Firstly, head to Import from a Google My Business. You can reach this page by clicking on the “Add or import” button on the testimonials page.

Step 1: Sign in to your Google account

Click the “Continue with Google” button, sign in an grant the permission to Endorsal.

Step 2: Select your account

Simply choose the account for which you’d like to import reviews.

Step 3: Select location

Pick the location for which you’d like to import reviews.

Step 4: Import settings

Once you’ve selected a location, reviews that match your settings will populate below. Adjust your settings to filter out any unwanted reviews.

Finishing up

Once you’re happy with your import settings you don’t have to do any thing else in order for reviews to start importing — they will automatically pull through within the hour.

However if you’d like to import testimonials now, click the “Save” button and the reviews that are displayed will import to your testimonials page.

Testimonials: Automation Rules

The Automation Rules page in Endorsal enables you to choose which testimonials are automatically accepted and displayed, left inactive (waiting for your action), or rejected (shows as inactive in the testimonials list).

Introduction

Clicking on ‘Testimonials’ in the sidebar gives you two further options; ‘Tags’ and ‘Rules’. We want ‘Rules’. 

Quick Start

On this page there are two sections; ‘Approvals’ and ‘Rejections’. In each section you will an ‘Add Rule’ button. 

After clicking ‘Add Rule’ in either section, you will see 3 input select boxes in a row:

• The first selection has two criteria; ‘Rating’ and ‘Testimonial Source’.

If we select ‘Rating’:

• The second box has a list of operators for the rating number.
• The third box contains a list of ratings, from 1 to 5.

If we select ‘Testimonial Source’:

• The second box has ‘Equals’ or ‘Not equals to’.
• The third box contains a list of testimonial sources.

Using a combination of these settings, it gives you full control over the automated acceptance or rejection of each testimonial that Endorsal collects from the available testimonial sources.

Approvals

Here we choose the type of testimonials that you wish to automatically accept and display, without needing our intervention. 

Let’s see some examples.

Example #1: Rating

Aim: only testimonials with a rating of 4 or more will be automatically accepted and displayed.

• For the criteria, select ‘Rating’ in the first box.

• Next choose the operator ‘Greater than or equal to’ (second box)
• Then select the rating ‘4’ (third box).

And that meets the objective for example #1.

Example #2: Rating and Testimonial Source

Aim: display testimonials automatically with a rating of 5, except from Facebook. For those, we want to automatically accept any that have a 3 or higher rating.

In other words, any testimonial with a rating of 5 can be automatically accepted, regardless of the source. Let’s start with that.

• First, ‘Add Rule’
• Select ‘Rating’ as the criteria.
• Choose the operator ‘Equals’.
• Select ‘5’ as our accepted rating (third box).

Now we move on to testimonials from Facebook. 

• Again click ‘Add Rule’. 

Note: You will notice ‘OR’ appears between our rules (because either the first rule or this new rule will allow automatic acceptance)

• Select ‘Testimonial Source’ as the criteria

• Then select ‘Equals’ (second box)
• Now for the testimonial source, choose ‘Facebook’

Now below the boxes, click ‘AND’

• Select ‘Rating’.
• Next choose ‘Greater than or equal to’.
• Then select ‘3’ for the rating (third box) 

That now completes example #2.

Rejections

Here we decide which testimonials are automatically rejected (not displayed and made inactive in the testimonials list).

Let’s see some examples.

Example #3: Rating

Aim: automatically reject testimonials with a rating less than 4. 

• Click ‘Add Rule’
• Select ‘Rating’ as criteria
• Choose the operator ‘Less than or equal to’.
• Then select ‘3’ as the rating (not ‘4’ because it is also equals to) .

That meets the objective for example #3. 

Note: this is similar to our first ‘Approvals’ example. The difference is that those not rejected will stay (unapproved) in the testimonials list ready for manual intervention.

Example #4: Rating and Testimonial Source

Aim: reject testimonials with a rating less than or equal to 2 automatically, except from a Google listing. For those, we want to reject any with a rating less than 4. 

In other words, any rating with 2 or less will be automatically rejected, regardless of the source. So we will start with that.

• Click ‘Add Rule’
• Select ‘Rating’.
• Choose ‘Less than or equals to’.
• Then select ‘2’.

Now we move on to Google. Click ‘Add Rule’ and again we see ‘OR’ between our rules.

• Select ‘Testimonial Source’
• Now select ‘Equals’
• For the source, choose ‘Google’.

Click ‘AND’ (below the boxes)

• Select ‘Rating’
• Choose ‘Less than or equal to’.
• Then select ‘3’

That completes example #4.

