marketing tools in the books, and it’s now going digital. Surveys show that 61% of consumers trust product recommendations from family, friends, and influencers, while only 38% trust branded content.  

Personal care brand Rael leveraged this e-commerce trend to build up trust among its customers when it launched a new product category. Rael had been a staple in natural period care products and wanted to enter the beauty market. 

“We previously worked with another sampling provider, but with Bazaarvoice, we’re getting more precise targeting that lets us improve on our review volume and quality. Bazaarvoice targeted specific audience groups with products that matched their skin type and other demographics, interests, shopping behaviors, and product preferences — like moisture versus acne,” said Sorah Park, CMO at Rael.

Through Bazaarvoice’s Influenster community, the company gathered a massive 9.8 million impressions, which included posts, shares, comments, and likes. 

Working with regional influencers will not only help spread your brand message through social media but will also lead to a strong collection of UGC for your website.

Rael took these social media posts and shared them across every marketing channel to promote its new product line with authentic content. Shoppers were able to see photos and videos of real people using the products, which is a key factor in marketing beauty products. Since consumers can’t see, touch, or otherwise experience the product firsthand, detailed reviews and photos aid in the decision-making process. 

“Knowing that people can’t touch and feel a product online, and with the sensorial aspect of beauty and skin care, the third-party validation from UGC is so important,” said Park.

Step 3: Establish a global customer support system

Around 81% of shoppers agree that a seamless customer support experience will prompt them to re-buy products from a brand. Offering multiple support channels, hiring multilingual agents, and interacting with target customers will ensure shoppers maintain a positive image of your brand and increase repeat sales. 

According to Zendesk, help ticket volumes have increased across multiple channels since 2020. Customers seeking help are no longer stuck on the phone in never-ending helplines. While calls are still popular, some of the largest increases in customer support channels were social media, SMS, and WhatsApp.

Offering your new customers different ways to get in contact with you is key. But there’s also another way to provide customer support: review interaction. For example, global technology giant Brother dove headfirst into customer support through interaction by monitoring and replying to customer reviews while expanding to seven international markets. 

Since 75% of shoppers are more likely to re-purchase from a brand if their customer service program is offered in their native language, translations were a significant factor in Brother’s support strategy. 

Expand your international e-commerce reach

Transform your brand into an international e-commerce powerhouse with Bazaarvoice’s suite of tools intended to build brand awareness, boost customer trust, and increase sales.

From review syndication and translation, to high-quality UGC through sampling campaigns, we can help you optimize your international e-commerce journey. Learn more about how you can expand globally here.

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The retail marketer’s guide to global expansion

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Yep — we’re talking about millennials.

Getting millennial brand loyalty isn’t just useful to your brand — it’s absolutely vital to staying in business long term. But building this loyalty is challenging. Winning millennials’ brand loyalty takes honesty, provable quality, and the courage to make a real statement with your brand messaging.

Don’t be afraid to take a stand on social or industry issues

The saying “silence is violence” might seem like a huge exaggeration for a company selling shoes or luxury scarves, but it’s a critical phrase for marketers who want to understand millennial psychology.

“Silence is violence” means that saying nothing about injustice is the same as supporting injustice. Many millennials endorse this idea and want their brand to have a “take” on the issue of the month. Social issues, global issues, or even just a strong opinion about an aspect of your industry that’s taking public heat.

Millennials care, and so should your brand. The Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2020 polled over 27,000 millennials and Gen Z’ers across over 40 countries. By an overwhelming margin, most millennials felt an upswing of sympathy, empathy, and a desire to create a better world after the pandemic.

Later in the study, 60% of all respondents claimed they intend to “buy more products and services from large businesses that have taken care of their workforces and positively affected society during the pandemic.” Furthermore, 38% of millennials said they had connected more with businesses that have had a “positive impact on the environment.”

In a different study, Nielsen IQ found that 74% of millennials are more likely to buy brands supporting social issues they care about.

Get comfortable getting uncomfortable

Essential if you want to connect with millennials and earn their trust. If your brand doesn’t take a side on a relevant hot-button issue, you’re still taking a side in the eyes of many young consumers. And maybe not the side you intended to take.

