What is content syndication?

Content syndication, or retail syndication, is a method of driving revenue by republishing pieces of content (whether brand or user-generated) on one or more different channels — like e-commerce sites and social media pages. Businesses of all sizes use content syndication because it puts content in front of shoppers wherever they are, encouraging them to make confident purchases.

One such brand that utilizes content syndication is travel brand Samsonite, who wanted to increase branded and influencer content across channels for retail and wholesale divisions. Despite being a household name for travel products, Samsonite has faced several challenges. Namely, they wanted to:

• Boost product discovery
• Increase presence across sales channels
• Effectively distribute authentic user-generated content

In order to meet these goals, Samsonite partnered with Bazaarvoice to syndicate reviews and other content across new channels. 

Being able to more broadly distribute and share this content that we’re so heavily invested in and are spending a lot of our budget on developing really gave us a competitive edge

Meghan O’Keefe, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Samsonite

By leveraging content syndication, Samsonite was able to significantly increase revenue and create an exceptional online shopping experience across all sales channels. 

Expanded product galleries inspire customers and skyrocket sales

Before content syndication, Samsonite struggled with finding the right content distribution channels that were also conducive to product discovery. But they found a solution in Bazaarvoice Galleries. This tool became an essential part of Samsonite’s strategy to deliver travel-inspired content and authentic visuals to their customers while boosting revenue. 

Galleries consists of branded, influencer, and customer visual content and acts as a segway to product description pages. Rather than encountering a boring product description page, shoppers are able to browse a dynamic and engaging page featuring authentic user-generated and branded content, helpful ratings and reviews, and common questions and answers.

Upgrading these product description pages resulted in consumers spending 5x more time on pages, browsing galleries, and choosing to purchase at 4x the average rate. As O’Keefe explained:

When our users engage with our galleries, we’re able to achieve conversion rates at about 4x their normal rate. Not only are people spending more time on our sites, they’re also spending more money, which is a great KPI to consider too

Since 74% of shoppers believe that user-generated content is an important factor in the purchase decision, the authentic visuals of a product gallery act as a trust signifier for consumers. Through Bazaarvoice Galleries, Samsonite experienced a $599K increase in revenue since the last quarter. They also saw a 15% increase in the average order value of products when shoppers browsed gallery pages. 

How to syndicate content

Featuring content on product pages is one thing, but knowing how to syndicate content across different channels takes that to the next level. Which is where content syndication comes in.

For example, reviews are a crucial source of information for shoppers, with 88% consulting reviews before making a purchase. Imagine trying to decide between two products with similar features and price points. One has zero reviews, while the other has thousands of authentic reviews with pictures and ratings. The choice is clear. So it’s imperative to get review content in front of shoppers, wherever they are.

Samsonite struggled to maintain review sections across its many partner sites and retail channels, resulting in a lack of information for shoppers. Once syndicated reviews were launched through the Retail Syndication tool, Samsonite saw a 1,360% lift in review volume on destination sites like Target, Walmart, and Macy’s. 

Websites that had no prior reviews now contain healthy review sections too, providing shoppers with a wealth of information about Samsonite’s products. The Bed, Bath, and Beyond website alone went from zero to 28,260 authentic reviews. 

Retail Syndication leads to cohesive content distribution

Cohesion and consistency across channels creates a seamless customer shopping experience, which is exactly why Samsonite employed the Bazaarvoice Retail Syndication tool for visual content distribution. 

“I think that because we have the two divisions, direct to consumer and wholesale, and they’re always trying to live in harmony, it can sometimes feel a bit just disjointed when our branded content on our own sites, doesn’t quite match, or even exist, on our retail partner sites,” explained O’Keefe. 

Retail Syndication allowed for more brand consistency because UGC gathered from social media and branded content was now integrated throughout all sales channels. Shoppers searching for Samsonite products on popular retail websites like Walmart encountered the same visuals as those who shopped directly on Samsonite. 

Samsonite’s competitive advantage: user-generated content

User-generated content is at the core of Samsonite’s brand. With a balanced mix of authentic reviews and ratings, inspirational travel content shared through numerous channels, and stunning product galleries, they’ve created a cohesive brand experience, drivn product discovery, and increased revenue. 

Bazaarvoice Galleries and Retail Syndication tools play a key role in streamlining these processes. Meghan O’Keefe highlights how effortless it was to work with Bazaarvoice to implement these solutions. 

“It was very seamless and easy. The Bazaarvoice team took a lot of initiative and a lot of work off of our team. We implemented over the Covid-era and, at the time, our team was very lean, so to be able to implement such an important software and having it be so easy, is something people should know.” Read our full Samsonite case study here for more details.

Bazaarvoice makes content syndication simple. With our tool, you can easily syndicate content to our network of over 1,750 retailers — that’s 20x more traffic than other networks. More content in front of more shoppers means more revenue for your business. Learn more about Bazaarvoice Retail Syndication. Or get in touch directly below to get started.

Retail giants like Walmart, Amazon, and Kelloggs are already all-in on retail media networks. Here’s why you should be too.

Chapters:

1. What is a retail media network (RMN)?
2. The state of the retail media network industry
3. What are the benefits of retail media networks?
4. How to get the best retail media network ROI
5. Top retailer media network examples to consider
6. Stay nimble as the RMN market evolves

Advertising has always been something of a gamble. Before the internet, advertisers relied on television, physical signage, and print media ads for brand building and product selling. Then, ads on Google, Facebook, and others took the industry by storm. But even with all these channels, there was still a level of uncertainty that potential customers wouldn’t see the ads. Let alone buy what brands were selling. 

Then, data privacy regulations began to take effect and shook up the whole system. If digital ads seemed like a guessing game at all before, the end of third-party data tracking made reaching and converting prospects a total mystery. 

Enter: first-party data. First-party data is great, but it’s dependent on users opting in and actively contributing information in some cases. Then, you need a data management system, like a customer data platform, to store, segment, and analyze it all.

The reality is that brands need to collect and leverage first-party data to compete and succeed in the current online ecosystem. But there’s one way to ease and streamline the process while sending targeted ads at the same time: retail media networks (RMN).

With an RMN, brands can advertise on the platforms where their customers definitely are and access all the first-party data on those users. As a result, they can close the advertising and transaction loop.

Brands that partner with RMNs make confident advertising decisions, knowing that their ads will reach their intended audience, making it a much safer bet than ever before. And this is the time to do it because RMNs are having a major moment, and all signs point to continuous growth. Before you start advertising with an RMN, get familiar with how they work, how they can benefit your brand, and best practices for getting the most out of the partnership. 

