Google Seller Ratings and Service Businesses?

[consultant]

Does the Google Seller Rating have any application/relevance is the business is a service business that doesn't have a store or a Google Shopping Feed? I've never seen a service business listed in organic results with their star rating. I've seen it in the 3-pack and Local Finder of course, including in the Adwords Location extension ads in those places so at first glance it doesn't seem like "Seller Ratings" are not really relevant to service businesses on Google?

However I got an email from one review management service that said "We index the reviews to google which reduces your adspend by 17% automatically when you receive a Google seller rating." I've never read anything claiming this, I've only seen from Inside AdWords: 5 Simple Ways to Improve Your AdWords Performance

1. Get reviewed to show Seller Rating Extensions
2. Seller rating extensions make it easier for potential customers to identify highly-rated merchants when they're searching on Google.com by attaching your merchant star rating from Google Product Search to your AdWords ads. These star ratings, aggregated from review sites all around the web, allow people to find merchants that are highly recommended by online shoppers like them. On average, ads with Seller Ratings get a 17% higher CTR than the same ads without ratings.

As I said a Service Business isn't involved with Product Search. Did this review company basically twist the words of a 17% higher CTR to 17% lower adspend?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

@consultant as far as I know SAB's can have seller ratings. The determining factor is that the business must be using Google Ads (duh) and "In most cases, seller ratings in a country show only when a business has 150 unique reviews from that same country and a composite rating of 3.5 stars or higher"

Seller ratings apply to text ads so it has nothing to do with the organic SERP's, the 3-pack or Google Maps.

 

[consultant]

But my Google review star ratings already show in my location extension ads in the 3-pack and Local Finder with no minimum number of ratings, so I don't see what the benefit is?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

But my Google review star ratings already show in my location extension ads in the 3-pack and Local Finder with no minimum number of ratings, so I don't see what the benefit is?

Higher CTR on the text ads.

I typically don't recommend seller ratings unless it's a business that gets a ton of reviews. It takes a lot of effort to get 150 reviews and that is time that can be spent on Google and 3rd party organic reviews which I believe to be more valuable.

 

[consultant]

Oh yes, I'm forgetting about the ads outside the local pack/finder. Duh. If you have 30 locations though, if it's 150 reviews total across all locations, then that may not be too difficult as long as the location reviews count towards the total.