This bugs me a lot. The tool is great but paying for reviews is slimy in my opinion.

Which includes links to this form

I know for a fact that two of those companies have a process for reporting exactly this kind of thing. (G2, and Trustpilot) A quick look at Joturl’s G2 page includes only paid reviews; clearly marked on the page.

Oddly Capterra and Trustradius do not have a process or even mention paying for reviews. Seems like its fair game there. I’m sort of sad about that actually. Trustradius is an Austin company. I wouldn’t trust reviews on either site with what I know now.

I also opened a ticket with joturl to report this marketing email and linked to those policy’s on G2 and Trustpilot. We’ll see how/if they respond.

And if you’re in someones marketing department and they offer to do this; say something.
JotURL is actually a good product. We use the crap out of it and would happily write a glowing review for it if asked; but you had to add money to it and make it weird.

Update Mar. 5th –

I did get a first level reply from JotURL.

But more important – They’ve modified the google form to remove trustpilot.

My guess is that trustpilot contacted them. I don’t think that change was the result of my ticket.

Final Update:

Wow, I got a reply to my ticket from the CEO of JotURL, Janosch Lenzi

All of which is true. I’ve since received an offer from G2 to provide reviews for for 3play media with a $25 dollar incentive but I won’t make another big deal out of. Paying for reviews I guess is a thing now. It feels like a conflict of interest to me. I have to say that I never expected to get a reply from the CEO. That’s pretty great in my opinion and shows how service oriented the org actually is. If you were considering dropping jotURL because of my post, that would be a mistake in my opinion. This is clearly a service oriented organization which deserves your business.