When Starbucks announced they would create 10,000 jobs for refugees, they faced widespread blowback from anti-refugee groups (and President Trump.) However, Starbucks also got plenty of support for this choice. Especially from celebrities and influencers, who went to bat for Starbucks and spread the news to their followers.

Jessica Chastain, award-winning actress, producer, and one of Time’s top 100 most influential people in the world, signal-boosted Starbucks’ new policy to all of her 800,000+ followers.

This kerfuffle occurred back in 2017. Despite an unsuccessful boycott attempt by those opposed to the refugee decision, Starbucks has nearly doubled its market cap since.

Obviously, the controversy isn’t the sole source of this growth. But it certainly did Starbucks no financial harm to stake out a strong position on a sensitive topic.

Market research showed Starbucks wasn’t negatively affected by the controversy. In a public letter from market research firm Kantar Millward Brown, the company’s president Brian James confirmed just how little Starbucks’ public support of refugees damaged the brand.

“After the announcement—we did not observe any substantive impact on Customer Consideration, Future Visitation Intent or Brand Perceptions or any other key performance metrics for the Starbucks brand,” concluded James.

So let your company take a stand where it matters. You’ll likely find that “controversial choices” can earn you lifelong millennial customers without damaging your bottom line.

Three things to remember when entering the public debate as a company

1. The stand you’re taking is important to you and relevant to your industry, product, or service.
2. All voices for the company are well educated on the topic at hand.
3. Real donations, policy change, and notable action must follow any declarations of support.

Keep your promises because millennials keep receipts. When brands don’t follow these rules, they end up with toothless messaging that gets ribbed on social media. Consider this Twitter screenshot as exactly the messaging to avoid:

Millennials value authenticity and honesty. They know how to screenshot a brand statement and call you out if your business doesn’t live up to it. In fact, 82% of consumers say they’ll stop using a brand forever if they feel the brand has broken their trust.

Taking a stand isn’t always pleasant, and it’s true you may suffer criticism from those who don’t agree. But the millennial consumers on your side will back you and your company in the long run. In fact, buying your products and services will feel like a righteous moral choice for those who agree with you. And that’s the kind of customer loyalty you can’t buy!

Share how your products and practices are helping the world

Millennials will pay more for a “guilt-free” product. Three-quarters of millennials have said they would pay more for products if they came from a socially responsible company.

The most popular factors for this generosity are:

1. Sustainability of the product
2. Use of organic/local/natural ingredients
3. Environmental friendliness of the manufacturing/transportation process

A survey by Markstein and Certus Insights found that 44% of millennials believe that every business should be active with environmental initiatives. It’s a stark contrast from the 35% of baby boomers who believe the same thing. And the 28% of Gen X.

Basically, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has a correlation with how far millennials will open their wallets. And considering that shoppers are projected to spend $150 billion on sustainable goods this year, those are big wallets.

Brands are winning millennial brand loyalty with sustainable practices

In 2018, LEGO announced it was working on changing its classic block material. They were moving from plastic to a polyethylene material made from sustainable sugar cane. Millennials reacted positively to this news, even though the material turned out to be not quite right for LEGO bricks in the long run. But the positive effect of its dogged pursuit of more ethical manufacturing lingers.

LEGO’s consistent commitment to environmentally-friendly practices has grabbed headlines and kept its brand in the news. It earned goodwill (and good press) after a children’s letter-writing campaign convinced it to nix the single-use plastic bags from its packaging and replace them with recyclable paper bags. LEGO even has its own page at the World Wildlife Foundation dedicated to its sustainability efforts.

According to the LEGO Group Annual Report in 2020, revenue has grown in the double digits across sales and operating profit. With no signs of slowing down. Considering its sustainability research and efforts have cost them hundreds of millions of dollars out of pocket, that’s worth noting.

LEGO didn’t just see higher sales. In 2020 and 2021, the Global RepTrak 100 Survey crowned the LEGO Group the most reputable company on the planet.

