Review Generation lets you reach out to customers and ask for reviews via email or SMS. This article walks through the steps to set up and launch your first review generation campaign. Complete Get Started with Reviews before starting this article.
Overview
Setting up review generation involves the following steps:
- Assign licenses to entities
- Set the review balancing algorithm
- Configure additional settings
- Set up invitation templates
- Send invitations
- Monitor metrics and optimize
- (Optional) Publish first-party reviews to your website
If you want to get up and running as quickly as possible, complete steps 1, 2, and 5. The remaining steps improve performance and polish over time.
Step 1: Assign Licenses
Each entity needs a license from the Ultimate package or Review Generation add-on to generate reviews. If you already assigned licenses during monitoring setup, check whether those licenses include Review Generation.
To check, navigate to Knowledge Graph > Entities and review the Subscriptions column. See Assign Licenses and Feature Packs to Entities for steps.
Step 2: Set the Review Balancing Algorithm
The review balancing algorithm controls which publisher a customer is directed to when they click the review link in an invitation. Each entity has a unique Review Balancing URL that uses this algorithm to distribute customers across publishers according to the weights you set.
To configure the algorithm:
- Navigate to Reviews > Generation > Settings.
- In the Target Distribution of Reviews by Site section, click to make edits.
- Click + Add Site and select the publishers you want to collect reviews on. You can select up to 10.
- For each site, select a weight from 1 to 9. The chart shows the resulting percentage distribution.
- Click Save.
Most accounts should prioritize Google Business Profile, as Google reviews have the greatest impact on local search visibility. A common starting distribution is 75% Google, with the remainder split across one or two other publishers or first-party.
If you plan to publish first-party reviews on your website, include First Party in your distribution. If you are not publishing first-party reviews, omit it — first-party reviews collected without a publishing destination add limited value.
Step 3: Configure Additional Settings
Before sending invitations, review the settings in Reviews > Generation > Settings. For a full description of every available setting, see Review Generation Settings.
Key settings to configure before your first send:
Add a privacy policy URL. A valid privacy policy URL is required before you can send any review invitations. Enter it in the Review Generation Privacy Policy field and click Save.
Set contact frequency limits. The Maximum Contact Frequency setting prevents the same customer from receiving more than one invitation within a specified period. Options range from Once to Once Every 90 Days. This setting is also required if you plan to use SFTP server connections.
Set invitation send limits. Use the Daily Email Invitation Limit and Daily/Monthly SMS Message Limit settings to prevent any single location from using up your account's global sending capacity.
Set a quarantine period for first-party reviews. If you are generating first-party reviews, set a quarantine period of up to 120 days in the Quarantine New First Party Reviews field. This gives your team time to review each first-party review before it is published to your website. See Manage First-Party Reviews for details on managing quarantined reviews.
Configure HIPAA settings. If you manage healthcare entities, configure PHI handling in Account Settings > Compliance before sending invitations. See Manage HIPAA Privacy Settings for Reviews for steps.
Step 4: Set Up Invitation Templates
When you send a review invitation, it is formatted according to a template. Yext provides several built-in templates for both email and SMS. A default template is already set, so you can skip this step if you want to get started quickly.
To view and manage templates, navigate to Reviews > Generation > Templates. From here you can preview each template, set a different default, duplicate and customize an existing template, or create a new one from scratch. You can also configure follow-up emails — automatic reminders sent to customers who received an invitation but have not yet left a review.
For full details on customizing templates, see Review Generation Templates.
Step 5: Send Invitations
Navigate to Reviews > Generation > Send Invites to send invitations. There are several methods:
Send a single invite. Use this for one-off invitations. Select the entity, enter the customer's contact information, select a template, and click Send Invite. See Send a Single Review Invite for steps.
Send in bulk via file upload. Upload a CSV with contact information for multiple customers. Download the template from the File Upload tab to see the required columns. See Send Multiple Review Invites for steps.
Send via SFTP server connection. Automate invitation sending by connecting Yext to a file on your server. This requires Maximum Contact Frequency to be enabled. See SFTP Server Connection for Review Generation for setup steps.
Send via API. Integrate with an external system such as a point-of-sale or CRM to trigger invitations automatically after a customer interaction. See the Review Invitations API documentation for details.
You can also distribute the Review Balancing URL directly — in emails, on receipts, or displayed as a QR code — without sending a formal invitation. Reviews collected this way are not attributed to an invitation and do not count toward generation metrics. See Send Review Invitations for details on QR codes and direct URL distribution.
Step 6: Monitor Metrics and Optimize
After sending invitations, track performance in Reviews > Generation > View Invites.
Key metrics to watch:
- Success rate: the percentage of invitations that resulted in a review. A 2% conversion rate is typical, though high-touch businesses often see higher rates.
- Email and SMS conversion: the percentage of recipients who opened, clicked, and reviewed at each stage of the funnel. Use this to identify where customers drop off and adjust subject lines, body copy, or send timing accordingly.
- Average rating for generated reviews: compare this to your organic review average to understand whether generated reviews reflect your true customer experience.
For more on review generation analytics, see Review Generation Analytics.
Step 7: Publish First-Party Reviews to Your Website (Optional)
If you are generating first-party reviews, consider publishing them on your website. First-party reviews that are not published have limited value — if you do not plan to publish them, remove First Party from your review balancing distribution.
Yext provides two options for publishing:
- Reviews Widget: a snippet of HTML you add to your website that displays reviews, star ratings, and review counts with built-in schema markup. See Create a Reviews Widget for steps.
- Custom integration: pull reviews via the Yext API or work with Yext Professional Services to build a custom publishing experience.
For guidance on schema markup best practices when using a custom integration, see Publish Reviews to Your Website.