How to Get Amazon Reviews in 2022, the Right Way

There’s no underestimating the importance of reviews for Amazon sellers. They can make or break a product so it’s a sound part of your business strategy to try and get as many positive reviews as you can right from the start because they will directly impact your sales velocity and ranking.

There’s a lot of information on how to get reviews on Amazon on the internet, but many of the suggested ways don’t comply with Amazon’s terms and conditions:

“. . .you may not offer compensation for a review, and you may not review your own products or your competitors’ products. You may ask buyers to write a review in a neutral manner, but you may not ask for positive reviews, ask for reviews only from buyers who had a positive experience, or ask a reviewer to change or remove their review.”

Let’s break that down:

• Don’t buy or offer incentives or coupons directly in exchange for reviews
• Don’t review your own products or the products of your competitors
• Do ask for honest feedback, but never specifically ask for positive reviews
• Don’t only ask for reviews from buyers who had a positive experience
• Don’t ask a buyer to edit or remove a negative review

Basically, don’t offer discounts directly in exchange for reviews and don’t beg for positive reviews or ask buyers to edit a negative review (here’s what you can do if you get negative feedback). With that in mind, let’s take a look at the best ways to get Amazon reviews legally within their rules.

Top “Legal” Method’s that Work Now

1. Amazon’s Feedback System

Amazon automatically sends users a feedback request email after order delivery. You can customize the request in your Seller Central dashboard, but remember to adhere to Amazon’s rules. Don’t say things like, “If you loved our product, please consider leaving us a nice review!” or “Thanks for your purchase! If you’re happy with the product, please give us a 5-star review.”

You should instead encourage a buyer to leave feedback using phrases like, “We value your insight” or “We’d appreciate your opinion so we can further improve our product.” Never say you want a good review. The quality of your product should speak for itself.

The feedback system is a good way to get buyers who had a positive experience with your product to leave you a review, but buyers can choose to opt-out of all seller communications. Don’t worry though, there are several third-party tools you can use to get around this problem.

2. Third-Party Feedback Software

Third-party autoresponders like Feedback Whiz, Feedback Five and Feedback Genius can be used to send feedback requests to buyers who have opted out of receiving seller communications. Check out our review of the best Amazon feedback software tools on the market to see which is best for your situation. Just remember Amazon’s guidelines and try not to overdo it — sending too many feedback requests may annoy your customers and make them leave you negative feedback. It’ll also make you look desperate, which is not something you want associated with your brand.

3. Deal Marketplaces with Autoresponders

There are online marketplaces for Amazon deals that you can use to promote your products and get authentic, quality, verified reviews. For example, Jungle Scout’s “Launch” feature (previously known as Jump Send) has a marketplace with over 100,000 shoppers interested in Amazon deals.

While the deal marketplaces don’t promise you will get reviews – as in order to stay in compliance with Amazon you can’t explicitly ask for them – many shoppers on these marketplaces are in the habit of reviewing the products they receive.

Amazon allows sellers to use Seller Central to generate discount codes for shoppers. You don’t have to reduce the price of your product on your Amazon listing, you can instead generate a one-time promo code that gives shoppers a small discount.

Jump Send can take those codes and input them into its system. Now when shoppers search for your product on Jump Send’s marketplace, they will see the discounted price and receive your discount code to purchase your product directly on Amazon.

Jump Send also features an autoresponder you can use to request feedback from shoppers who buy your product. These deal marketplaces combined with autoresponders can provide the initial traction of sales along with reviews to help successfully launch a product on Amazon. See our guide to this specific platform here.

4. Email Marketing

Apart from feedback requests, Amazon prohibits sellers from sending buyers messages outside the platform. But that doesn’t mean you can’t ask your own website customers to leave you a review on Amazon. Craft a simple email campaign just for this purpose.

Make it personal. Introduce yourself and ask them if they liked your product. Offer to help if they ran into any issues and then ask whether they would consider leaving a review with their thoughts on the product. Don’t ask them to give you a positive review in exchange for a discount. Here’s an example of a good email:

Hello <name>,  

We noticed that your order was delivered successfully and we wanted to take the time to thank you for purchasing at <store name>. If it’s not too much trouble, we’d love to get your feedback on <product name>. Did <product name> meet your expectations? Even a sentence or two would be greatly appreciated.  