Obviously, not every company can afford to throw millions of dollars into sustainability research like the LEGO Group can. Which doesn’t really matter, because it’s not really about how much money you spend. Take KeepCup, for example, that appeals to the millennial love for the environment by featuring an “impact calculator” on its website.

If your brand’s actively working toward a good cause, get that news out into the world to grab millennial goodwill.

Communicate your value beyond price

Living through two major recessions has made millennials frugal shoppers by necessity. Not to mention having less generational wealth than those who came before. And since they’re well-versed in digital shopping, millennials can find a service or product that’s cheaper than yours. From their phone. In about five seconds.

Don’t try to earn millennial loyalty with affordable prices. While this price-conscious mindset might seem like you ought to focus on price, it’s actually the opposite. Your “low” price can always be beaten with a quick online search. A search a millennial shopper has probably already performed. Hooking a millennial with a “low price” is like trying to sell ice to a Siberian.

You need to show millennials the true value of your product or service. Unless you want a price race to the bottom. According to a KPMG study, pricing is the least important factor in creating brand loyalty. The resource you have that they are interested in is quality.

Product quality is still the #1 reason for brand loyalty. As the above infographic shows, value is #2, and “product consistency” is #3. Which is just another facet of “quality” really. If you can consistently deliver a top-notch product and illustrate its value to millennials (regardless of price), you’ll be perfectly positioned to earn their brand loyalty.

Influencers influence millennial brand loyalty

Obviously, “make a quality product” isn’t terribly useful advice. But you do need to prioritize communicating the quality of your product in highly visible locations. For millennials, those highly trafficked areas are going to be on social media. Your medium is going to be influencers and reviews.

Many millennials trust influencers. According to a Fullscreen study (shown below), 55% of millennials believe social media influencers are honest about their beliefs and opinions. Another 41% believe influencers’ recommendations are accurate. Micro influencers are especially trusted sources.

Consider reaching out to influencers online to capture the attention and trust of your millennial audience.

What’s in a review?

You can also communicate your value to millennials through reviews. 85% of millennials say that product reviews are “a must” before a purchase is considered.

Before choosing reviews to showcase, there’s three main criteria to consider:

Here’s a few tried-and-true methods for obtaining reviews for your products:

1. Send automated emails to remind customers to review products they’ve purchased.
2. Reward loyalty-program members who leave reviews.
3. Utilize Influenster’s unique sampling solution. Use hyper-targeted VoxBox’s to trade product samples in exchange for honest reviews (and other visual content, fyi).

After you’ve done this, turn on ReviewSource to give you a continuous source of authentic review content. Always-on content means always-on sales!

Upon securing positive reviews, use Bazaarvoice ReviewAds to share them in ads, on social media, and across the Bazaarvoice Network of over 11,500 retailers.

Once you’ve communicated the value of your product, you’ll see brand loyalty rise naturally from the trust you’ve established.

Design a brand loyalty program that creates its own value

Next up is rewarding the loyalty you’ve worked so hard to acquire—enter the loyalty program. These loyalty programs enforce a feedback loop. Value creates loyalty that creates a sense of value in the member that creates loyalty that creates…okay, you get it.

Brand loyalty programs must provide rewards that are actually valuable. 37% of millennials don’t see the point of brand loyalty without a loyalty program. If you don’t have a rewards program, that’s a huge chunk of your valuable millennial audience just, poof, gone.

Successful loyalty programs with real value have a few things in common

1. Exclusive rewards. There’s nothing more valuable than something other people can’t have. Consider offering a limited-run, members-only product. Maybe even a special customization or feature, or even a unique bit of swag that isn’t available in your store.
2. Free shipping. If your company ships products, your loyalty program members shouldn’t be paying for it.
3. Novelty. Consider adding new rewards quarterly or changing existing rewards to keep young, prone-to-wander customers on the hook.
4. Elevated customer service. Membership has its privileges. So making sure your most loyal customers are moved to the front of the customer service line will engender loyalty and gratitude.
5. Gratitude. Speaking of gratitude, your loyalty program should remind your members how appreciative you are of their loyalty. Little surprise gifts on holidays (or out of the blue), special discounts, and even heartfelt letters of thanks create a valuable personal experience with your brand (which millennials appreciate, by the way.)
6. Rewards for referrals. Referrals reward both the urge for millennials to engage with their network and the desire for value. Companies have found great success with referral programs for their millennial customers.
7. Low barrier to entry. If it takes longer than a minute on a smartphone to join a loyalty program, millennials might falter. Your loyalty program should ideally have an app. If not, it needs to be optimized for mobile users. A simple email and password should get them in. And when you want to gather more data, consider having a prompt that pops up later to add more of their details to your program. 