What is a retail media network?

Retail media networks are any digital, customer-facing channels owned by retailers that their partner brands can advertise on. Essentially, brands can place ads on the digital shelves and aisles of the retailers that sell their products. Those ads can be on the retailer’s main e-commerce site, social media channels, apps, and any other online location where customer transactions take place. Basically everywhere the shopper is.

RMNs have proprietary data on their customers that advertisers can leverage to deliver personalized, targeted ads. This data also attributes consumer behavior to individual products, so brands can connect customer data with product impressions, engagement, and sales. 

Customers that browse and interact with retailer channels allow them to track their data in a way that is private and protected, which gives advertisers legitimate access to it. 

The following is a common example of an RMN ad in the form of a sponsored product recommendation featured on one of the leading RMNs, Walmart.

The state of the retail media network industry

Retail media is one of the rapidly growing areas of digital advertising. eMarketer predicts that RMN revenue in the U.S. will surpass $50 billion in 2023, accounting for 20% of total digital ad spend. That’s a 26% increase from the projected revenue in 2022. 

Walmart Connect advertising sales have increased nearly 240% on a two-year stack

The grocery delivery app Instacart is experiencing explosive retail media ad growth, expecting to reach close to $1 billion in 2022 revenue, compared to its $300 million in 2020.

Likewise Walmart Connect, Walmart’s retail media network, is connecting brands with customers. In a 2021 earnings review, Walmart reported that, “Walmart Connect advertising sales have increased nearly 240% on a two-year stack.”

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands are among one of the top industries that advertise with RMNs, with 85% planning to increase spending in the next year. Likewise, at least 85% of brands in the jewelry, luxury goods, consumer electronics, and beauty industries plan to increase spending in the next year. The top RMNs that CPG brands work with are:

1. Amazon
2. Walmart
3. eBay
4. Home Depot
5. Walgreens

Outside of the typical brand advertisers, non-endemic advertisers are a growing category. Non-endemic brands sell complementary products and services but not directly through the retailer. This partnership is very mutually beneficial because the non-endemic brands offer more value for the customer, and the retailer provides a bigger platform for them. As of 2021, 58% of non-endemic brands work with RMNs.

According to an Insider Intelligence survey, the top RMN ad formats purchased by U.S. consumer goods brands include:

1. Onsite search ads (67%)
2. Onsite display and banner ads (66%)
3. Connected TV video ads (65%)
4. Video ads (63%)

Brands use these various ad types primarily for promoting products, like with sponsored product ads. Or, they can be used for brand building, which video and off-platform ads on social media are particularly suited for.

While RMNs are a rapidly growing advertising niche, their future will be determined by the value they produce for brands and consumers. That will be measured in incremental growth opportunities for brands, shopper and user experience, and sustained data privacy.

What are the benefits of retail media networks for brands?

In the age of the “always-on” customer, the potential for increased revenue from retail media ads is huge. Customers come to online retailers for both discovery and purchasing, so brands can reach them wherever they’re at in the funnel.  

Access to the retailer’s first-party data is the top motivation for CPG brands in the U.S. to partner with RMNs. This data allows brands to target their ads to customers effectively and accurately track their performance. Personalization at scale is also a top benefit of data access — for example, serving ads promoting products based on product page visits and order history. 

Building stronger retail partnerships is another leading driver for CPG companies. For brands, the benefits of positive retail relationships include increased brand awareness and attracting new customers from a wider audience. These are two important functions of brand building, which is just as important as performance marketing for advertisers.

Closed-loop reporting provides sophisticated insights that link ad engagement with sales. With this capability, brands can accurately track all the actions taken within the RMN where they place ads, plus all the customer information behind those actions. This gives them a clear picture of exactly how well their ads are performing.

How brands can get the best ROI from retail media networks

Once you’ve made the decision to start advertising with one or multiple RMNs, develop a strategy to create, manage, and measure your campaigns for the best results. Consider these essential tactics for retail media advertising when making your plan of action.

Optimize your retail media ads with user-generated content 

Building out product listings and pages on your retail partner sites with user-generated content (UGC), like customer reviews and product photos, is critical for a successful retail partnership. The same is true for the ads placed with those retailers. 

UGC syndication is instrumental in extending the reviews from your native e-commerce site to your retail partners’ sites. Before you can syndicate reviews, photos, and videos of your products created by your customers, you first need to collect them. Among other tactics, you can request and encourage UGC with:

• Review request emails
• Customer satisfaction surveys
• A social media hashtag campaign
• Product sampling

After you’ve enhanced your retail product listings with UGC using syndication, you can incorporate the same content into your ads. Repurposing UGC in retail ads is extremely effective for demonstrating social proof and winning customers’ trust in your products. The latest Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index found that 40% of consumers would be most likely to purchase from an ad if it has UGC like shopper reviews and photos. 

Diversify ad formats to drive growth and innovation

Part of an effective strategy is to test different content types and approaches, then focus on what works best. That’s why utilizing the different ad formats available to you is important to discovering what drives results and resonates with consumers. Continuing this process over time is key because as retail media networks evolve, so will their advertising and consumer trends.

Forrester reports that onsite search is the most popular retail media ad type, exceeding onsite display ads, which were previously the most common. Forrester predicts that while offsite ads on other digital retail channels currently make up a small percentage of ad revenue, they’ll, “drive incremental growth going forward.” Those other channels include social media, mobile, and audio ads. The Walgreens Advertising Group (WAG) alone has 20 different digital platforms where brands can run ads.

Social commerce is a big category to pay attention to, since so much shopping takes place on social media. With social commerce ads, you can promote your products on the retailer’s various channels, like Instagram and TikTok, and tag the featured products so shoppers can purchase them directly from the content. In addition to image and video posts, live shopping is another opportunity to include your products in this interactive form of shoppable content.

Keep in mind that retail media ads aren’t exclusively for online. Brands can also leverage customer data to place in-store ads, including physical ads and in-store music ad spots. According to a McKinsey survey, brands dedicate 25% of their RMN ad budget to in-store marketing. 

Prioritize customer experience

The mark of a successful advertising strategy is striking a balance between getting the desired results and creating a positive effect on the customer. Your ads should be relevant, helpful, and inspire action. What you don’t want is to interrupt the shopping experience or deter customers with ads that seem pointless, excessive, or spammy. 

There are some essential best practices to follow when factoring in shopper and user experience. Personalization should be a top consideration. Fortunately, with the benefit of first-party data, there are plenty of ways you can customize your ads. For example, if a customer purchases a lot of baby products, a personalized ad could be for a discount on baby food, a similar product recommendation in search results, or an add-on product based on current shopping cart items. 