>> Click here to send feedback for <product name> <<

As a small business, your feedback helps us create a better experience for you and all our customers. If you have any issues with your purchase, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Thanks so much.

Best wishes,

<name>

<title>

Email campaigns are a good way to remind buyers who are happy with your product to leave you a review. A dissatisfied customer will probably find their own way to your Amazon page to leave a negative review, but a satisfied customer is likely to put it off or even forget after receiving their order.

It typically takes around three emails sent at different intervals to get a review. Don’t send more than three or your customers might feel like you’re spamming them. This type of email campaign isn’t just for harvesting reviews, it’s a legitimate customer service strategy you can use to fix issues and gain insight on customer satisfaction.

5. Landing Pages

Any seasoned seller will tell you never to drive external traffic straight to your Amazon product listing. Direct traffic is less likely to convert and it jeopardizes any possible long-term relationship with potential customers. You should instead use a landing page to funnel potential buyers through your purchasing process.

Landing pages are a great way to harvest emails you can use for future marketing campaigns and optimize the lifetime value of your customers. You could give a customer a discount code in exchange for their email, and then use that email to ask them for feedback once they make a purchase.

There are many services for quickly building landing pages for Amazon products. Some good examples would be AMZPromoter (visit site) and LandingCube (visit site). They both offer tools for building responsive landing pages you can use to send traffic from social media, search engines, or any other traffic source. Check out our overview of the best landing page builders and our post on sending traffic to Amazon listings for more information on the different channels you can use to drive traffic to your landing page.

6. Amazon Vine

Amazon’s terms of service prevent sellers from incentivizing reviews, but that doesn’t mean Amazon itself won’t do it for sellers who are willing to pay the price. One of the Amazon review services is a program called Amazon Vine — it’s an invitation-only club for a small percentage of elite reviewers picked by Amazon to give sellers unbiased feedback.

Vine reviewers (called Vine Voices) are sent products by Amazon for free and are asked to provide honest feedback. Sellers aren’t allowed to directly communicate with reviewers to prevent them from influencing the reviews.

Sellers must pay an enrolment fee on a per product basis to participate in the Vine program. It can cost as much as $2,500 per product and that fee is paid directly to Amazon. Sellers must also provide the items for review and cover the costs of shipping them to Amazon. The only cost Amazon incurs is in shipping the products to its Vine Voices.

By “honest” feedback, Amazon means exactly that. The platform doesn’t promise sellers positive reviews for participating, so the Vine program might end up doing more damage than good if your product has any negative flaws.

Amazon Vine is only available to sellers with a Vendor Central account.

7. Amazon Early Reviewer Program

A more affordable alternative to Amazon Vine is the Amazon Early Reviewer Program. It asks customers who have already bought a product to give honest feedback about that product in exchange for a small reward (e.g. a $1-$3 Amazon gift voucher).

The program is meant to help products with few or no reviews acquire some early reviews that help future shoppers. Just like with the Vine program, sellers are prohibited from having any contact with the reviewers to prevent them from influencing the review.

You have to be enrolled in Amazon’s Brand Registry before you can join the Early Reviewer Program, which you can learn more about here. Once you enroll, you will gain access to the Early Reviewer Program portal in the Seller Central dashboard. The portal is under the Advertising tab.

In Summary

Learning how to get Amazon reviews for your products, and managing them, is every bit as critical as managing your accounts, inventory, and shipments. Reviews can influence almost every aspect of your business, from a shopper’s buying decisions to your rank in Amazon’s search results.

The good news is you don’t have to sit back and wait for product reviews from Amazon buyers. You can use autoresponders to encourage customers who enjoyed your products to leave a review, launch email campaigns to send your existing customer base to increase reviews, or use deal marketplaces to offer new customers special discounts and request feedback. This is how many small companies are able to build up a good star rating that boosts their sales velocity.

Make no mistake, getting buyers to leave reviews takes a lot of planning and resources. But if done right, it’s guaranteed to grow your Amazon business into a successful enterprise.