Soliciting

and Paying for 

Online Reviews:

A Guide for Marketers
Soliciting and Paying for Online Reviews: A Guide for Marketers 2

Businesses and consumers both rely on online reviews. Companies 

may need good ones to attract customers, while consumers often use 

them to decide what to buy or who to hire. People should be able to 

trust that reviews reflect the honest opinions of customers or experts 

who actually used a product or service. Some businesses abuse that 

trust by writing or procuring fake reviews or by paying supposedly 

independent websites for good rankings. This kind of deception and 

manipulation harms both consumers and honest companies.

Even if you have no customer reviews on your own website, the 

health of your business may depend in part on consumers finding 

robust customer or expert reviews elsewhere, like on review 

platforms and comparison websites. How you go about getting 

these reviews is important because it affects whether consumers get 

a true and accurate picture of what others think about your business 

and its products or services. When soliciting reviews or paying 

others to improve your online reputation, consider the tips below to 

avoid potentially deceptive conduct that may violate the FTC Act.

If your business does operate a website that features online 

customer reviews, see the FTC’s guidance, Featuring Online 

Customer Reviews: A Guide for Platforms at ftc.gov/reviews, which 

gives key principles for collecting, moderating, and publishing 

reviews in ways that don’t mislead consumers.
Soliciting and Paying for Online Reviews: A Guide for Marketers 3

Soliciting reviews

Before you ask people for reviews, know the rules of the platforms 

and websites on which those reviews may appear. 

⊲ Some platforms and websites prohibit reviews from people 

with personal or financial connections to the seller, or who got 

an incentive for the reviews – even if the reviews disclose that 

connection or incentive. 

⊲ Others may allow incentivized reviews with an appropriate 

disclosure. 
Soliciting and Paying for Online Reviews: A Guide for Marketers 4

Soliciting reviews (continued)

Even if a platform or website has none of these prohibitions or 

conditions, here are some rules of thumb: 

⊲ Don’t ask for reviews from people who haven’t used or 

experienced the product or service.

⊲ Don’t ask your staff to write reviews of your business, at least 

not without ensuring that they disclose in their review that you 

employ them and asked them to write it.

⊲ Don’t ask for reviews only from customers you think will leave 

positive ones.

⊲ Don’t ask family and friends for reviews, at least not without 

ensuring that they disclose their personal connection in

the reviews. 

⊲ If you offer an incentive for a review, don’t condition it, explicitly 

or implicitly, on the review being positive. Even without that 

condition, the review should disclose the incentive, because its 

offer may introduce bias or change the weight and credibility that 

readers give the review. 
Soliciting and Paying for Online Reviews: A Guide for Marketers 5

Working with other companies

⊲ Some comparison websites claim to give consumers unbiased, 

expert reviews of businesses and products. Behind the scenes, 

though, some of these websites are running pay-to-play operations, 

offering better ratings, reviews, and placement in exchange for a 

fee. Don’t participate in this kind of deceptive advertising.

⊲ Similarly, some review platforms – websites that display 

consumer reviews of other companies’ products and services – 

may offer to collect customer reviews for you and improve your 

company’s reputation and visibility. If you pay the platform for this 

kind of benefit, make sure that it clearly discloses its commercial 

relationship with you.

⊲ Many review platforms have reporting mechanisms that allow 

businesses to flag for the platform when a review may be fake, 

defamatory, or otherwise in violation of the platform’s terms of 

service. Don’t misuse this option to get rid of honest, negative 

reviews. 

⊲ Some SEO and reputation management companies say they can 

boost your customer reviews and ratings. Make sure you know 

what they’re really doing. They may not say explicitly that they 

get results by writing fake positive reviews of your business or 

fake negative reviews of your competitors. But you can be held 

responsible for what they do on your behalf, and review platforms 

could suspend or remove your accounts and listings.
Soliciting and Paying for Online Reviews: A Guide for Marketers 6

Improving your company’s online reputation and visibility is, of course, 

an appropriate goal. And getting more honest and unbiased reviews 

from customers and experts can be crucial. But just like with any other 

kind of marketing effort, you can’t mislead people about your products 

and services. Businesses that are tempted to use fake reviews or 

manipulated rankings should also consider the serious damage to 

their brand image if the public learns of that breach of trust.
Soliciting and Paying for Online Reviews: A Guide for Marketers 7

ftc.gov/reviews
business.ftc.gov

January 2022