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Send Review Invitations

Who does this article apply to?

  • Enterprise, Partner, and Small Business accounts.
  • Accounts in all regions.

Once your templates and settings are configured, you can send review invitations to customers via email or SMS. This article covers all available methods for sending invitations and distributing your review generation URL.

Before You Send

Make sure the following are in place before sending your first invitations:

  • A valid privacy policy URL is entered in Reviews > Generation > Settings. This is required to send any invitations.
  • Entities have an active Review Generation license assigned.
  • The review balancing algorithm is configured. See Review Generation Settings for steps.

Limitations

  • Yelp: review generation is not supported for Yelp.
  • SMS country support: SMS invitations are only available in supported countries. See SMS Availability for Review Generation for the full list.
  • Account-level send limits: each account has a global limit on the number of email and SMS invitations that can go out per day and per month. You can set per-entity limits in Reviews > Generation > Settings to ensure no single location uses up the full account capacity. See Review Generation Settings for details.

Sending Methods

Yext supports the following methods for sending review invitations and distributing your review generation URL:

  • Single invite: send a one-off invitation to an individual customer from the platform
  • Bulk file upload: upload a spreadsheet of customer contact information to send invitations to multiple customers at once
  • SFTP server connection: automate invitation sending by connecting Yext to a file on your server
  • API: integrate with an external system to trigger invitations programmatically
  • Review Balancing URL: distribute your review generation link directly in emails, on receipts, or on in-store signage
  • QR codes: display scannable codes in stores or on receipts that link to your review generation URL

Send a Single Invitation

Use this method for one-off invitations to individual customers.

  1. Navigate to Reviews > Generation > Send Invites.
  2. Click Send Single Invite.
  3. Select the entity the customer should review.
  4. Enter the customer's contact information. You can send via email or SMS.
  5. Select a template from the dropdown.
  6. If applicable, select a language. This is only available for default email templates.
  7. Click Send Invite.

Single invitations are sent immediately and cannot be scheduled.

Send in Bulk via File Upload

Use this method to send invitations to multiple customers at once by uploading a spreadsheet.

  1. Navigate to Reviews > Generation > Send Invites.
  2. Click Upload File.
  3. Click Download Template to get the required file format.
  4. Fill in the spreadsheet with your customer data and save it.
  5. Click Choose File to upload your spreadsheet.
  6. Click Continue, then click Send Invites.

Required columns:

  • storeId or entityId: the Entity ID or Store ID of the entity to be reviewed
  • firstName: the customer's first name
  • lastName: the customer's last name
  • contact: the customer's email address or phone number. Phone numbers must include a plus sign followed by the country code and exclude any formatting, for example +15551235678.

Optional columns include the following:

  • templateId: the ID of the email template to use. Leave blank to use the default template.
  • distributionId: the ID of the distribution to use.
  • transactionId: the ID of the transaction associated with the review request.
  • labelIds: review label IDs to apply to the resulting review. Separate multiple IDs with commas.
  • language: the ISO language code for the invitation language. Applies to default templates only. Leave blank to send in English.
  • delayTime and delayTimeUnit: the amount of time to wait before sending, with the unit set to hours or days. Cannot be combined with sendTime.
  • sendTime: a specific date and time to send the invitation, in ISO format, for example 2024-09-04T12:00:00. Cannot be combined with delayTime.
  • image: applies to SMS invitations only. Enter Y to include the business logo in the text message.
  • titleName: the title to use when addressing the recipient, for example Ms. or Mr.

Send in Bulk via SFTP Server Connection

Use this method to automate invitation sending by connecting Yext to a file hosted on your own server. Yext picks up the file on a schedule you define and sends invitations from the contact data it contains.

SFTP server connections require Maximum Contact Frequency to be enabled in Reviews > Generation > Settings. This prevents duplicate invitations from being sent to the same contact across scheduled runs.

For full setup steps, see SFTP Server Connection for Review Generation.

Schedule Invitations

To delay when an invitation is sent after upload, use the delayTime and delayTimeUnit columns or the sendTime column in your upload file. This is useful when you want to send invitations shortly after a customer interaction but prefer the message not to feel immediate.

To view scheduled invitations that have not yet been sent, navigate to Reviews > Generation > View Invites and click the Pending Invites tab. You can cancel pending invitations from this tab.

Manage Opt-Outs

To add contacts to your opt-out list so they do not receive future invitations:

  1. Navigate to Reviews > Generation > View Invites.
  2. Click the More Actions dropdown and select Upload Opt-Outs.
  3. Enter a comma-separated list of email addresses and phone numbers and submit.

To download your current opt-out list, click More Actions and select Download Opt-Outs.

Use the Review Balancing URL Directly

Each entity has a unique Review Balancing URL that you can distribute outside of the invitation system — in marketing emails, on receipts, in-store signage, or anywhere else you interact with customers. When a customer clicks this URL, they are directed to a publisher based on your review balancing algorithm.

Reviews collected through the direct URL are not attributed to an invitation and do not count toward generation metrics such as success rate.

To find the Review Balancing URL for a single entity, navigate to the entity in the Knowledge Graph and locate the Review Balancing URL field.

To export Review Balancing URLs in bulk:

  1. Navigate to Reviews > Generation > View Invites.
  2. Click More Actions and select Export Review Generation URLs.

Download QR Codes

QR codes link to your Review Balancing URL and can be displayed in stores or on receipts so customers can leave reviews without needing an invitation.

To download QR codes:

  1. Navigate to Reviews > Generation > Send Invites.
  2. Click Download QR Codes.
  3. Select the entities and publishers you want QR codes for. You can also select the Review Balancing URL as a publisher option, which routes customers according to your balancing algorithm.
  4. Click Download to export a CSV file containing the QR code image URLs and the corresponding review generation URLs for each entity.

QR codes are stable — they do not change each time you download them. The same QR code is generated for each entity-publisher combination. QR code downloads are not available via API.

Send via API

You can also send invitations programmatically by integrating with an external system such as a point-of-sale or CRM. See the Review Invitations API documentation for details.