How not cleaning our list led to 100+ G2 reviews—and a total disaster on our testimonial campaign
We made some really bad decisions with this campaign. Hopefully, you can learn from them. Let my misery be your happiness.
My team and I thought it would be a great idea to boost our G2 reviews for one of our clients’ software products. The product had fewer than 10 reviews, and let’s face it, everyone checks the internet first before committing to a new tool. So, we kicked off a G2 testimonial outreach campaign. Seems straightforward, right? Upload your contact list, offer an incentive, and watch the reviews roll in.
Wrong. Nothing is that simple.
Sure, we received over 100 customer reviews. But about 20% of them were absolutely terrible. Picture the CEO, customer success lead, and sales lead all jumping into our marketing meeting on Monday morning, livid.
The good news: we got 100+ reviews.
The bad news: some were from angry customers. We’re talking full-blown rants like:
Exactly the type of glowing feedback you’d love to see plastered all over the internet, right?
Here’s what we learned, and what you need to know before starting any outreach campaign: clean your list.
Our first mistake? We reached out to contacts who hadn’t used the product in years. You’re probably wondering why they even reviewed it. Well, we offered a $20 incentive. So, they took the money and left us a glowing review, like:
Cmon people! More passion, more energy, more footwork (here’s some fun).
But anyways, what we should’ve done was segment the list by active users—people who had actually used the product within the last 3, 6, or 12 months. And for users who had stopped using it? Either throw them out or only reach out if they were known advocates. That would have saved us from having some lackluster review. I mean who would convert from those?
Tip: Start by filtering your list by those who actively use your product. If they haven’t engaged with it in over a year, they're more likely to leave you with complaints than kudos.
Our second mistake? Not prioritizing our biggest advocates. We should’ve reached out to the champions who sing our praises, not just dumped everyone into one giant list and blasted out the campaign like a cannonball. Instead, we ended up with a mixed bag of responses like:
We should have segmented our list by:
Had we done this, we would’ve had a much smoother campaign with far more positive reviews. It’s all about quality vs. quantity. Don’t aim for mass outreach—target the right people who are likely to give you stellar feedback.
Another lesson learned: double-check everything before you send. Spray-and-pray is great for football Hail Marys, not for outreach campaigns. We didn’t just deal with bad reviews—we also saw email deliverability tank. Why? We were sending to outdated email addresses, some names were spelled wrong, and a few emails even bounced back. Our outreach turned into a spammy mess, hurting our client’s domain.
What went wrong:
Pro tip: Before launching a campaign, do a thorough QA:
At the end of the day, the biggest takeaway is simple: clean your list. I’ve made the mistakes already, so you don’t have to. A clean, well-segmented list will give you the targeted, high-quality outreach that gets you the results you actually want.
So, before you hit send on your next campaign, remember:
Learn from our mistakes, and you’ll end up with a kick-ass outbound campaign and a clean list for your next outreach. Use our list cleaning template to guide you through the process and ensure nothing is overlooked.
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