Data on customers and previous ad activity will also inform the frequency of your ad campaigns. With these insights, you can make sure you’re not overloading customers with too many or repeat ads.

Create a partnership that goes beyond the transaction

Since building strong retail partnerships is a top catalyst for brands becoming advertisers, they should focus on how to achieve that outcome. 

To start, brands should share their goals with their retail partners, whether that’s customer retention, reviving sales in a low-performing product category, or supporting successful new product launches. This transparency establishes trust and leads to ideas on how brands and retailers can find mutually beneficial opportunities.

Brands can strengthen their value for retailers by doing everything on their end to provide product quality and optimize their listing content. They can also make special arrangements with retailers, like offering particular products exclusively through that retailer. 

Analyze reporting to measure ad performance

Reporting is crucial for paid advertising campaigns, as they are for any marketing efforts. And with all the data that RMNs make available to advertisers, that reporting is both rich and granular. 

Track the metrics that are most important to your retail media advertising goals. Those may include:

• Impressions
• Engagement: clicks, add-to-cart items, saved products, product page views
• Revenue earned
• Best- and worst-selling products
• Popular ad formats
• Best performing channels: onsite or offsite 
• Number of new customers
• Demographics of most engaged customers
• Number of new product reviews
• Customer sentiment from product reviews

Reporting is pointless without putting the insights gained from it into action. Reporting helps you identify areas of improvement and success to either modify or double down on. For example, you can learn what ad types and channels to dedicate most of your budget to, new customer segments to create personalized campaigns for, what products drive sales, and what products need rejuvenation. 

Advertising is often a function of marketing departments, but the results have an impact on other teams as well, like product development and sales. It’s important to share the insights acquired from retail media reporting with other departments throughout your company that can lead to better overall performance.

Top retail media networks to consider

RMNs are booming, and new ones continue to emerge. The following are some major players to keep on your radar. Weigh your options based on what matters most for your brand, including cost, channel and format variety, customer service, and niche.  

Amazon Advertising

Amazon is the undisputed RMN leader, earning the most ad spend and driving the most ad revenue over any other. Key benefits of Amazon Advertising include the variety of products sold by the retailer spanning many different categories and the volume of monthly visitors clocking in at 2 billion. Amazon’s ad partners can leverage effective ad formats, including search results ads, home page brand sponsorship, and even brand microsites within the main platform. 

Walmart Connect

Walmart Connect follows Amazon as the second largest RMN based on ad revenue. The scale of its RMN is particularly attractive, which extends from its main onsite platform to major offsite channels like TikTok, Snap, and Roku. The options available to brand partners open up a huge and diverse audience to tap into. Walmart is going all-in with its RMN services, investing in technology and ways to connect its different channels, leaving a lot of room for brands to innovate. 

Leisurewear brand Harvic partnered with Walmart Connect with the goals of increasing sales and return on ad spend (ROAS). The significant results include increasing ROAS by 36%, a monthly conversion rate increase of 31%, 1,665% month-over-month total attributed revenue, and a 3,061% month-over-month increase in units sold. Walmart acted as a strategic partner, assessing Harvic’s current strategy and training the company on how to optimize it.

Home Depot’s Retail Media+  

RMNs like Amazon, Walmart, and Target are great for a variety of different products, but if you specialize in one specific industry, a niche RMN could be the best fit. One of the top niche RMNs for home improvement and decor brands is Home Depot’s Retail Media+. Home Depot’s unique RMN offerings encompass a variety of advertising channels, including its own mobile app and email marketing and proven results for its advertisers. 

Dollar General Media Network (DGMN)

Recently, the budget-friendly retailer introduced an upgraded RMN called DG Media Network. Dollar General promises detailed and comprehensive first-party data on its customers to make the best strategic ad decisions. The retailer also has a dedicated team to help advertisers develop their strategy to get the best results, with partners like Google, Quotient, and The Trade Desk. In addition to its digital channels, it offers in-store advertising at over 20,000 locations.

Ulta Beauty’s UB Media

Another new niche RMN to emerge within the last year is Ulta Beauty’s UB Media. Ulta Beauty is the largest beauty retailer in the U.S. and has the advantage of having over 37 million members. That’s a lot of customer data for its beauty brand advertisers to leverage. Their featured ad solutions include onsite sponsored products, social media ads, offsite video ads, and offsite display ads.

Albertson’s Media Collective (AMC)

The major grocery retailer recently announced the launch of its RMN, Albertson’s Media Collective. It has a huge client base, including over 30 million shoppers per week and over 27 million loyalty members. The retailer offers curated onsite and offsite ad opportunities for brands.

Stay nimble as the retail media network market evolves

The retail media network opportunities for brands are exciting, and they’re in a state of growth and evolution. So, your strategy will likely change as the industry does. Expect to try different RMNs and approaches until you find the right fit. 

To bolster your retail media ad endeavors, explore the Bazaarvoice solutions that can give you an advantage along the way, like retail syndication and review collection. Check out the tested and proven benefits of these tools, like how the furniture brand Nourison strengthened its retail relationships, increased conversions by 4x, and boosted revenue by 3x with retail syndication.

LEARN MORE

Masterclass: Where retail media networks are headed next and how to get there

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The Walmart seller Marketplace is an online platform that allows third-party sellers to list their products on Walmart.com. Selling on Walmart Marketplace lets you tap into the retailer’s massive customer base and reputation as a well-known, trusted source for high-quality items. It will also help you grow your audience, build a following of your own, and drive sales.

Walmart.com sees 100 million unique visitors each month, and it keeps growing. Recently, Walmart CEO, C. Douglas McMillion, said that online sales during the pandemic accelerated by “two to three years in some cases,” and he expects that growth to continue. 

First steps for selling on Walmart Marketplace

1. Begin the application process, where you tell Walmart about your business and the kinds of products you sell (that can be found here) 
2. Wait for approval
3. Once approved, register and create an account on the platform 
4. Set up your profile for shoppers to see 
5. It’s time to list your products! 

Now that you have your product pages up, there’s several ways to optimize your Walmart Marketplace listings.

4 ways to sell on Walmart Marketplace

As a business that partners with Walmart, we’re well positioned to guide you on how to sell on Walmart Marketplace. Here’s our best practices to follow.

1. An SEO strategy ensures your products get noticed

To increase sales, your products need to show up in a shopper’s search results. So, you need to optimize your product pages for SEO. Walmart uses algorithms to rank products based on the number of sales and views, and how your page displays the product name, images, features, description, and attributes. 