The more time and energy you put into your loyalty program, the more returns you’re going to see. 81% of millennials say that their membership to a loyalty program increased their spending with that particular brand.

That makes loyalty programs a true double-whammy. You reward/enforce brand loyalty and actually end up making more in the long run. This is an area no company can afford to skimp on.

Assess how much you need millennial brand loyalty

Before sinking every penny into millennial outreach, took a look at the statistics from KPMG’s global survey mentioned earlier about millennial brand loyalty:

If you’re selling shoes, clothes, food, drinks, cosmetics, or personal care products, millennials will likely stick with you if you reach out to them with the techniques we’ve discussed. If you target them in your marketing, you’ve got a decent shot at inspiring brand loyalty.

But if you’re selling luxury goods, sporting goods, or household goods, you’re in for an uphill climb. That doesn’t mean millennial loyalty isn’t worth getting. It means you should calibrate your expectations and your marketing budget to a realistic goal. 

High risk higher reward 

Unless your business is selling avocado toast, winning millennial brand loyalty can be a daunting task. And sometimes a costly one at that. But the reward is far greater than the risk. With a few simple tweaks to make sure you practice what you preach, you’ll have lifelong, loyal customers. Potentially 1.8 billion of them. That’s a lot on your bottom line.

Now you’ve captured the millennial market, read our marketing to Gen Z best practice guide.

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The power of visual content: How UGC strengthens customer relationships to grow your brand

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In this guide, we’ll show you how to set up your e-commerce site to take full advantage of this powerful feature. We’ll also help you troubleshoot issues that may prevent your ratings from appearing on your Google Ad campaigns.

Chapters:

1. What are Google seller ratings?
2. What are the benefits?
3. How do they impact your ad campaigns?
4. How to set up Google seller ratings
5. Common issues and how to overcome them
6. Check my Google seller rating
7. How to turn Google seller ratings off

What are Google seller ratings?

Google seller ratings are an automated extension of Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords and Google AdWords Reviews), a platform businesses use to promote their brands on Google Search, YouTube, and other sites. They appear as below:

When seller ratings are enabled, Google displays the following information along with your text ad:

• A star review rating between one and five stars.
• The number of customer ratings your store has received.
• Additional qualifiers accompanying the store’s rating, if available. For example, if Google sees multiple reviews praising your store’s fast shipping or easy return process, it may highlight those comments along with your rating.

Your review rating will impact your local ranking and review sentiment highly impacts conversion. It should be noted that the star rating isn’t actually an average, but a “bayesian average.”

Let’s look at some examples of Google seller ratings in action:

This example from Sonos shows how a seller rating normally appears — a rating and number of reviews:

Travel brand Away, however, has rating, number of reviews and a qualifier. In this case, order accuracy:

For Nike on the other hand, Google shows the rating and qualifier (free shipping) but not number of reviews:

To determine your e-commerce site’s star rating, Google collects and analyzes data from reputable shopper engagement platforms (including Bazaarvoice, of course).

What are the benefits of Google seller ratings?

Seller ratings are Google’s way of rewarding advertisers with high customer ratings so they can connect with more shoppers and attract higher qualified leads.

With more than 80% of online searches starting on Google, having a strong presence on this leading search engine will help you extend reach, drive conversion, and scale your brand. 

A few stats to get you excited:

• 81% of shoppers research products online before making a purchase 
• 35% of product searches start on Google
• There are anywhere from 40 billion to 60 billion searches happening on Google in the US alone each month
• The window of time between when a shopper searches for an item on Google and then makes a purchase is usually five days or less

Google seller ratings also benefit brick-and-mortar locations. Almost 73% of shoppers who perform a local search will visit a store within five miles of their location.

