Sending Review Generation Invitations | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

What You’ll Learn

In this section, you will learn:

• How to send a single review generation invite
• How to send review generation invites in bulk
• Other ways to generate reviews

Overview

Once you set up your review generation templates (or decide on a built-in one to use), you need to decide how you want to send review generation invitations. You have a few different options:

• Send invites in the platform
  • Send a single invite
  • Send invites in bulk via a spreadsheet upload
  • Send invites in bulk via SFTP
• Send invites via API
• Include a link to the Review Balancing URL on email communications, receipts, etc.

Sending Invites through the Yext platform

When sending invitations to request reviews through the Yext platform, you have the option to send one at a time for specific one-off requests. You can also send multiple invites at once by uploading a spreadsheet or using an SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protoco) Server Connection. If you wish to use an API you can also use the Review Invitations: Create API endpoint.

To send invites from the Yext platform, navigate to Reviews > Generation and click on Send Invites in the navigation bar. From here you can select the way in which you would like to send your review invites.

Note: You must provide a privacy policy in order to send review invitations. Please fill out your privacy policy in Review Generation Account Settings.

Send Invites in Bulk

Uploading a Spreadsheet

Upload a spreadsheet containing the contact info of your recipients and the Entity ID of the entity to be reviewed. You can send invites via email and text message in the same upload.

For help formatting the spreadsheet properly, refer to the links at the bottom of the page. Click Read more about how to build your upload file for a help article , or click Download Template to download a sample review generation upload template.

In the spreadsheet, the following columns are required:

• entityID
• firstName (customer’s first name)
• lastName (customer’s last name)
• contact (the customer’s phone number or email address)

You will also have optional settings based on the type of invitation you are sending (email or text message):

• templateId or distributionId: Enter the template ID for the desired email/SMS layout, or leave this blank to use your default template.
• image: This only applies to text message invites. Type the letter Y to include the business logo in the text message. Otherwise, leave this column blank. Note: Brand Images are only supported in the US.
• labelIds: The ID for any labels you would like to automatically apply to the generated review.
• transactionId: Include this column if you would like to associate a Transaction ID to a review generated by this invitation.
• titleName: Include this column if you would like to address a recipient by a title (e.g., Ms., Mr., Dr., etc.)
• language: The language of the review generation invite in ISO 639-1 Code format . If left blank, this will default to English (en).

Once your file is ready, click Choose File to upload the file, then click Continue, and click Send Invites to send the review requests.

Note: Yext limits the number of invites (email or text) that can get sent from an account per day. If you go over the limit, we will hold the invite until the following day. You will learn more about the Review Generation settings in the next unit.

Sending Invites via SFTP

Another way to send invitations in bulk is with an SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) Server Connection. Using an SFTP Server Connection for Review Generation, you will be able to send out review invitations from files hosted on your own server over a secure connection.

First, you will need to have a file on your own server that follows the same template as the Bulk Upload, including required columns for entityId, firstname, lastname, and contact.

To set up a new connection, click Add New Connection under SFTP Server Connection on the Send Invites page. If you don’t see the SFTP Server Connection option, you may not have the required permissions.

On the configuration screen, you will set a schedule, input the server connection settings, and specify what file to pick up. When setting a schedule, ensure that your set cadence will capture any updates provided to your file. Input your credentials for connecting to your server, including the domain, port, and authentication, and then specify what file to pick up. You can either specify the exact file path, or by set criteria for finding the file. Please note that we only support a comma-delimited CSV file.

Manage Existing Connections

Once you’ve saved a connection, you will be dropped into an overview page, which shows you any existing connections in your account. You can also navigate to this page using the Manage Connections option under SFTP Server Connections on the Send Invites page.

Each connection will have its own row, and display information such as the status and schedule. Each connection also has a button that allows you to View the configuration settings and connection logs, Run Now to trigger a run, Enable or Disable the connection, or Delete the connection.

When viewing any existing connection, you will see two tabs. One tab allows you to view and edit any existing configuration settings, and the other allows you to see the connection logs. Connection logs will be provided for each run, with the ability to download the details of a run to see what invites were sent, and any errors that were returned. To satisfy GDPR security requirements, logs will be deleted after 60 days.

Maximum Contact Frequency

Maximum Contact Frequency is a setting in your Configuration Settings, which prevents contacts from receiving duplicate review generation invites.

