One of PandaDoc's customers on the Starter Plan was at a crossroads. They knew they needed a broader feature set to keep growing, but before committing to a plan upgrade, they turned to G2 to compare their options.

After comparing PandaDoc against competitors on G2, the customer found what they needed to move forward. Buyers consistently pointed to fast time-to-value and a strong integration set as reasons they chose PandaDoc for their business needs. When it came time for the customer to expand, it was worth 10x its original value.

For Karah Blandford, Senior Customer Marketing Manager at PandaDoc, that renewal confirmed her belief: G2 isn't just a place to gather reviews. It's a place where buyers make decisions.

Acting on that conviction turned a young advocacy function into a measurable revenue engine, one that grew G2-influenced pipeline 500+% in a single year. Here's how she did it.

From review volume to revenue velocity

Toward a revenue mandate

When Karah arrived at PandaDoc, customer advocacy played the role it often does in B2B tech — a dependable source of social proof. As the function's first dedicated owner, she inherited a straightforward brief: Get customer stories and reviews in the door.

"I really wanted to tie every initiative that I'm working on to revenue," says Karah. "I want to make smart choices with my time so that I'm making the most impact in my role."

To help colleagues see what advocacy could become, she mapped it into a three-pillar flywheel:

1. Market presence is the external validation that gets PandaDoc onto shortlists during research.
2. Community surfaces the next generation of power users.
3. Advocacy turns customer feedback into reviews, references, and thought leadership.

G2 anchors market presence. Buyers researching software rarely want a sales rep as their first step, Karah reasons, so PandaDoc has to show up, credibly, wherever that independent research happens.

The pipeline analysis that refocused the budget

Like many teams building out a review program, PandaDoc was working across several platforms at once. They averaged around 100 reviews per quarter through occasional incentive campaigns.

So Karah ran two tests. First, an audit of every platform against PandaDoc's ideal customer profile. Then, a pipeline match analysis to reveal which closed deals included a buyer touchpoint on each platform.

The answer was definitive. “Compared to other review platforms, G2 drove over 20 times the pipeline,” she recalls. PandaDoc redirected most of its resources to G2 as a result.

“G2 drove over 20 times the pipeline. People were using G2 as their initial research touchpoint. So we doubled down.”

Karah Blandford
Senior Customer Marketing Manager, PandaDoc

Because G2 was a huge driver of pipeline influence, Karah looked into how they could drive even more impact by upgrading their G2 plan to include performance analytics that tie every CRM opportunity to PandaDoc's G2 listing and AI visibility tracking.

G2 as a buyer touchpoint

An always-on review engine

With the budget consolidated, review generation shifted from quarterly asks to an always-on system. Incentivized campaigns run continuously in the background, including targeted pushes when a category ranking needs momentum, and asks are tied to moments when customers feel good: after a renewal, inside email signatures, through community advocates.

PandaDoc's annual G2 review count grew 2.6x year over year, and every one of those reviews fed the next chapter.

Turning reviews into AI answers

LLMs lean on high-authority third parties like G2 to understand market sentiment. The volume and recency of reviews, and even the words customers use, shape whether AI recommends PandaDoc or a competitor. That made G2 a natural complement of the team's answer engine optimization (AEO) work.

They improved the product description, built out G2's new solutions pages, targeted high-search-volume, commonly asked questions, and took early access to G2's newest AEO tools. The payoff came quickly.

“G2 is a very high-authority, trusted third party that gets cited in LLMs very often.”

Karah Blandford
Senior Customer Marketing Manager, PandaDoc

The team set out to grow LLM citations sourced from G2 by 30% in a quarter, hit the target roughly two weeks in, stretched the goal to 60%, and still finished the quarter up at 111% to goal.

Perfect attribution remains elusive for software sellers. A buyer might research AI search and arrive at PandaDoc days later. But when leadership sees PandaDoc surface every time CPQ comes up in an AI answer, the value is hard to miss.

"Buyers are increasingly using these AI tools to shortlist before they even talk to sales," says Karah. "They want to do that digging on their own, which makes showing up on these platforms a huge advantage for us. And G2 is a highly credible third-party source that LLMs often cite in chats."

Arming every team with customer voice

Karah packages G2 data so nobody else has to dig for it. Each quarter, she ships an advocacy enablement toolkit tailored by team. This includes current rankings, compare reports showing how PandaDoc compares against competitors, and talking points reps can use in sales calls.

Reps request compare reports against specific competitors and share them with prospects early in evaluations, right when buyers are weighing their options. Karah confirms that knowing the data exists and presenting it in a way that resonates internally has improved adoption by the sales team.

“Don't just see G2 as a review generation channel. It is also a buyer touchpoint.”

Karah Blandford
Senior Customer Marketing Manager, PandaDoc

"When you look at it holistically, combining those faster close times, larger deals, and a better close rate, the case for G2 becomes really compelling," says Karah.

Key takeaways for B2B marketers

• Run the pipeline match analysis, then consolidate: Match closed deals against buyer touchpoints on every platform you pay for, and let the data guide your budget. One analysis gave PandaDoc the clarity to focus its investment in G2.
• Make review asks always-on: Lifecycle-timed, incentivized campaigns outperform one-off quarterly pushes.
• Feed the AI engines: Review volume, recency, and the words customers use shape what LLMs say about you. You don't need perfect attribution to place smart, early bets.
• Package proof for every team: A quarterly G2-backed enablement toolkit turns badges and compare reports into talking points reps use and ask for.
  

What's next: A flywheel with a community core

The flywheel's next turn is community. After a successful Slack pilot, PandaDoc is exploring how to build on this early momentum.

Karah is also centralizing advocacy data in HubSpot, where the revenue team already works, and building dashboards that connect advocacy activity to pipeline.

And she's staying early on G2's AEO tools, because the platform has outgrown its old job description. For her, it's now a search play, shaping how buyers find, shortlist, and choose PandaDoc long before anyone talks to sales.

“G2 is not just a customer advocacy tool now. It's an SEO play, essential to organic discovery itself.”

Karah Blandford
Senior Customer Marketing Manager, PandaDoc