Bol is a performance-driven marketplace. Every click you purchase through Sponsored Products should convert within a limited margin. Reviews play a central role in this, as they directly impact one of the most important variables in advertising: the conversion rate (CVR).
A higher CVR means:
more revenue per click
lower effective ACOS
room to bid more aggressively
faster scalability of campaigns
In other words: reviews not only reduce customer uncertainty, they also lower your cost per order in ads.
Reviews as part of the advertising flywheel
In advertising terms, reviews work as a flywheel:
More reviews → higher trust → higher conversion
Higher conversion → more efficient ads → more volume
More volume → more orders → more review opportunities
Once this flywheel spins, you gain a structural advantage over competitors who only optimize for bids and keywords.
Additionally: products with a strong review profile often get better click-through and selection, which indirectly contributes to visibility within Bol.
Are you allowed to ask customers for a review on Bol?
Yes, as long as you do it strictly according to policy.
Bol is very strict on review manipulation. Anything that attempts to influence the content or direction of a review is prohibited. Consider:
rewards
contests
steering towards 5 stars
conditional requests
The consequences are severe: removal of reviews, reduced visibility, or in the worst case, suspension of your sales account.
What is allowed (and where many sellers go wrong)
You may ask customers for a product review via email after their purchase, provided this does not create an additional contact moment.
The crucial nuance:
👉 the review request must be combined with communication you are already obligated to send — practically: the VAT invoice.
This detail is often overlooked, whereas it is precisely where compliant review collection revolves around.
Read Bol's current policy points on this matter here.
Tip 1: Take ownership of your review flow (don't lean on Bol)
Many large sellers assume that Bol “will handle this”. In theory, that's correct: Bol sometimes sends review requests on behalf of sellers. In practice, this is:
random
generic
low-converting
From an advertising perspective, that's a waste. You're missing a crucial conversion lever.
The foundation for consistent review growth is simple:
every order → one controlled review moment
via your own email, sent compliantly
Tools like Bolmate facilitate this by automatically combining review requests with VAT invoicing. Product reviews are allowed this way; store reviews remain exclusively for Bol itself.
Important: this is not a marketing trick, but infrastructure. Reviews are an operational part of your performance stack.
Tip 2: Optimize your review email as a conversion tool
Not every review email is the same. And as with ads: copy and context determine conversion.
Analysis of thousands of review emails shows a clear pattern:
personal, human emails consistently perform better than corporate or distant messages.
What demonstrably works better:
Human sender
Show that there is an entrepreneur behind the product, not an anonymous brand.
Short, clear context
Why feedback is important, without pressure or steering.
Visual anchor
A photo of the owner or the team increases trust and response.
One clear CTA
No distractions, no extra links — just the review button.
What you should explicitly avoid:
references to “5 stars”
incentives or rewards
cross-promotion to your own website
View your review email as a mini-conversion flow, not as an administrative afterthought.
Tip 3: Automate or accept suboptimal ads
Manually collecting reviews is not scalable. And anything that is not scalable eventually becomes a bottleneck — especially with higher ad spends.
Top-performing sellers see on average:
1 review per 7–8 orders
open rates around 90%
review click rates towards 15%
In comparison: the market average is around 1 review per 31 orders.
This difference directly translates to:
higher CVR
lower CPA
more room to scale campaigns
Automation here is not convenience, but a competitive advantage. With tools like Bolmate, VAT invoices and review emails are fully automated, without additional actions or compliance risk.
Conclusion: reviews are not a reputation item, but an ads asset
For large sellers who seriously invest in Bol ads, reviews are not a branding topic. They are a performance asset.
Those who have reviews systematically in order:
purchase traffic more cheaply
can bid more aggressively
scale faster and more stably
Those who ignore reviews, try to optimize ads with one hand tied behind their back.
About the author
Levi is the founder of Bolmate, a software platform for Bol retailers. Since 2020, Bolmate has been helping sellers with automated VAT invoicing and compliant review emails. Since 2022, Bolmate is an official partner of Bol for invoicing and emailing.
Bolmate emerged from Levi’s own experience as a seller on Bol, where he saw how much time and performance was lost due to manual work. What started as an invoicing solution has grown into a platform now used daily by over 1,700 sellers.
