Yahoo7 has announced a new partnership with Home Tester Club, making Yahoo7 the exclusive commercial representative for the review community in the Australian marketplace.

The new agreement will see both businesses working collaboratively to drive direct consumer engagement opportunities for advertisers. Home Tester Club will be responsible for maintaining its technology platform and growing its extensive community of more than 175,000 users across Australia. Yahoo7 will support local growth of the product-review community, with a range of opportunities available to advertisers that include community engagement and product sampling, consumer reviews and social amplification.

The new partnership with Home Tester Club will also offer integration capabilities with Yahoo7’s Native Ads. Advertisers will be able to create and share consumer reviews at scale using the Yahoo7 network across both desktop and mobile devices.

Jonathan Steel, director – business development and partnerships, Yahoo7 said, “Word of mouth is one of the strongest influencers when it comes to purchase decisions and we know in this social age, brands are increasingly having to incorporate peer reviews into their marketing investment.

“Our new partnership with Home Tester Club expands our extensive commercial capabilities, offering FMCG brands key strengths, including the ability to connect with real consumers and promote real reviews across the Yahoo7 network. Initial feedback from advertisers has been really positive, as they know how powerful the combination of owned, earned and paid media can be.”

Chris Phyland, chief executive officer of Buchanan Group said, “We have a dedicated, passionate community within the Home Tester Club in Australia and a global best-in-class platform for Rating & Review curation, syndication and amplification. This is the first market in which we’ve had a commercial partner, and Yahoo7’s massive reach and correlated technology will allow our new alliance to connect more brands with more consumers both on and offline.”