How do Google seller ratings affect your ad campaigns?

Google Ads pros know there’s a lot that goes into a campaign’s performance. You have to get the ad copy just right, fine-tune your bidding strategy, and ensure the landing page shines. 

But if your current campaigns still aren’t performing as well as you’d like, or if you’re just getting started on Google Ads, a strong Google seller rating may help you improve your ad performance.

According to Google, getting a positive Google seller review can increase click-through rate (CTR) on your text ads by as much as 17%. But improved CTRs are just the beginning. In addition to more clicks, positive seller ratings can also help you improve your quality score, decrease your cost-per-click (CPC), and improve the quality of leads visiting your site. 

Just like the reviews on your website and product pages, enabling seller ratings is a simple and powerful way of adding instant social proof to your campaigns. Again and again, user-generated content (UGC) in the form of online reviews have proven to be among the most trusted referral sources for e-commerce brands. 

Globally, 78% of shoppers say they trust online reviews. How much do they trust them? Almost 80% of consumers say online reviews have as much of an impact on their purchasing decisions as recommendations from friends or family. 

Once a shopper clicks through to your site, reviews can also help accelerate conversions by building shopper confidence and upgrading product sentiment. Having just five reviews on a product can increase purchase likelihood by 270%. Looking to get started on your review collection journey? Bazaarvoice’s Ratings and Reviews feature can help you with that!

How to set up your Google Ads to enable seller ratings

Seller ratings are available to businesses that have an online marketplace or provide paid services to their clients.

To enable Google seller ratings on your campaigns, you must meet both of the following qualifications, according to Google:

• Maintain an average composite rating of at least 3.5 stars
• Run an ad with a URL that matches the domain Google uses to track your ratings

In addition, ads will only show seller ratings if Google has collected what it deems to be a sufficient number of unique reviews over the past 12 months. While this number will vary from business to business, a good rule of thumb is 100 or more reviews. These must be collected from the same country as the shopper to appear in their results.

Pro tip: Since Google’s algorithms can be picky, it’s a good idea to try to overshoot that 100-review minimum. 

If you’re on a budget, don’t worry. Google seller ratings won’t impact the cost of your campaign. At the time of publishing, Google does not charge advertisers extra to display seller ratings. If a shopper clicks on your ad, you will be charged no more than your maximum CPC bid.

How to check your Google seller rating

To see your site’s Google seller rating for a specific country, use the following URL. Just replace “{yourwebsite}” with your homepage URL: 

https://www.google.com/shopping/ratings/account/lookup?q={yourwebsite}

To switch countries, simply click the drop-down menu to find your desired location. 

Heads up: If Google doesn’t have enough data or reviews from the selected country, you may not have a seller rating there.  

Common issues [and how to overcome them]

Even if your site meets all of the minimum requirements for seller ratings, it doesn’t mean they will show on your Google Ads campaigns. Why? Google seller ratings depend on multiple factors, including the performance of the auction and whether Google’s team (or its partners) have completed a research evaluation of your site.

Google seller ratings will also only show if your ad wins the auction and has a high enough ad rank.

Some of these factors are in your control. Some are not. If you meet all of the qualifications and your seller ratings still don’t show, try these common troubleshooting tips:

1. Check the freshness of your reviews

Review recency matters. Having product reviews isn’t enough anymore, you need to have recent product reviews.

Google has the same reviews mantra, too. It doesn’t just measure the number of reviews to determine whether your e-commerce site qualifies for a seller rating. It also rates you by the dates your reviews were posted.

If at least 100 (or more) of those reviews were not posted within the past 12 months, Google doesn’t count them toward your seller rating. 

No fear. Here’s five ways to increase your review volume, including giveaways, samples, and more. 

Pro tip: Although Google doesn’t mind you asking for reviews, avoid bulk review requests. They can result in your reviews being filtered out.

