How to Track ChatGPT and Perplexity Traffic in GA4, and Tie It to Demos
October 29, 2026
G2, Reddit and Press: Where AI Vets You Before Recommending You in the US
Before an AI assistant recommends a software vendor, it looks for what other people say about it. For a European SaaS with no US reviews, no Reddit threads and no US press, that search comes back empty. Your website can be excellent and still not be enough.
This article covers which third-party sources AI engines cite, what the evidence on G2 and Reddit does and does not prove, and where a European company with zero US footprint should start. It focuses on getting named in AI answers. Turning that into pipeline is a separate step, covered in our demand generation KPIs.
Why AI Trusts Third Parties More Than Your Website
AI systems lean on sources your company does not control, because independent sources are harder to fake and easier to compare. A claim on your homepage is a claim. The same claim in a review, a thread or a news story is evidence.
Third-party citations vs citations of your own domain
Muck Rack’s “What Is AI Reading?” research, which tracks links cited by AI systems, shows the pattern. Its July 2025 report analyzed more than 1 million links and found over 95% came from non-paid sources, with journalism around 27%. Its May 2026 report put earned media (journalism, academic, government and encyclopedic sources) at nearly 84% of citations, and said journalism consistently makes up 20 to 30%.
Muck Rack sells media monitoring, so read this as vendor research. One nuance matters for you. The May 2026 report says that when people ask how to do something, AI leans on reference content and brand-owned material. Your own site still wins “how to” questions. Third parties decide “who should I buy.”
The most-cited sources in B2B software
For B2B software, the sources to know are the review sites, the communities and the professional network. Peec AI analyzed 30 million cited sources in the US in March 2026. The top ten domains, in order, were Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Forbes, G2, Yelp, Facebook, Medium and TechRadar. G2 was the highest software review site on the list.
That list spans all industries, and Peec notes that each industry has its own dominant sources. Rankings also move with model updates, so use them as a direction and check your own category.
G2 and Capterra: What the Evidence Shows, and What It Doesn’t
The evidence on review sites is real but thin, and it comes mostly from the companies that sell the products. Know both facts before you invest.
The correlation between review volume and citations
The best public analysis is G2’s study of 30,000 AI citations, published October 23, 2025 and written by independent researcher Kevin Indig. It used Profound data across 500 G2 software categories. Categories with 10% more reviews had about 2% more AI citations, and a similar small link showed up for share of voice.
The same study says reviews explain less than 2% of the variation in citations. Brand authority, content quality, model training data and organic visibility drive the rest. G2’s own survey in August 2025 of more than 1,000 B2B software buyers found 87% say AI chatbots are changing how they research. Half now start in a chatbot. That is vendor research too, but it shows where buyers are.
Why no one has proven causation yet
The G2 study was published on G2’s own site, and it is a single snapshot across categories. It cannot show whether reviews cause citations, citations cause reviews or strong brands cause both. It also excluded categories with fewer than 100 reviews, so it says little about small or new markets like the one you are entering.
I found no comparable published study for Capterra. Peec’s top ten includes G2 and does not include Capterra. That is not proof Capterra does nothing, only that the evidence points to G2 first.
Reddit and Communities: Show Up Without Spamming
Reddit is the most-cited domain in AI search in Peec’s March 2026 data. The detail that matters for a small company comes from Semrush’s analysis of 248,000 Reddit URLs cited in AI answers, with data refreshed in October 2025. Most cited posts are small. About 80% had fewer than 20 upvotes and 70% had fewer than 20 comments. The median post was short, around 80 words, and the average was roughly 900 days old.
Q&A threads made up more than half of cited Reddit content, and AI paraphrased the threads instead of quoting them. You do not need a viral post. You need accurate answers in the threads that already exist.
Find the threads the engines already cite
Run your 20 buyer prompts in ChatGPT and Perplexity and write down every Reddit URL they cite. Then search Reddit for “[competitor] alternatives” and “best [category] for [your buyer’s constraint].” Read each subreddit’s rules before you do anything else, because many ban self-promotion.
Your goal is to learn which questions get asked, which competitors get named and what is missing or wrong.
Business accounts and Reddit Pro
Reddit announced Reddit Pro in March 2024 as a free suite for businesses. It includes AI-based insights across Reddit’s posts and comments, trend tracking, analytics and publishing tools. Use it to find the communities and questions worth answering.
On October 28, 2025, G2 and Reddit announced a pilot that lets G2 customers activate a Reddit Pro account from their G2 profile data. It started with a waitlist.
Contribute under a clearly labeled company or founder account. Answer the question first and disclose who you are. Never ask for upvotes and never post the same text in several subreddits. A European founder who answers questions honestly in a US community builds the kind of thread AI cites.
Where a European SaaS Starts: Zero Reviews in the US
A European company with no US customers has no US reviews, no US threads and no US press. All three take time to build, so the order matters. Fix the profile and the reviews first, because they are the cheapest and the most direct.
Getting reviews from your first US customers
Claim your G2 profile and write a clear description of what you do and for whom. G2’s own research article recommends a description of more than 250 characters and detailed pricing. Our guide to positioning and messaging shows how to make that sentence specific.
Then ask every one of your first US customers for a review. The best moment is soon after they reach first value. A personal request from the founder with a direct link works better than a mass email. Look at the review counts of your top five competitors in your G2 category and aim first for the lowest of them, not the leader. Follow each platform’s rules on incentives. Building the customer experience that earns those reviews is covered in our guide to a US customer success model.
Trade press and US alternatives lists
Muck Rack’s May 2026 report found that nearly half of queries about industry trends (46%) cited journalism. News coverage shapes what AI says about a category. Pitch one or two US trade publications with a specific data point from your own customers, not a product announcement.
Also find the pages that rank for “[competitor] alternatives” and “best [category] software” and ask to be included with accurate, factual details. These lists are what many AI answers draw on when they build a shortlist.
Prioritize Sources by Category
Not every source matters in every category. Muck Rack’s July 2025 report found that only about 15% of sources appeared in the top ten across multiple industries. Check your own category before you spread your effort.
Audit which domains the engines cite for your prompts
Take your 20 buyer prompts and run them in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google. Log every domain each answer cites. Sort the domains into five groups: review sites, communities, trade press, reference sites such as Wikipedia, and competitor or vendor sites. The largest group tells you where to start. If review sites dominate, begin with G2. If communities do, begin with Reddit.
Measure your share of voice against competitors
Define AI share of voice as your brand mentions divided by all vendor mentions across your prompt set, for each engine, each month. Track it next to three inputs you control: your G2 review count, the Reddit threads where you appear and your recent press mentions. This shows whether the work moves the number.
If you want a team to run the audit and the outreach, see our SEO and GEO service.