Product names should be 50 to 75 characters and clearly state exactly what you’re selling. The suggested naming structure includes the brand name, size specs, a defining quality, the item’s name and style, and quantity. 

Getting more reviews is one way brands can improve where their products show up, giving them more clicks to their products

Shariq Hasan, Associate Manager, E-commerce Merchandising Operations at Walmart Canada

Include multiple high-quality, professional images on each product page and consider adding a video showing the product in action to increase traffic. In the product descriptions, add several relevant keywords. You may need to do a little research — such as checking out your competitors’ product pages— to find which keywords will work best. 

Using the right keywords to highlight a few product features also helps shoppers browse easier. Adding the relevant Walmart Marketplace built-in product attributes, such as clothing size groups or colors, helps your items stand out when consumers search. 

The higher you appear in search results, the more products you will sell on Walmart Marketplace.

2. Use user-generated content to enhance product discovery 

Ensuring that your product pages feature user-generated content (UGC) offers a wealth of benefits. For one, it enhances the discoverability of your products and boosts sales. 

For two, UGC helps brands boost their SEO traffic. Encouraging UGC and customer reviews keeps your product pages fresh with new content, and websites with regularly updated content that’s rich in keywords rank higher. 

Customer ratings, reviews, and social content also let you foster a dialogue with shoppers and reduce return rates. 78% of shoppers worldwide trust online product reviews, and nearly 40% rely on reviews to inform purchase decisions, according to Bazaarvoice research. And using data from the Bazaarvoice Network, we found when shoppers engage with UGC on best-in-class sites, brands and retailers experience a 144% lift in conversions.

Shoppers also respond to visual content from their fellow consumers, as they consider photos and videos as authentic and helpful in their shopping journey. Visuals, combined with detailed product descriptions and reviews, provide a more engaging shopping experience.  

3. Increasing your review volume on Walmart Marketplace drives purchases

The more reviews your products have, the better. Getting just one review can increase purchases by 10%, according to Bazaarvoice research. A hundred reviews can bring a 37% purchase increase, along with insights into consumer sentiment about your products. Increasing your review volume helps grow your Walmart seller marketplace presence. 

One of the best ways to increase your Walmart Marketplace reviews is through Managed Sampling, by Bazaarvoice. The sampling program gives brands access to a vast community of loyal shoppers, who receive a product sample and provide an honest review in exchange. 

Bazaarvoice helps brands choose items to sample — whether it’s a new, seasonal, or exclusive product — and the audience segments best suited to sample and review the product. Within just three weeks, you can see authentic reviews and images start flowing in. And then your revenue increasing.

4. Optimizing reviews helps brands succeed on Walmart Marketplace

Collecting a trove of Walmart Marketplace reviews is just the start. You need to optimize your reviews, too. Bazaarvoice offers several products to help. 

Collect + Distribute equips brands with tools to collect reviews from customers who make a purchase and share those reviews across different retailer websites, like Walmart.com. For Walmart Marketplace sellers, this boosts sales, expands the impact of each review collected, and enables you to connect with consumers. 

Engaging directly with shoppers through reviews lets them know that you’re listening and care about their feedback. Answering questions and responding to reviews on the Walmart seller marketplace helps you build relationships and deepen connections with your most loyal shoppers. Brands that interact via Questions & Answers see a 150% increase in conversion. 

Brands can also tap into the more than 7 million members of the Influenster community, who can be engaged to create content about the products they love. 

Start selling on Walmart Marketplace

Selling on Walmart Marketplace gives brands an opportunity to engage with a huge group of shoppers and link up with one of the most recognizable retailers in the world. The key to getting noticed, driving sales, and building a following is increasing and optimizing Walmart Marketplace reviews.

Getting started with Walmart and Bazaarvoice

Now you know how to sell on Walmart Marketplace, all that’s left to do is get started. Walmart partnered with Bazaarvoice so we could help brands build UGC programs on Walmart, through Sampling, Questions & Answers, and our Influenster community. That means we’re best positioned to help you succeed.

Learn more ways to drive Walmart sales on our co-marketing page. Or get in touch below to get started.

Unlock the power of user-generated content to stand out on Walmart.com

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Building on this, we wanted to take some time to break down the fundamentals around content syndication and the value it provides.

What is review syndication?

Review syndication is the distribution of a brand’s user-generated content (UGC), like customer reviews and photos, to the websites of retail partners who sell the brand’s products. Depending on whether a brand has its own e-commerce or not, the UGC may show up on the brand’s website, and then the same content is syndicated out to key retailers, where it will display on the corresponding product display pages.

Review syndication helps brands ensure their content is available wherever consumers are shopping and helps retailers deliver an exceptional shopping experience by having plenty of content on all of their products.

How does review syndication work?

While the definition of syndication makes it sound simple, there’s a lot that takes place in the background to ensure that brands and retailers can distribute and receive content.

Let’s break this down. Here’s the steps in our review syndication process.

1. Brand content is collected from customers

Brands, or third-party providers on their behalf, can collect ratings, reviews, and other UGC using a variety of methods, including review request emails, sweepstakes, social media, and sampling programs.

2. Bazaarvoice authenticates and moderates the content

UGC should represent a customer’s genuine, unbiased, and transparent opinion about their experience with a product or service. In this step, considerable efforts are made to ensure that content is:

• Free from fraudulent content

We take review syndication very seriously. With that, we prevent fraudulent content, including disruptive or ‘trolling’ behavior, commercial messages, automated submissions (e.g. bots and scripts), illegitimate or degrading content from a client’s competitor, and self-promotion.

• Free from edits

Reviews are not altered in any way by anyone other than the original author — including corrections for spelling or grammar. Reviews are not filtered, edited, or deleted simply because they’re negative or are lower rated.

• Transparent

We don’t allow companies to directly ask for positive reviews. If consumers are offered money or promotional material (such as discounts or coupons) in exchange for providing an unbiased review, then the review must note this fact.

• Moderated

Our proprietary NLP- and human-powered moderation engine ensures that content follows brand guidelines before it is displayed, with coverage in over 38 languages.

3. Bazaarvoice matches brand content to the product catalogs at retailer websites

Brands sell their products on a diverse set of retail sites. Matching hundreds of thousands of products across thousands of retailer and brand catalogs is tricky. Because of that, we take on the task of matching brand UGC to the retailers that sell their specific products. And we do this step at scale.

