Both G2 Seller Solutions and TrustRadius for Vendors aim to help B2B companies increase their brand awareness, improve their online presence, and get their customers on the record. The platforms are cloud-based, or SaaS, solutions that offer different plan levels. One core component of both platforms is generating ratings and reviews for technology vendors.
Features
TrustRadius for Vendors and G2 Seller Solutions both offer core review generation and reputation management features. These include things like:
- Product profile
- Profile CTAs
- Review generation
- Awards syndication
- Review syndication
- Buyer intent data
- Content / report creation
- Lead form fills
However, one area where the two platforms differ is their stance on advertising. Notably, G2 allows vendors to purchase advertising space on its platform. Technology vendors can even place ads for their products on competitor pages. On the one hand, this can be an attractive option for tech vendors. But on the other hand, it can also help decrease technology buyer trust in product reviews on G2.
TrustRadius takes the opposite approach and does not allow advertising of any type on its platform. The platform prioritizes tech buyer trust over ad revenue and therefore does not allow tech vendors to advertise or pay for placement on any top-rated lists.
More recently, both platforms have also started offering buyer intent data. The intent signals come from the different activities buyers engage in on their platforms. Another key difference between TrustRadius for Vendors and G2 Seller Solutions is that G2 restricts access to intent data based on comparison activity to those who pay for it. TrustRadius makes product comparison intent signals visible for all companies that pay for intent data.
Both TrustRadius and G2 have also made efforts to make this data more widely available, setting up integrations with popular third-party systems. G2 offers integrations with LeanData, HubSpot, Marketo, LinkedIn, and Terminus. TrustRadius offers integrations with Salesforce and 6Sense.
Limitations
While TrustRadius for Vendors and G2 Seller Solutions are true alternatives, many tech vendors and marketers choose to work with both platforms. The main reason for this is that the makeup of their audiences is different. G2’s audience skews SMB and the TrustRadius audience skews towards midsize businesses and enterprises. On average, there is only a 22% overlap in buyers that visit both TrustRadius and G2.
Along with different audiences, there are a few limitations to be aware of for both platforms. For example, G2 Seller Solutions prioritizes generating ratings from as many customers as possible over in-depth reviews (i.e. emphasizing review breadth over depth). For tech vendors who only care about their product’s placement on a grid and have many users, this may work well. However, this may not be ideal for tech vendors looking to get their customers on the record and collect detailed review feedback and quotes. Many of the reviews on G2 have a shorter word count than reviews on TrustRadius.
Conversely, TrustRadius for Vendors emphasizes driving long-form reviews. For example, basic G2 reviews only include four review question responses while basic TrustRadius reviews include eight. This helps generate more high-quality review quotes that tech vendors can use to syndicate on their own website or share on social media. But when compared with G2 Seller Solutions, TrustRadius has a lower volume of product ratings.
Another limitation to be aware of has to do with how overall product ratings are calculated. On G2, scores are based on a simple average while on TrustRadius, product scores are based on a weighted average that corrects for sampling bias.
Pricing
Both platforms allow tech marketers to create or claim a product profile for free. Marketers can then update the product profile and add critical information that tech buyers look for when evaluating products.
Tech vendors can also drive their own reviews for free by asking their customer base to write reviews on TrustRadius or G2. However, review sourcing efforts are generally more successful with the help of TrustRadius or G2.
TrustRadius for Vendors and G2 Seller Solutions both offer a few different pricing tiers, though neither platform provides public pricing for these plans. Basic plans can start at about $10,000 per year. More expensive plans may cost between $30,000 – $90,000, though this depends on the number of products you would like to generate reviews for and the range of features required.