It is a required setting for any SFTP Server Connections, in order to prevent scheduled runs from sending out duplicate invites to your contacts. If the Maximum Contact Frequency setting is not enabled, you will be able to create a new connection, however, it will save in a disabled state, and you will not be able to run it until Maximum Contact Frequency has been enabled.

If you have active SFTP Server Connections and would like to disable the Maximum Contact Frequency setting in order to send a single invite or perform a file upload, you will need to disable all configured SFTP Server Connections in your account before you are able to disable the Maximum Contact Frequency setting.

For more information about adding and managing an SFTP Server Connection for Review Generation, see this help article .

Sending Invites via API

Many brands choose to leverage Yext review generation by integrating with another system, such as a Point-of-Sale system which tracks the contact info of customers. In this scenario, some time after a customer transacts with a business, the business wants to automatically send a review invitation. Rather than exporting the customer data and uploading it through the Yext UI, the business could send a request to the Review Invitations: Create endpoint, which will trigger an invitation to be sent.

Other Ways to Generate Reviews

Send a Single Invite

1. On the Send Invites page, click Send Single invite.
2. Select the entity you would like to generate a review for.
3. Enter the recipient’s name.
4. Enter the recipient’s contact information (email address or phone number).
5. If you are sending a text, select or deselect the checkbox to indicate whether you would like to include a photo with the text message. Note that including a photo will use an additional two text message units from your quota. (More details on this in the Review Generation Settings unit).
6. Select the desired email or SMS template from the drop-down.
7. If applicable, select the language of the review invite. Click Send Invite.

Review Balancing URL

Another way to generate reviews is through the Review Balancing URL. Each entity that is configured to generate reviews has this unique review balancing URL that customers can visit to leave a review.

You can set a review balancing algorithm to specify the distribution of review generation you’d like from each publisher, including first-party reviews. The link in the Review Balancing URL field will then direct to publishers or your first party review collection page based on that review balancing algorithm.

Review Balancing Algorithm

To set the review balancing algorithm:

1. Navigate to Reviews > Generation > Settings.
2. At the top of this page, you can set the target distribution of review generation by site. Click on the section to make edits.
3. You can select up to 10 sites. Click + Add Site and select the site you want to add.
4. Then for each site added, select the desired weight from the dropdown. Weights are whole numbers from 1 to 9. Based on the weights selected, the chart displays the percentage of time the Review Balancing URL will direct to that publisher.
5. When you are done, click Save.

For example, the chart below shows the following weights and calculated percentage distribution:

• First Party: weight 1 -> 12.5%
• Facebook: weight 1 -> 12.5%
• Google Business Profile: weight 6 -> 75%

In this case, the brand prioritizes Google Business Profile reviews and wants 75% of their generated reviews to come from this publisher. They want the last 25% of generated reviews to be split between Facebook and first-party reviews. They’ll publish the first-party reviews on their own website, but if you are not publishing them, you may even decide to skip first-party review generation altogether.

The Algorithm Settings section allows you to customize how the algorithm sends individual users to meet this distribution and possibly even override the algorithm based on your priorities.

Configure Algorithm

• Your Website: Generate more first party reviews when a 1-star review is visible on the first page, that is, within the last five reviews.
• Rating: Focus on selected sites that have a rating significantly below the location average.
• Recency: Ensure each selected site has one review within the last month.

Balancing Algorithm

• Optimize for reaching the target weighting distribution
• Optimize for more reviews (we will send users to sites they’re logged in)
• Optimize for reaching the target weighting distribution, but only send users to sites they’re logged into

Using the Review Balancing URL

The review balancing URL is found on your entities in Content under the Review Balancing URL field. You can view these URLs in Entity Edit directly, pull it via the API, or export from Content using Entity Export.

You can also export the Review Balancing URL for a specific set of reviews from Reviews > Generation > View Invites. Click the More Actions dropdown and select Export Review Generation URLs.

The Review Balancing URL is distributed through our built-in email and text messaging system in Review Generation, but we encourage you to share this URL with customers in more ways in order to generate even more reviews. For example, this link can be used in other email communications, on receipts, etc.

App Directory

To view our partner apps in the App Directory that may be helpful with Review Generation, click Apps > Directory in the navigation bar, and choose Review Generation as the Use Case in the filter bar.