4. Brands’ UGC is displayed on retailer websites

Brand content, whether ratings, reviews, or photos, is displayed on the corresponding retailer product display pages. Thanks to our syndication network, retailers receive over 325 million reviews from 2,500 brand sites, and brands are able to reach over 1.3 billion shoppers across over 1,250 global retailer sites every month.

Why is review syndication valuable?

For a number of reasons. Thanks to review syndication, brands increase the reach and distribution of their content, reaching consumers they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. And retailers gain content to help shoppers make better decisions and to increase sales. Brands, retailers, and, most importantly, consumers all win.

It’s important that we’re as efficient as possible with our content. Bazaarvoice is a partner with a global network of strategic retailers that are important to our business. That really helps us to get our content on those channels, not only for ratings and reviews, but for Q&A or social media content.

G2 reviewer — Global Lead Social and Consumer Content Engagement, CPG (electronics)

That being said, review syndication is extremely complex, and that complexity grows as the scale of the retailers and brands grow. Much of this is due to inconsistency in how the e-commerce industry treats and manages catalog data. Which is where Bazaarvoice steps in.

The gist is, there’s no single way to build a catalog or one single indicator for product matching. Instead, we ingest all of the catalog data across our network, which comes to us in various stages of completeness, and then fill in the gaps to match the data piece by piece, product by product.We then build a connection between brand content and retailer catalogs and have invested in making this matching process seamless on both ends.

The result is that every product is given its own brand-identifier, authenticated, matched, routed, and ultimately displayed at each retailer.

• Retailers gain high quality, trusted, authentic content that drives SEO, sales, and engagement value, all without having to invest in their own infrastructure to gather, aggregate, and match content from the brands they sell
• Brands rest easy knowing they’re putting their best foot forward and standing up to competition in the retail channel
• Consumers get authentic product content wherever they shop and they know where that content comes from, fostering a connection to the brand, trust in the retailer, and confidence to buy

What questions should I ask of a UGC or review syndication provider?

We highly encourage you to thoroughly evaluate any UGC or review syndication solution. To be able to better understand review syndication and evaluate your options, we recommend asking any content syndication provider the following questions.

Data rights:

• What data is being captured?
• How will my data be stored and processed?
• Do I have to agree to any data privileges in exchange for a zero-cost solution?
• What are the honest and responsible costs in a zero-cost solution?

Product matching:

• How do you ensure that brand content is matched to the right product at the right retailers?
• How are you operationalizing the matching of content?

Implementation:

• Am I responsible for implementing an API?
• Do I need a second display on my page?
• If so, how does this impact load time/page speed?
• Do you require a pixel to be implemented?

Syndicate reviews with Bazaarvoice

Review syndication helps retailers and brands of all sizes to maximize the volume of their customer ratings, reviews, and visual content and ensure that UGC is accessible wherever their customers are. It can also be a powerful tool for lean marketing teams with limited time and resources.

And review syndication across the Bazaarvoice Network helps brands and retailers to significantly increase content coverage and the quality of ratings and reviews for their products. For the composite organization, from a recent Forrester Total Economic Impact Study of Bazaarvoice, this improvement leads to better conversions on products (from 2% to 4%) and average order values that increase by 5%.

If you’re a current Bazaarvoice client, we know that review syndication is top of mind for you. For any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your Bazaarvoice account team.

If you’re not a Bazaarvoice client, get in touch below and see how we can help.

Our team recently sat down for a conversation with a thought leader from the Cohley team. Here’s what they said!

First off, can you tell readers your name, role at Cohley and how you got involved in the organization? And also, something you’re proud of but never get the chance to brag about 

My name is Casey Murray. I’m the Director of Partnerships at Cohley. I first learned about Cohley after being introduced to the co-founders, Tom Logan and Erik Graber, in February of 2020. From our first conversation, I was brought in on the mission to change the way brands generate and test content to help grow their businesses. I officially joined the Cohley team in January of 2021 to build up the partnerships function. 

Something I’m proud of but don’t get the chance to brag about… I’m not much of the bragging type, but I wrote an album during lockdown via virtual collaborations with other musicians. Will it be released? TBD.

For those who may not be familiar, tell us about Cohley

Cohley is a content generation and testing platform built for marketers looking to establish an authentic connection with both targeted new consumers and loyal customers. In today’s marketing environment, marketers need more content than ever, and even more data to back their decisions about how/when it’s used.

Cohley is changing the way that brands and agencies have traditionally generated and tested content. We connect them with a diverse and vast network of creators, photographers, videographers, and product reviewers to fulfill each and every marketing channel’s ever-growing content needs. Whether the goal is to improve conversion rates on e-commerce sites, click through rates in email or SMS, or improve engagement in ads and social — Cohley has you covered with its content generation and testing capabilities. 

How do you think user-generated content helps brands be competitive in today’s digital first landscape?

Today’s consumer demands authentic and relatable content, from real people, to establish trust in a brand and its products. First-time and life-long shoppers, they all rely on UGC [user-generated content] to make a more informed purchasing decision. UGC needs to be present in the start, middle, and end of their buyer’s journey to establish desired connections and conversions. Brands that actively generate, monitor, display, and test UGC in key marketing channels (website, ads, email, SMS, Social) will always have a leg up on their competition.

Why did you decide to partner with Bazaarvoice?

After countless integration requests from mutual customers it was an absolute no-brainer! Bazaarvoice has been a pioneer and trailblazer for nearly two decades. 

We’re so pumped to integrate and officially partner with Bazaarvoice to activate our mutual customers’ content to their site and associated retailer sites through the Bazaarvoice Network.

What does this partnership with Bazaarvoice mean to your business?

By establishing an integration partnership, our mutual customers can generate custom content (product reviews and visual UGC) at scale, and seamlessly send them to the Bazaarvoice Network to be displayed where their shoppers shop.

Cohley and our hundreds of customers know that content generation and activation is a never ending process. This integration partnership will be paramount for merchants looking to drive traffic, conversion, and sales, and make more informed content decisions 

We’re so excited for this partnership and we look forward to creating smarter shopping experiences together. Learn more here.

We’re better together. Interested in becoming a Bazaarvoice partner? Apply now.

Luckily, we’re going to show you how. And why. And possibly even when. Using global brands, and Bazaarvoice’s own client success stories, we explain exactly how you can rock customer centricity.

Chapters:

1. What is a customer-centric selling approach?
2. Benefits of customer centricity
3. How brands use data to implement customer centricity
4. Use UGC to enable the right strategy

Imagine you’re shopping online for a new social media management tool. You’re checking your LinkedIn account, scrolling through your feed, or listening to your favorite podcast at the same time. Suddenly, you get a DM from a salesperson crowing about their platform. You need to sign up right now! Quick! This is a one-time deal! Aaaand… Close browser.

