G2 Sells One Ad Budget Across Four Review Sites as Answer Engine Marketing
G2 now runs G2, Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp as one vendor platform. In one ChatGPT test of 233 software recommendations, G2 and Capterra drew zero citations.
TL;DR
- G2 merged G2, Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp into one vendor platform on November 10 and branded it answer engine marketing.
- The paid products buy clicks and buyer data on G2's own sites, and the effect on AI answers is G2's claim.
- Two independent ChatGPT studies put review sites at 0.9% and 1.57% of software citations, mostly on review prompts.
G2 now sells one ad budget across four software review sites, and it calls the bundle a way to win AI answers.
At its G2 Reach event in San Francisco on November 10, G2 put G2, Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp on one vendor platform for listings, reviews, ads, leads, intent data and content. G2 bought the three sites from Gartner in a deal announced January 29 and closed February 5. Gartner's 10-K put the price at about $110 million, per Geoptimizer's reading of the filing.
G2 says the combined sites hold more than 6 million reviews across over 2,000 categories and reach 200 million buyers a year. The label is new, but most of the products are familiar. A vendor pays for clicks and buyer data on G2's own pages, and the effect on AI answers is G2's claim.
G2 sells clicks on its own sites under an AI label
G2's release defines answer engine marketing as "the discipline of using paid tactics to influence which brands appear in AI-generated answers." The products it lists under that label are:
- G2 Ads Clicks, pay-per-click with one campaign, one budget and one conversion tracker across all four sites.
- Clicks Plus, an add-on for eligible customers that de-anonymizes those clicks.
- Paid Promotions, now inside my.G2.
- Content Studio, in beta.
The release names no product that places a vendor inside a ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity answer. Ads that run inside ChatGPT are a separate market, one where self-serve B2B software leads. Tanium, in a statement carried in G2's release, tied 28% of its content downloads worldwide in September to G2.
Review sites show up when buyers name products
In a DerivateX test of ChatGPT with web search, 40 software categories run 10 times each, 233 recommendations drew zero citations to G2 or Capterra. Review aggregators made up 0.9% of all citations, and Reddit was the most-cited domain.
Promptwatch's ChatGPT data for September 28 to October 4 puts review sites and analysts at 1.57% of software citations, with G2 at 0.73%. Documentation and help centers drew 2.64%, and vendors' own sites 2.01%. Promptwatch found ChatGPT began searching G2, Capterra and Trustpilot by name on review prompts after August 1.
A Profound analysis G2 ran put review platforms at 13.2% of ChatGPT citations at the evaluation stage and 7.4% at discovery. Kevin Indig's regression, as Geoptimizer reports it, found 10% more reviews meant 2% more citations, with an R² of 0.009.
Ownership is G2's strongest case for AI visibility
The deal gave one company most of the review sites AI engines draw on. In SE Ranking's US AI Overviews data, as Geoptimizer reports it, Gartner Peer Insights led review platforms at 26.0%, and Gartner kept it. G2.com had 23.1%, Capterra 17.8%, Software Advice 12.8% and GetApp 2.51%, a combined 56.2%. G2's Profound analysis put its domains at 84% of review-platform citations in ChatGPT.
Review platforms as a whole were 8.6% of all ChatGPT citations in G2's own count, and under 2% in both independent studies. When a buyer asks ChatGPT to compare named products, G2's pages are likely in the source pool. A G2 campaign buys a vendor clicks on those pages, and the reviews the engine reads stay the ones customers wrote.
The four sites have also lost most of their organic search traffic since early 2024, by SE Ranking's figures as Geoptimizer reports them. G2 is down 84.5%, Capterra and GetApp 89%, and Software Advice 86.5%. A pay-per-click business has fewer clicks to sell when fewer buyers arrive from search, which likely explains part of why the pitch now leads with AI answers.
A G2 budget buys G2 traffic and buyer data, by the click
A vendor that buys from G2 now gets four sites on one budget and one conversion tracker. If ChatGPT keeps searching review sites by name mainly on review prompts, that budget could reach buyers at the comparison stage, where G2's own analysis finds review platforms cited most.
the discipline of using paid tactics to influence which brands appear in AI-generated answers.
Promptwatch found ChatGPT began searching G2, Capterra and Trustpilot by name on review prompts after August 1. Whether that spreads to discovery prompts, where G2's own count put review platforms at 7.4% of citations, will test the AI-answers pitch.