2. You’re in the wrong country

Google currently supports seller ratings from the following domains: 

Google.com

Google.co.uk

Google.co.nz

Google.com.au

Google.de

Google.co.jp

Google.fr

Google.nl

Google.com.br

Additionally, at least 10 of those 100+ reviews need to be in the same language as their Google interface. That means if a shopper is searching Google in Germany, at least 10 of those reviews need to be in German for your seller rating to appear.

3. Your campaign types aren’t set up correctly

If your Google seller ratings still aren’t showing up, make sure you have the correct campaign type set up.

Seller ratings will only show when the campaign type is either:

• Search Network with Display Select with subtype All features
• Search Network only with subtype All features

How to turn Google seller ratings off

If, for whatever reason, you wish to turn seller ratings off, Google has simple instructions for removing extensions. As follows:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account
2. From the menu, click Ads & Extensions then click Automated Extensions
3. Click the three-dot menu button on the right and click Advanced options
4. Click Turn off specific automated extensions and select the seller rating extension
5. Add your reason for turning off the extension then click Turn off

Google seller ratings are more important than ever

Because of social distancing recommendations, and the meteoric rise of social commerce, more people are shopping online than ever before. In 2020, online retail sales increased almost 33%, and that trend doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Sales were already up by 39% in Q1 of 2021.

In one recent survey, 61% of respondents said they expect to continue shopping online after the pandemic because of the convenience. While e-commerce was already a strong channel for many brands and retailers, some experts say the pandemic will accelerate the industry by at least two years. 

With all of these shoppers turning to the internet to make their purchases, Google seller ratings are an essential part of your lead-generation toolkit. They’re a proven method of getting even more value out of all that great UGC displayed on your website. And more importantly, they can (almost) guarantee you an increase in quality traffic to your products and drive more sales.

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In the retail world, retail merchants are important stakeholders (and potential gatekeepers) in your brand’s performance. They can be fiercely competitive and risk-averse. A merchant’s key focus is on driving their business by understanding the customer. Every merchandising decision is thoroughly analyzed to maximize both sales and profits. A single wrong decision can risk their entire year’s sales plan.

What do merchants live by? Their buy-plans. Retail merchants are constantly looking at their sales and inventory forecast and measuring how that stacks back to what they agreed to “buy” from you. This data gives them insight into the performance of your products on their “shelves,” but it doesn’t necessarily tell them why products are performing (or not performing).

Because of this, brands have an opportunity to tell a story about the products on your shelves and their performance, and ensure your sales head in a positive direction.

So, how do you do this?

1. Get important consumer feedback early

Having customer reviews for your products is always important, but the earlier you can get them, the better. A great way to do this is through a sampling program in which you send complimentary products to customers in exchange for their honest feedback and product reviews.

Sampling campaigns are a great way to collect influential product reviews, and they’re also a cost-efficient way to quickly gain valuable insights into what shoppers think about your product and to surface product flaws.

Customer reviews can also help you isolate a key product flaws. Reviews, both positive and negative, are a goldmine of customer insights. You just need to look. That’s what clothing brand Vertbaudet did when

Imagine if you could have known something like that beforehand and never had to give markdown dollars because you had time to correct the mistake before the product could be sold at retailers. Check, win for you!

2. Collect, collect, collect

Customers can’t always touch, try, or test your products. Having images, strong product copy, and explanatory videos are key to successfully converting online sales (and even offline sales). But guess what? If you sell at multiple retailers, your content is mass produced and not unique, presenting a challenge when it comes to page views and conversion. In this case, retail merchants will often ask for more budget to spend on marketing and driving traffic to your products.

Before you spend precious dollars on marketing campaigns, do everything you can to source fresh, unique user-generated content for your product pages. Content is still king — product pages with fresh, relevant content perform well in search and convert shoppers. We’ve found that there is a 137% conversion lift when shoppers read reviews and interact with other UGC.

