How to Get More from B2B Technology Review Sites

Picture it - you’ve been working on a deal. You’ve demonstrated a deep understanding of your prospect’s needs. Your team crushed the proof of concept and secured buy-in from multiple departments. Then, you were able to put together a very attractive pricing package to drive the deal home. 

Yet, despite wowing your main points of contact at every step, you’re seeing the buying committee start to hesitate.

It turns out that the CIO decided to take a look at your company’s profile on technology peer review sites such as G2 and TrustRadius. Unfortunately, your company doesn’t have very many. The CIO advises the buying committee to hold off so that they can look for more proof points for your solution. 

Social proof is increasingly part of the buying process at every point in the sales funnel. As a result, peer review sites are critically important for vendors to demonstrate critical user mass and satisfaction. Given economic headwinds, today’s buyers are more cautious and less inclined to be seen as testing out an unproven solution. Thus, many start to consult peer review sites early on in the buying cycle.  

Like all marketing levers, review sites require a dedicated investment of time and effort, and in many cases, money. However, done right, they are worth every bit of that investment. These sites are not only valuable repositories of social proof but also provide indispensable customer insights that can be used throughout your company.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at some of the most prominent players in this space and how to make peer review sites work for you.

B2B Technology Review Site Landscape

Since the inception of G2 in 2012, the B2B technology peer review space has grown in importance as both decision makers and vendors have put a lot of trust in these sites. Despite some signs that review sites’ popularity may be threatened, they still play a critical role in the social proof ecosystem.

Naturally, as the market has grown, so has the differentiation among market players. Choosing which reviews sites to engage with will depend on your company’s niche and specific goals for social proof. Some firms you might want to consider include:

G2. Often the first name that comes up when discussing review sites, G2 covers a broad range of software and hardware markets, spanning industries, segments, and geographies. When searching for reviews, G2 is often the first place I look, as it often has the largest volume of reviews for any given technology vendor. Its name, reach, and vetting process make it a trusted data source across audiences, and a trusted partner for many marketing teams. 

G2 is particularly well-known for its quarterly Grid reports, which aggregate reviews within categories for the period. Compared to analyst market landscape reports, these reports provide a much broader picture of market players, spanning SMB to enterprise while encompassing open-source and solutions that aren’t necessarily sold off the shelf (e.g. a software management solution that’s bundled with a larger infrastructure purchase). 

Gartner Peer Insights. The other dominant player in this space, Gartner Peer Insights (GPI) brings the reputation and research rigor of its namesake to peer review. Compared to other sites, GPI tends to be more enterprise-focused than its competitors and is noted to be a good option for infrastructure and hardware reviews. 

Similar to its peers, GPI employs a multi-step validation process. While GPI is publicly available, Gartner users have the added benefit of using GPI data alongside analyst reports and inquiries. Compared to the average review site, GPI has users rate products on multiple customer experience dimensions in addition to product capabilities. This is helpful for marketers wishing to do a deeper analysis on user ratings. 

Capterra. Also owned by Gartner, Capterra provides generally higher-level reviews across a wide range of software categories. Compared to other sites, Capterra focuses more on SMB and mid-market solutions (also extending into B2C) and is said to be good for sales and marketing technology. Capterra is noted for its ease of use and fast vendor filtering and comparison abilities. Capterra leverages this to be useful for top and middle of the marketing funnel efforts, implementing a pay-per-click system to drive optimal vendor placement.  

TrustRadius. Another long-standing player in the space, TrustRadius is noted for its LinkedIn-based review vetting, breadth of coverage, and the relative length and detail of its reviews. Having recently been acquired by HG Insights, expect TrustRadius to leverage HG’s quantitative data capabilities to differentiate itself as an end-to-end market intelligence solution*. 

Similar to other players, TrustRadius offers go-to-market services such as content creation and intent data. Recently, TrustRadius introduced intent-driven leads to help clients automate lead generation. 

Peerspot. Formerly known as IT Central Station, Peerspot takes a different approach to generating reviews. Instead of user-led survey completion, Peerspot leads the review generation process via conducting telephone interviews with users. This often leads to reviews that are rich in qualitative insight and narrative quality. Peerspot works with its clients to leverage these advantages for creating powerful marketing content such as case studies and blogs. 

SourceForge. One of the most well-established software review sites (founded in 1999), SourceForge is said to be the most visited review platform by web traffic with nearly 20 million visitors every month as of 2024. It is differentiated by its emphasis on open-source software and related commercial software ecosystems.  Serving as both a repository and review hub for open-source projects, SourceForge does not directly offer add-on lead generation options. However, its parent company, Slashdot Media, provides a range of B2B tech marketing services.