The truth is, most people prefer to buy from salespeople who first establish a friendly connection and then take the time to personalize their pitch to you and your needs. That’s customer-centric selling at its core.

Most e-commerce managers know customer centricity will help them grow revenue and foster customer loyalty. In fact, a Vantage Partners study suggests that companies that adopt a mature customer-centric approach realize 2.5x revenue growth compared with the average company. But in practice, many brands still end up fumbling around in the dark and not really harnessing the data to make this happen.

Here’s how top e-commerce brands use UGC about real customer challenges to inform their customer-centric strategy.

What is a customer-centric selling approach?

Customer-centric selling is a sales methodology that puts customer needs first to establish a successful, mutually beneficial relationship. Engaging in a customer-centric approach relies on empathy and nurturing a two-way dialogue with customers. It’s the approach that actually provides the best customer experience.

Customer centricity also allows brands to modify their processes, product, messaging, and sales timeline to fit customer needs. A brand that adopts a customer-centric selling strategy becomes its customers’ best problem-solving ally because it approaches customers in a way that benefits the customers.

For a successful customer-centric selling approach, salespeople (and marketers, too!) should engage prospects and customers with key behaviors. In the influential book “CustomerCentric Selling,” co-writers Michael Bosworth, John Holland, and Frank Visgatis break down those behaviors into eight basic tenets, which I’ve adapted and simplified below:

• Actively listen with curiosity — not assumptions.
• Ask curious, open-ended questions that give them the freedom to express themselves in a non-pressured environment.
• Focus on helping them overcome a challenge, solve a problem, or satisfy a need.
• Align with their values.

Here’s a great visual that defines customer centricity on four different levels of maturity:

Customer-centric vs consumer-centric

Customer-centric selling is an empathetic, inside-out approach in which all teams — R&D, product management, marketing, sales, support — seek to learn and understand what your customer’s needs truly are.

Compare this to the more traditional consumer-centric selling, which is a product-focused, outside-in approach. Rather than asking questions, consumer-centric selling seeks to make a sale by judging and assuming what the customer’s needs truly are.

The table below offers an easy way to compare the two approaches, adapted from the book “CustomerCentric Selling” and an article published in California Management Review:

A recent example of assumptions gone wrong comes from the wonderful world of Disney. Taking a consumer-centric approach to marketing Encanto, Disney assumed people would love the character of Isabela. She’s classically beautiful, has that perfect Disney princess singing voice, and so on. So, Disney made tons of Isabela merchandise.

Except… Little girls actually loved Luisa. A character whose signature muscles the film’s development team had to fight with Disney executives to keep. Following the film’s release, Disney has had to scramble to meet customer demand for Luisa merchandise.

Had Disney taken a customer-centric approach, it may have been less shocked by changing tastes and trends for women. And maybe Luisa’s beloved, fan-favorite muscles could have been helping Disney generate even more revenue.

In contrast, Blue Bottle Coffee has taken a customer-centric approach by allowing newsletter subscribers to opt out of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day marketing messages.

The company realized that many people struggle with the constant barrage of messages surrounding those holidays. So instead of assuming that their audience relates positively to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and pushing marketing on them, the company listened to what their audience wanted and took action based on that insight.

Benefits of customer centricity

A customer-centric selling approach is more successful because it’s focused on building a sustainable, trusting relationship. According to Nielsen’s 2021 Trust in Advertising Study, most people place the most trust in recommendations that come from people they know.

Sales and marketing reps obviously can’t be a friend or family member to every customer. But, they can strive to do the next best thing — “put the consumer first in every strategy, plan and execution.” In doing so, brands will earn the trust of customers and foster positive word of mouth.

The goal isn’t to become better sellers but rather “buyer facilitators,” said Chris Sargent, senior director of Global Sales Enablement at NICE inContact, during his discussion on sales training.

If employed correctly and combined with the right data-collection tools, a customer-centric selling strategy will help your brand better resonate with customers and bolster both customer success and customer support. It will target their specific needs and pain points.

Your customers will be better served because your brand will be providing a better overall value.

As a result, loyalty and trust will grow. Loyal customers will transform into full-fledged ambassadors who will help positively characterize your brand by word-of-mouth. Your entire company will better understand and empathize with its audience. This will promote more innovative product development and an elevated cycle of inspired, engaged employees.

The more engaged your employees are, the better the customer experience will be. And the better the customer’s experience is, the more customer loyalty and retention will increase — not to mention your revenue.

How brands use data to implement customer centricity

The best customer centricity strategies rely on asking the right questions and actually listening to customer responses. Traditionally, brands hired consumer psychologists to design focus groups and surveys. But this process is long and arduous, not to mention expensive.

Today, brands can utilize sophisticated software to source and use first-party data and user-generated content (UGC) in their marketing and sales efforts.

Enventys

According to Roy Morejon, President and Co-founder of Enventys Partners — a B2B product development, launch, and marketing firm — customer-centric data is often found through interactive data tracking. This involves tracking data such as the number of confirmed purchases, abandoned carts, and returns.

Brands can also collect quantitative first-party data through recurring email subscriptions, Morejon explained, by analyzing open rates and measuring how many customers click the links within the emails they received.

“Analyzing this data in comparison to other user details,” said Morejon, “such as general internet behavior, job, lifestyle, and other personal data (age, gender, etc.), provides insights that you can use to optimize customer-centric selling.”

Morejon mentioned Pardot as a specific tool to help harness this data.

“Pardot is a great feature integrated with Salesforce. This app tracks how customers move through the sales funnel, tracking purchases, abandonments, and returns. It provides data on how customers interact with digital marketing assets, such as social media ads and emails, and even offline interactions. It gathers data submitted through user forms, Salesforce, and other integrable platforms.” — Roy Morejon.

Unilever

UGC, like reviews, and questions and answers, is a common method to bolster customer centricity. Unilever set out to get more user reviews, which it then used as a marketing tool to improve revenue. In doing this, it also improved customer loyalty and satisfaction, and increased organic search traffic and engagement.

This success was facilitated by Bazaarvoice-powered sampling campaigns. Unilever saw a massive increase in customer reviews across all its brands, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. This, in turn, gave Unilever additional leveraging power.

“When we include reviews in social ads and display ads,” said Jenna Spivak Evans, Innovation and Digital Capabilities Manager at Unilever, “we see about a 20–30% improvement in performance.”

“Because UGC delivers such rich content, you can see increases in search traffic of 15–25% as a result of using customer-generated content,” said Evans. “You will also see increases in website engagement metrics such as product page views per visit, average time spent onsite, and return-visitor rate.”

