Marketer, analyst, ex-CMO focused on the Google ecosystem (Ads, Merchant Center, GA4, GTM). Google Partner. 150+ projects, 100+ positive reviews on Freelancehunt, 12+ countries.
- I work directly, with no account managers or subcontractors
- I measure results in sales, not in-platform conversions
- Maximum expertise in the Google ecosystem — instead of “PPC, social ads and SEO, all in one”
Take a close look at the screenshot and tell me: which product would you notice first?
Right, the one that stands out from the gray mass of competitors. But not everyone can have this feature. The problem is most visible with stores on Prom.ua, a Ukrainian marketplace platform: there's no way to connect the Google Merchant Center Product Ratings program there using the platform's built-in tools.
I have my own solution that gets around this. Over 20 stores on Prom.ua are already connected to the program, and they show ratings and reviews on their products. So if you've come across a store like that in the results, it's most likely my work.
“"Product Ratings" in Google Shopping for Prom or Horoshop Stores — It's Possible!”
Contents
What product ratings in Google Shopping are
Simply put, Product Ratings are the stars and review count Google shows under a product in Shopping results. Google takes the data from your customers' reviews feed, which is sent to Google Merchant Center. The program is free — you don't pay Google anything extra for it. I cover the requirements and nuances in detail in my article “Product Ratings in Google Merchant Center”.
Google Product Ratings: Everything You Need to Know About Stars in Shopping Ads
Why do you need it? It's social proof right in the Shopping results. Before even clicking, a person sees that people buy this product, give it positive ratings, and that the store can be trusted. So you stand out from other sellers at the very top of the funnel, before the person even lands on your site.
Why Prom doesn't have it
For some reason Prom ignores this feature, and by the looks of it, it will never be there. Honestly, I have no explanation, because implementing it at the platform level is very easy. For comparison: Horoshop had the same problem, but fixed it in about a year. Now the feature is built into the store itself and needs no extra integrations.
On Prom, reviews live inside the platform and never reach Google: Prom doesn't pass them to Merchant Center in the required format in any way. So when I see stores with thousands of reviews, I realize how much their marketing is leaving on the table. You've got a great thing and you're not using it.
One more nuance. On Prom, reviews are left on an order, not on an individual product. If one order had three or four products, that's three or four product reviews. So if a store has 3,000 reviews and the average order contains 3 SKUs (individual product items), you actually have about 9,000 product reviews. And a person only finds out about them after going to the store — and even then they may not see them. In Shopping results, they're far more likely to see them.
Competitors on OpenCart, Shopify, WooCommerce or custom sites can enable it. For example, in the stoves case we have product ratings enabled. In fact, product ratings are enabled on all my projects, whether they're on Prom or not, because it works.
My solution
Connecting the Google Merchant Center "Product Ratings" Program for Online Stores on Prom
The concept itself is pretty simple. I collect the reviews from your Prom store (not by hand, of course), build a feed in a format that works for Google Merchant Center, activate the program, and the reviews get sent to Merchant Center. From then on, the feed updates daily with no involvement from you or me.
What the store needs to provide:
- Access to Merchant Center.
- Access to your Prom store's admin panel.
- A sufficient number of real reviews.
How long does setup take? The setup itself takes about two days. But Google's review of the program takes up to a month. Sometimes it's faster: for example, in the case with an average check under 1,000 UAH ($22) the program was approved in two weeks. But I never promise two weeks — I quote the longest time an approval has ever taken for me.
Results
Below are a few screenshots from different stores on Prom that had reviews nobody knew about.
Can you measure the effect? Honestly: precisely — it's hard. You'd need an isolated environment where Google constantly shows the same products under identical conditions, and those conditions don't exist. But I wouldn't implement this program if it made no sense. The effect shows over time: cost per click doesn't grow as fast, and the site's order conversion rate gradually goes up.
There's research on this too: data from Google and independent review services like Trustpilot. According to it:
- CTR goes up by 17–24%. CTR is the share of people who clicked on the ad out of everyone who saw it. In highly competitive niches, all else being equal, users click on offers with verified social proof.
- Conversion rate goes up by 12–18%. A user coming from an ad with a rating clicks more deliberately: you've removed some of their objections already at the results stage, so traffic quality is higher.
- Budget efficiency improves. Thanks to the higher expected CTR that Google calculates, you need a lower bid to compete in the results.
Of course, this works if your products are rated at least 4.2. Same as with reviews on Google Maps: a store or cafe rated below 4.2 converts worse than one rated 4.7.
Being honest about the limitations
It's not a game changer. Stars won't save a bad offer. If the site is broken, if you can't place an order, if prices are higher than competitors' with no explanation of value — stars won't fix that. I wrote about why the site is half of an ad's success in my article on CRO. Tactically, the program helps; globally, it won't change anything, so think of it as an extra plus for your marketing.
You need real reviews. On Prom this isn't a problem: the platform itself protects against fraudulent and fake reviews.
Google moderates reviews, and some may not pass. I work around this limitation: every review that can be sent goes into the feed and through moderation.
Reviews of products that are no longer available. On Prom you might have, say, 5,000 reviews, but 2,500 of them are for products that are out of stock. They won't make it into the feed because they can't be linked to a product. That's something to be upfront about too.
Google doesn't always show the stars. This is an official limitation: Google decides on its own who sees them and when, and you can't influence that.
Pricing
Separately — from $150, depending on the project. It's already included in my PPC management package. More on pricing in the article “How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Google Ads Specialist?”.
Sometimes it makes sense to hire me for a month and in that month get a CRM integration, end-to-end analytics, product ratings, a solid strategy, and Google Ads launched better than someone else would do it.
Key point: if there's something free that can improve your ad performance, use it to the max. Even if the platform “doesn't allow it” — there are workarounds for that.
For a turnkey Google Ads launch for an OpenCart online store — from feed to first sales in 6 days — see this case study.
An example of a store where more than 3,247 reviews still aren’t used in ads — in the Google Ads audit of a lock store on Prom.
Where to find me
Message me on Telegram or by email — I respond quickly. Telegram channel and YouTube are for those who want to see real cases before reaching out and understand my approach.