This is not an exhaustive list - other review sites are also making strides in this market. As AI continues to influence research and buying trends, expect the market landscape to evolve.

An important note: Most peer review sites frequently partner with vendors to run incentivization campaigns for users to leave reviews. This often looks like offering a gift card to a user to leave a review. These campaigns are run both virtually and at in-person events, and are often quite effective at boosting review volumes. Per FTC rules, review sites are required to disclose when a review was incentivized.

How to Get More from Review Sites

Your company and products are getting reviewed - whether you’re involved in the process or not. Greenefield recommends being as active in this space as your resources allow. Here are some of our best practices for getting the most out of review sites:

Choose one or two best-fit review sites. Choosing which sites to focus on is up to you. Your category, segment and vertical focus, and how you ultimately plan on using peer reviews should guide your choices. That said, it is important to invest your time into one or two sites that can serve as partners to your goals. This helps to ensure a critical mass of reviews for potential buyers searching for social proof. 

Then, actively engage with them. If your budget allows for paid engagement with review sites, collaborate actively with your account reps and customer success teams. They can share the hidden tricks and tips to getting more out of their services, and will work with you on tailored efforts. This could take the form of leveraging a periodic market landscape report for a marketing campaign or developing a program to generate more high-quality reviews, among other things. 

Ensure volume. Encourage customers to leave reviews at any logical touchpoint. This could include sending a note at the end of implementation or after quarterly and/or annual account reviews. You can also create a custom sequence specifically for review requests. If organic review numbers are lagging, consider running an incentivized campaign. While I believe the best reviews typically come from organic efforts, incentivized reviews still generate many honest and usable insights. 

Think beyond social proof. While this article has focused on review sites’ social proof benefits, that is just the beginning of the value they can provide. Review sites are also valuable sources of customer feedback, competitive intelligence, buyer intent data, and user insights. 

Also, reviewers often talk about more than features and results. In fact, they often convey opinions about the sales process and customer experience that they may not be willing to share face-to-face! For product and brand marketers, review sites can reveal disconnects between messaging and how a product is actually used. 

Content Marketing Benefits 

Finally, review sites can provide fantastic content on which to build marketing campaigns. Consider these two examples of how marketing teams are adding capacity through peer reviews:

Report licensing.  If your company ranks well in a G2 Grid or similar report, consider licensing that report and building a campaign around it. This is especially useful for companies that don’t qualify for MQs, Waves, and MarketScapes. Reviews are not weighted by company revenue or segment served, leading some smaller and more upstart companies to achieve enviable positioning. 

Case Studies. Generating case studies tends to be more difficult than it looks. Some review sites may be able to alleviate this pain. For example, PeerSpot offers its clients the ability to use its deep reviews as case studies. This can be a lifeline to stretched marketing and sales enablement teams. 

Caution: Don’t Try to Manipulate Ratings

Organic review generation is ideal, but well-executed incentivized review campaigns can be tremendously beneficial. In either case, don’t try to force customers to leave reviews or exert undue influence over what they say. In fact, that can backfire as G2 claims to throw out over one-third of submitted reviews for not meeting authenticity guidelines.

Feel free to walk potential reviewers through the process, to ensure they understand the surveying process and its ratings scale, but trust the reviewer to leave their honest opinions. This protects the integrity of peer review data and ultimately supports a productive business relationship. 

A Note About Reviews in the Age of AI

Much has been said about the decrease in traffic across peer review sites in recent years. It is easy for me to speculate that B2B marketers are increasingly turning to Generative AI to perform customer research and competitive analysis. 

However, this does not mean that peer review sites are at risk of becoming obsolete. Far from it - research from Spotlight and Profound shows that peer review sites rank as top sources of product and market intelligence for LLMs. Additionally, providers such as G2 have been adjusting to the AI-driven world, integrating AI services into their core offerings. 

Conclusion

Social proof is imperative to the B2B buying journey. The smartest vendors are learning how to harness peer review platforms not just to validate, but to educate and differentiate their offerings to prospective buyers, customers, and internal audiences.

Greenefield Consulting works with technology marketers to align strategy, messaging, and market visibility. Reach out to us to explore how you can build credibility that scales across the buyer’s journey. 

*At the time of writing, HG Insights is a client of Greenefield Consulting.