Brands should consider any and all of the following tactics to collect content:

• General email request — Don’t underestimate the power of the simple ask. Email your CRM list and ask previous customers to write a review.
• Post-interaction email — Do you know which customers have recently made a purchase? Whenever someone buys a product, send out a post-interaction email a few days later for their feedback. Make sure if a customer purchases online, their item will have been delivered before you ask them to review it!
• Sampling programs — I talked about the power of sampling campaigns. If you’re hesitant to run your own, use a third-party service or ask your retailers if they have in-house sampling programs that you can join (many do!). This also shows your retail merchant that you’re thinking about them and all the ways you can ignite sales.
• Sweepstakes — Run a contest (through email or social media) that invites customers to provide their honest reviews in exchange for a free product. You can foster loyalty and engagement with your customers and collect content — it’s a win-win.

3. Make the most of your marketing budget

Once you have review content, make sure you get the most from it. Retail merchants will always want your marketing dollars to fund price promotions, but you need to be thoughtful and strategic about how you can drive the right sales while still protecting your margins.

User-generated content goes a long way on product pages, but it goes even further incorporated into your marketing and advertising campaigns. Let your customers tell your story and highlight your competitive differentiators. Word-of-mouth campaigns can include star ratings and/or quotes from your actual customers, which lend credibility and authenticity to your brand.

Word-of-mouth campaigns can be used across a variety of channels — social, advertising, and even in-store. Brands that have implemented this type of campaign have seen continued success:

“We consistently see more interaction with ads and social posts that include a customer review than those that don’t,” said Pete Brace, VP Communications at Merrick. “The third-party testimonial provides a more authentic viewpoint that is relevant to the person considering the purchase.”

“We did word of mouth ads this year,” said Joe Turoff, VP of Sales and Marketing for Chervon. “I can confidently say it was a good buy and we’ll be doing it again.”

When you couple user-generated content with your marketing and advertising campaigns, you deliver more product views, drive higher conversion, and get more bang for your buck. You work towards your retail merchant’s goals, while protecting your margins.

This blog post is part of a series on picking a trustworthy ratings and reviews provider. Read more about the importance of authenticity in the selection process here.

We have worked hard since our inception to ensure that we have the best-in-class security in place in order to protect ourselves, our clients, and their consumers from cyber attacks. As part of our trust and privacy blog series, we interviewed Anji Greene, our Director of Security and Privacy. Here’s what she had to say: 

Can you talk through Bazaarvoice’s security processes?

“We see security and privacy as an ongoing journey. We are continually striving to improve our software development processes and internal infrastructure controls so that our products and services exceed our customer’s security and privacy expectations.

Bazaarvoice systems and services are hosted in the cloud.  We control access to our cloud environments through the use of virtual private cloud (VPC) routing, firewall rules, and role-based access controls. Our privileged users require multi-factor authentication and proxies for direct system access.   

During the product planning and throughout the software development lifecycle, security and privacy architecture is being reviewed.  We use threat modeling to understand the specific security and privacy risks associated with a product or feature. Generally speaking, threat modeling is a brainstorming session between security, privacy, engineering, and the product manager of an application or service. Understanding the threat landscape helps to identify the security controls needed during development and testing.

Our engineers go through security awareness and secure coding training and we have regular brown bag sessions to help teach engineers on best practices such as Infrastructure as Code,  patch management, privacy by design, and applying proper network access controls to your services.“

What specific policies does Bazaarvoice have surrounding security, protecting consumer privacy?

“Our team is focused on ensuring that the services we provide for our clients support full transparency to the consumer.  If we need to collect personal information, the consumer is made aware and has the ability to opt out. We offer privacy tools that are available for our clients to support privacy requests from their consumers. For example, if a client has 50 requests from consumers to remove personal information from their systems, the client can securely leverage the Bazaarvoice Privacy API to automate those requests and remove the personal information from all of our systems as well.

We’re currently in the process of aligning all of our security and privacy policies and procedures to the ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 framework.  The ISO implementation project has given us an opportunity to take a fresh look at existing processes, improve and simplify where needed, and really improve security and privacy awareness throughout the organization. Achieving this certification is a common request from our clients. ISO 27001 is one way that Bazaarvoice can demonstrate to our clients that we are following information security and privacy best practices.”

How do we help our clients if they experience a security breach?

“As a provider, Bazaarvoice collects user-generated content on brands and retailers websites. In the event that our clients experience a security breach related to these services, there are a couple of scenarios where Bazaarvoice can help.