Unilever also cross-referenced the people leaving reviews with the customer data it has about those people in its CRM. Doing this not only helped collect UGC and demographic data, but it helped increase personalization as well.

According to Evans, “Integration of UGC into CRM will give us deeper demographic information and provide an incremental way to understand different customers’ needs.”

For a closer look at Unilever’s path to success, check out the Bazaarvoice case study.

Kärcher

Kärcher, a global cleaning technology company, uses UGC to collect customer insights, drive conversions, and strengthen its relationships with retail partners. By monitoring customer feedback and reviews throughout the sales process, the brand was not only able to create new products customers would love, but also improve pre-existing products and set a company-wide quality standard.

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

In Kärcher’s first sampling campaign, 98% of sample recipients responded with a review. The brand received hundreds of high-quality product reviews, videos, and images. Currently, it’s collected over 280K reviews across 73 retail sites.

With new valuable UGC data at its disposal, Kärcher was able to jumpstart its latest sales cycle and product launch by having numerous, high-quality reviews ready and available the moment new products went live.

Even better, leveraging UGC data helped Kärcher address some issues with product messaging. After reading some customer reviews, the brand realized that many customers didn’t understand the purpose of one of their products — or even how to use it. So, the company was able to tweak the product messaging and packaging to better communicate the product’s intended use.

This is a key example of customer-centric selling because the brand listened to customers and made relevant changes to address their needs.

You can read Bazaarvoice’s full Kärcher case study here.

Nestlé Canada

By leveraging UGC data, Nestlé Canada improved both its overall performance and its relationship with customers. The types of UGC that proved most beneficial were customer reviews and insights, customer feedback, and customer questions.

Thanks to Nestlé’s broad reach, it receives thousands of reviews on a constant basis. But all that data can be difficult to manage. So the company used Bazaarvoice Insights and Reports to make sense of the flood — and, more importantly, to inform business decisions.

Other helpful solutions Nestlé Canada leveraged were Bazaarvoice-powered focus groups and Questions & Answers. In fact, within three months of enabling Bazaarvoice Questions & Answers, Nestlé Canada received over 700 questions from its customers.

The driving force behind Nestlé Canada’s focus on reviews is that the company wants to listen to customers and solve their needs. “Consumers do the talking for us,” said Lee Beech, Director of Consumer Experience at Nestlé Canada. “They speak, and we listen and take action. ”

By leveraging all these solutions, the Nestlé sales team observed that many of its neutral product reviews contained customer questions. In response, Nestlé implemented Bazaarvoice Salesforce Connector and began devoting time each day to provide responses, enhancing customer support all from a single tool.

“It saves, on average, eight minutes to code a case,” according to Kristina Rapljenovic, Website Manager at Nestlé Canada. “We previously didn’t have the capacity and had to let go of engaging with as many of the reviews as we wanted. It would have taken eight minutes to open a case and transfer all of that content. Now, it’s all automated.”

For a more in-depth look, check out the Bazaarvoice’s Nestlé Canada case study.

KidKraft

Like Nestlé Canada and Kärcher, KidKraft uses data from UGC to make product changes. It’s been able to fine-tune its product positioning and fuel its marketing messaging due to the automated ways it can now collect customer feedback, reviews, and customer-shared product photos.

As a mark of its success, KidKraft has collected over 100,000 reviews across the Bazaarvoice Network and achieved 100% review coverage on retail sites as a result of syndication.

“We work really closely with the product development team,” said Heather Stables, the Director of Consumer Engagement at KidKraft, “to make sure that if we see consistent issues or questions being raised by consumers, we can go back and address that by making changes to the actual product.”

One example of this comes from KidKraft’s playhouses. Using Bazaarvoice Insights, KidKraft was able to quickly observe that many customers were DIYing one of the playhouses to have a white, more modern appearance. Recognizing the need, KidKraft released their own white, modern-style playhouse and saw a huge uptick in sales as a result.

Check out Bazaarvoice’s KidKraft case study to learn more.

Adeo

Adeo, a French home improvement retail company, launched a successful UGC program across all its brands. It also implemented strategies to handle fake reviews by collecting UGC data directly after a sale and including a verified purchase badge. Even more, it accessed new markets that, until recently, had low brand awareness. Its latest goal is to reach an overall customer satisfaction rating of four stars.

To begin implementing its customer-centric selling approach, Adeo began collecting UGC data such as customer reviews and ratings. Similar to Nestlé Canada, it also took into account customer questions. And like KidKraft and Kärcher, it utilized customer product photos.

UGC was particularly important to Adeo because its products are often used to complete technical projects like plumbing and electricity that require a degree of expertise. UGC helps to solve a common customer problem — confidence.

“Incorporating reviews, photos and questions by our customers on our products and services pages provides this reassurance and complements the expertise of our sellers,” said Nicolas Fillat, Marketing Business Leader, Customer Care and Feedback at Adeo.

Adeo also places a high value on reviews written in a language that customers can read. With the Bazaarvoice Translated Reviews feature, Adeo has been able to ensure both ratings and reviews are always presented in the customer’s preferred language. This way, customers benefit from reading insights from other customers.

“Bazaarvoice, with its strong global network, allows us to support our customers regardless of country or language,” said Fillat. “This has allowed us to collect, moderate, and display product reviews throughout ten group business to date.”

Check out Bazaarvoice’s Adeo case study for more info.

Wayfair

Wayfair stands out as another example of successful customer centricity. For its UGC campaigns, Wayfair encourages customers to share their design ideas using the branded hashtag #WayfairAtHome.

By measuring both demographic and UGC data, Wayfair has been able to deepen its understanding of its audience and deliver a hyper-personalized experience. It’s achieved this through analytics and predictive AI. Wayfair creates a detailed buyer persona through this AI system. This helps to show customers only the products most relevant to them. Wayfair simply has too much content not to do this.

Customer centricity isn’t just a choice for Wayfair. It’s a necessity.

“On average, we capture and store four terabytes of data every day and over the course of a year, we track approximately 40 billion customer actions on our site. Data has been democratized across the organization — it can be accessed and used regardless of whether an employee works in marketing, logistics, or engineering. Data has allowed the company to better execute on its strategy through improved personalization.” — Steven Conine, Wayfair Co-founder

By focusing on customer centricity, Wayfair has avoided the problem of customer experience becoming overwhelming and time consuming, which would certainly hurt sales metrics and decrease Wayfair’s overall revenue.