Combining Approval and Rejection Rules

Approval and Rejection rules can be used together in Endorsal. This gives you a fine degree of control over the automated process.

Example #5: Rating and Testimonial Sources

Aim: testimonials automatically accepted with a rating of 3 or more except those submitted through EndoForms, which we would prefer to check manually. In addition, Facebook reviews with a rating less than 4 should be rejected. 

So, any testimonial with a rating of 3 or more can be automatically accepted, except those from EndoForms.

We start with ‘Approvals’ and add a new rule.

• Select ‘Rating’ 
• Next choose ‘Equals’.
• Then select ‘3’.

Now, because we want to read and approve EndoForms manually, we exclude them from the automation. 

Click ‘AND’ (below the boxes).

• Select ‘Testimonial Source’ 
• Next choose ‘Does not equal’
• Then select ‘EndoForm’

That is it for the ‘Approvals’ part of our example.

Now we move on to Facebook. In ‘Rejections’ add a new rule.

• Select ‘Testimonial Source’
• Next choose ‘Equals’
• Then select ‘Facebook’

Click ‘AND’

• Select ‘Rating’
• Choose ‘Less than or equal to’
• Then select ‘3’

Note: the ‘Rejection’ rule here will override the ‘Approval’ rule.

With the ‘Approvals’ and ‘Rejection’ parts done, that completes example #5.

Thirdpartyreviews provides a simple but powerful dashboard for monitoring your incoming testimonials. This guide discusses how it all works.

Firstly, head to the testimonials page.
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All new testimonials will appear at the top of your list until they’ve been approved, rejected or deleted.

You’ll notice these buttons in the “Actions” column (edit, approve, reject, delete). They are used to perform corresponding actions on individual testimonials. 

Once a testimonial has been approved, the action buttons change to the following (edit, feature, embed, more): 

Most of the actions are self-explanatory, however I’ll go into detail for the edit, feature and embed options:

Edit testimonial

Clicking on the “Edit” icon brings up the testimonial editor. Here you can edit most fields (rating is excluded) in order to correct spelling mistakes or upload a new avatar.

Featured testimonials

By clicking on the “Feature” icon (star), you can set a testimonial to featured status. This essentially pushes the testimonial to the top of the list and will be displayed first on your widgets.

Embed testimonial

Clicking the “Embed” icon will allow you to create a new widget that displays only selected testimonial. This is a powerful feature for when you have a specific testimonial in mind for a part of your website, and a great tool for increasing conversions.

Testimonial tags are a great way to organize your reviews into meaningful groups, in order to display them in the right place, at the right time.

To get started, head to the testimonial tags page.

From there you can create a new tag:

Tags in Endorsal are more than just simple text-based labels. You can add more detailed information, such as:

— Name
— Type (choose from tag, product, service, course or other)
— Description
— Image
— Link
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The idea here is that you can optionally include detailed information about whatever item you’re linking the testimonials to. This is perfect for things like products where you’ll soon be able to optionally add a small preview of the product to the testimonial itself when displayed on your site.
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Tagging testimonials

Once you’ve set up tags, you can add them to testimonials in two ways:
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1) Manually, on the testimonials page

Head to the testimonials page and you’ll see a “Tags” column. Click “Add tag” and you can select from a list of recent tags or search for the one you want. Click a tag and it’ll be added to that testimonial. 

You can add as many tags as you like to each endorsement.

2) Automatically, using SuperLinks

Head to the testimonial tags page. In the actions column, for each tag you’ll see a set of icons like these:

If you click the “Create a SuperLink” icon (third from the left), you’ll automatically create a SuperLink containing your tag and it’ll look like this:

From here you can add other tags if you like or add any other data to pre-fill your EndoForm. 

Once finished, click “Create link” and you’ll now have a shiny new SuperLink that’ll auto tag new testimonial submissions when you send it to your customers:
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Creating widgets grouped by tags

Once you have a range of tagged testimonials, you can automatically create widgets that will group together those reviews.

Head to the testimonial tags page. In the actions column, click the widget icon (</>) to create a new tag widget.
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You’ll see that “Testimonial source” is set to “Tag” and the tag in question is pre-selected, like this:

Finish setting up your widget, grab the embed code and insert it into your website — your tagged testimonials will display wherever you want them.

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Summary

Creating tags is quick and easy. You can add as many tags as you like to each testimonial and create auto-tagging SuperLinks and grouped tag widgets in a few clicks.

The use cases of tags are practically endless!

If you need any help setting up, reach out on the chat box within your dashboard.