Our web services (API and Display) are protected by a web application firewall (WAF). A WAF analyzes incoming application requests and blocks attacks from bots or other threats.   Since Bazaarvoice services are running on our client’s website, that protection is available to our client’s on the content that Bazaarvoice displays and collects. Those logs can be made available to clients as well if needed.

Another scenario that comes to mind is a form of Denial-of-Service protection. A pattern that we have seen before where an attacker attempts to overflow client submission forms through reviews, comments, or any type of content. Bazaarvoice has various layers of control to thwart these DOS attempts on our submission services such as fraud detection, rate limiting, and WAF protection. When our controls identify these malicious attacks, it is often necessary to work directly with the client throughout the incident.”

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Want to learn more about how we keep our clients and their customers’ best interests in mind? Connect with us here.

Want to see what behavior changes will stick with consumers even after the pandemic? Download our e-book to learn more. 

As trends continue to shift, insight into which will stick in the long term which may be fleeting will be necessary for brands and retailers to adapt their business models and services accordingly. In order to find out what shoppers will do going forward, we surveyed over 8,000 consumers in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United States. Here’s what we found out: 

E-commerce adoption has accelerated, but shoppers will also return to physical stores

There is no doubt that e-commerce has been the MVP during COVID-19 and the resulting lockdowns. Out of necessity, convenience, and safety precautions, shoppers have turned to online shopping, many for the first time, especially in verticals such as grocery. In fact, experts think that the pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce by 5 years. And even though many physical stores have reopened, consumers are continuing to shop online. Almost a third (30%) of global respondents to our survey said that they still are shopping online once or more than once a week. 

However, this does not spell the end of in-store shopping. Almost half (40%) of the survey respondents answered that they would be comfortable or very comfortable visiting a non-essential store in the next three months. Nevertheless, our Influenster community members made it clear that brick-and-mortar stores need to take serious steps to keep shoppers and store employees safe. Those respondents expect to hear about the precautions brands have taken in-store to ensure the health of their consumers (61%) and also their employees (60%). They indicated that in order to feel comfortable shopping in-store, they want masks to be mandatory for employees and consumers (69%), hand sanitizer stations available (70%), and for the store to implement social distancing (62%).

Consumers tried new brands due to product shortages and will keep using them

Over a third (39%) of global respondents purchased from different brands during pandemic shutdowns. This often was due to lack of availability of the products they would normally purchase, as many brands and retailers experienced massive product shortages, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. 

Regardless of why they tried it in the first place, 83% of shoppers will continue to buy from a newly discovered brand going forward. However, there was a stark generational gap between those who were most willing to try a new brand, with 55% of 18-24-year-olds purchasing from a different or previously unknown brand, compared to only 27% of those aged between 55-64-years-old. Independent retailers will also benefit from this trend, with 72% of respondents saying that they are likely or very likely to continue to shop at independent stores, either locally or online, above larger retailers such as Amazon. 

Aside from availability, our Influenster members (44%) indicated that they have started using a new brand because of the way they responded in the crisis. More than half of respondents indicated brands play a very crucial role in the pandemic, 74% agree/strongly agree that how a  brand responds in a crisis will impact their brand loyalty or likelihood to purchase from that brand in the future.  

Consumers’ priorities have changed which is changing how they want to experience retail

Shoppers are looking for convenience, now more than ever, evidenced through the uptake in subscription models. Not only has this been beneficial for consumers, but brands and retailers get the benefit of locking in repeat revenue. In fact, almost a fifth (19%) of all global respondents confirmed that they had signed up to a subscription service during the pandemic. And, it appears that this on-demand payment model will become a long-term change to behavior as 83% of those respondents are willing to continue to pay for their subscriptions. Respondents said that the key deciding factors to keep subscriptions post pandemic is convenience (43%), quality of the product (44%), and reliable delivery (35%). 

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Insights into the current shopping behaviors that are likely to become long-term habits, from developing subscription models to meeting an on-demand shopping habit to creating loyalty from a new customer base, enables brands and retailers to build valuable customer relationships and thrive in the new normal. If you want to learn more about our research findings, download our e-book.