Instead, Wayfair has successfully streamlined the buyer process, thanks to its machine learning technology.

Use UGC to enable a customer-centric selling strategy

Customer centricity is a better approach to selling. To do it well, you need the right data and tools to collect it:

• Sampling campaigns
• Focus groups
• Insights and Reports solutions
• Questions & Answers
• (Translated) Ratings & Reviews
• Integrated reviews with CRMs

Now that you know how and why to put the customer first in sales, enable customers to make those sales for you by using product sampling and user-generated content. Or get in touch directly below to request a free demo.

You can check out more of our Long Read content here for more marketing strategies, tips, and insights.

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“Without a doubt, there’s a strong correlation between customers interacting with reviews and conversion rate.”

Online shopping has, somewhat unsurprisingly, hugely increased over the last year. In 2020 alone, e-commerce sales surpassed 4.2 trillion USD worldwide. The convenience alone of being able to make purchases without leaving the house is too appealing, especially in a year where leaving the house wasn’t even an option. But there’s something online shopping can’t replicate – interaction.

Whether that be interacting with a sales associate or interacting with a product (particularly the touch and feel aspect that consumers love), interactions that persuade the customer to make a purchase are missing from the online shopping journey. Your brand’s content needs to fill in this gap instead. 

Digital window shopping

To do so, you’ll need to make your website a digital brick-and-mortar store. That’s where user-generated content (UGC), like customer ratings and reviews, comes into play.

Almost 80% of consumers say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions, and ratings and reviews are at the center of that. In fact, in 2020 a whopping 87% of consumers said they read online reviews for local businesses before making a purchase. In short, reviews matter.

One brand that knows full-well how much they matter is Appliances Online (AO).

AO is Australia’s largest online appliance retailer, with over 8,000 unique products from the world’s best and biggest brands. How did they get to where they are today? Easy – through their legendary customer service. But it’s not just how they deliver products to their customers. What really sets them apart from the rest is how they deliver content to their customers. 

AO knows that ratings and reviews, and visual and social content (like photos or videos) from other customers are the strongest ammunition in the content arsenal. Which is why getting more reviews has always been a top priority for them.

Reviews also impact how the AO website merchandises products. Every time a supplier asks AO how they can ensure the success of their products, they’re given the same answer: Grow your review volume. And they’re right to say so, given that 70% of shoppers always look at available reviews.

Reviews reviews reviews

In our latest customer success story, we look at how AO worked with Bazaarvoice to reach out to different suppliers and increase their review intake. So far, they’ve already managed to gather:

• 83,000 native reviews
• 304,000 syndicated reviews from 60+ brands
• 386,000 total reviews

We detail how AO utilizes these customer ratings and reviews to fill their product display pages and, in turn, directly achieved a 3x higher conversion rate.

read the full case study now

Appliances Online uses Bazaarvoice to boost sales and improve the shopping experience

Read now

That’s why the home improvement giant partners with Bazaarvoice to get more high quality reviews onto its website. Home Depot Canada launched several solutions and features that improve customer experience and help its suppliers optimize their user-generated content (UGC) on the Home Depot Canada website. 

It’s a win-win situation for everyone, creating a better experience for customers and boosting sales for both Home Depot Canada and its vendors. From launching its own tailored sampling program to syndicating visual UGC, here’s how Home Depot Canada successfully injected thousands of quality reviews and photos into its website. 

1. Home Depot Canada inspired more confident purchases by increasing UGC with Home Depot Seeds 

Bazaarvoice and Home Depot Canada partnered to help brands get more UGC with its Home Depot Seeds sampling program. The sampling program puts products in the hands of Home Depot Canada shoppers who are eager to try new products, in exchange for providing honest product reviews on the Home Depot Canada website.

Home Depot Canada vendors are encouraged to use the review-seeding sampling program strategically throughout the year for seasonal, exclusive, and new products, or any products that need new reviews, as reviews recency matters. Bazaarvoice helps Home Depot Canada vendors decide which products to sample, identify the perfect audience for your product, and guide the brand throughout fulfilment. 

Home Depot Canada invested in reviews collection because UGC drives sales. Customers who interact with UGC are 2X more likely to convert and 93% of consumers say online reviews do impact their purchasing decisions. Reviews help customers validate their purchasing decisions and feel more confident in products. 

The sampling program is a relatively low-cost, tangible solution that allows Home Depot Canada vendors to easily get feedback, and increase their ratings and reviews coverage on Homedepot.ca. It’s been so successful in fact, that Home Depot US vendor partners are now interested in using it to collect reviews for their Canadian exclusive items and new product launches. 

Click to watch Home Depot Seeds 101

2. Home Depot Canada expanded its reach with French translations 

Almost a quarter of Canadians (22.8%) speak French as their first official language, but 92% of Home Depot’s reviews are in English. As many as 40% of customers won’t buy if they can’t read content in their language, so it was imperative for Home Depot Canada to enable French translations on its site to make its UGC more accessible for its French-speaking customers.

Luckily, turning on Bazaarvoice’s Review Translations feature was a quick way to expand Home Depot’s reach to French users and allow shoppers to translate UGC into their native language on-demand.

3. Home Depot Canada invested in more visual content on its site

Another simple and fast way Home Depot Canada enabled more engagement on its website was by launching photo syndication. 

Photo syndication is the collection and distribution of visual UGC for a brand to the websites of retail partners who sell the brand’s products. Brands, or third-party providers on their behalf, collect photos taken by customers using a variety of methods, including post-interaction emails, sweepstakes, social media, and sampling programs. For our clients, Bazaarvoice authenticates the collected photos and then matches brand content to the product catalogs on retailer websites. 

Photo syndication helps retailers deliver an exceptional shopping experience by showcasing plenty of content on all of their products. But it doesn’t just help retailers. Brands can leverage photo syndication to ensure their most inspirational content is available wherever consumers are shopping. 

A majority of consumers (62%) are more likely to buy a product if they can see photos taken by other customers, according to Search Engine Journal. The surveyed consumers said photos help them make purchasing decisions for a myriad of reasons, including helping them see the quality of a product and seeing the product in action. 

After enabling photo syndication, Home Depot Canada saw a big return: there were over 900,000 photos available within the Bazaarvoice Network to instantly syndicate to Home Depot Canada. Now, 937,472 syndicated reviews have photos attached, 1,398,076 total photos have been syndicated, and 109,481 products have syndicated reviews with photos.

Home Depot Canada made a name for itself in the retail industry with its innovative—yet simple—approach to collecting more UGC for its vendors on Homedepot.ca. 

Get in touch with us here to learn more