Synup - who is using it, and why?

[Tim Colling]

Hi -

Whenever we talk about citations here in the Forum, we tend to talk mostly about BrightLocal, WhiteSpark, Moz Local and Yext.

Is anyone currently using Synup? If so, please tell us how it's going with Synup and why you chose it instead of the other choices.

Thanks!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Tim,

There were sponsors here a couple years ago. All my interactions with them were great and back then, several members started using them due to their exposure here. Have not heard anything about them lately though.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I haven't used them but do wish they'd stop sending me so many emails

 

[JoshuaMackens]

I've never used or tested their product. However, awhile ago they claimed to me to fix all of your listings for a monthly fee, like Yext, except they don't revert. They also include reputation management. When I asked them if you could sign up for just one month, fix your listings, and stop paying, I was told that yes, you could do that, but they want to sell you on the full effects of their platform (reputation management, etc.) and hope you stick around.

I also know they employee a lot of overseas help, if not 100% overseas to reduce costs. They've also had I think at least 2 rounds of funding (7 figure funding I believe), so they are backed.

I'd be interested to hear from someone who has actually used them.

 

[sjr4x4]

We're a Synup partner, along with Yext, Brandify and Uberall. From a techie perspective, very professional, good relationship and they work well. Does anyone use them? Yes, plenty. I can't give numbers, but you could say they are Microsoft to Yexts Google.

 

[Tim Colling]

From a techie perspective, very professional, good relationship and they work well.

If you stop using Synup, do your citations revert back to their original state, so that you lose most of the value of the money that you've spent on it?

 

[sjr4x4]

If a listing was one of ours originally, then "claimed" by synup, if the client stops using it, the citation details stay the same but control reverts back to us (or business owner).

Without checking with our dev about the API, I'm not sure for other listings. I suspect they would disappear currently, but this attitude seems to be changing across all providers. (market driven). Yext used to do this, but now release the citation in it's latest state. I would be amazed if all providers didn't do this before the end of 2019.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

If you stop using Synup, do your citations revert back to their original state, so that you lose most of the value of the money that you've spent on it?

They claim they do not. Would definitely like to see a use case on this as they are claiming you can sign up with them for $30 for one month, change your listings, then cancel and they will stay correct. Seems a little too good to be true but that's what they say. Their rational is you will want to stay a client because you can keep using the reputation management module.

If this is true, and can be done, they have a leg up over every other automated provider out there and I would even argue, any manual system as well as long as they cover a lot of directories, the most important ones, and are accurate. This would be monumental as no automated service to date can compare to manual services on cost alone, not to mention other features.

I don't think they can operate this way for long once the word gets out, again, if it's true. They will see a flood of people sign up and then cancel which is unsustainable. Unless they make even a small profit on a one time $30 a month sign up because the amount of people that do end up staying on for reputation management will make it worth it.

Manual still trumps any automated service that makes you do a 12 month agreement. Even if they don't revert your listings, you're stuck with them being the way they are and will have to pay another $500 just to change them, when manual providers will do it for much less. But if Synup is doing what they say they are, they may be the game changer.

Would love someone to test it out and report back.

 

[sjr4x4]

Would love someone to test it out and report back.

Just checked out our API, as suspected, unless it was originally ours, we are currently instructed to delete. But as I said before I suspect this will change this year with all the providers.

 

[keyserholiday]

There aren't any perfect solutions for citation management on the market. They all have limitations. Whitespark is great if your hours never change. I would have loved to use it, even D-local told me to go elsewhere. I also highly respect him for telling me the truth. I bailed on that three letter company as their platform kept breaking and updates were not accepted. I have told Synup stop contacting me and they refuse to do so. I had another SpamedIn request this week from them and it's not my main account either. Yext has issues too, but it works for the price point. I wish there was a platform that just worked properly, maybe one day.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Just checked out our API, as suspected, unless it was originally ours, we are currently instructed to delete. But as I said before I suspect this will change this year with all the providers.

Great to know! Thanks for the heads up!

There aren't any perfect solutions for citation management on the market. They all have limitations. Whitespark is great if your hours never change. I would have loved to use it, even D-local told me to go elsewhere. I also highly respect him for telling me the truth. I bailed on that three letter company as their platform kept breaking and updates were not accepted. I have told Synup stop contacting me and they refuse to do so. I had another SpamedIn request this week from them and it's not my main account either. Yext has issues too, but it works for the price point. I wish there was a platform that just worked properly, maybe one day.

I agree. There is no perfect solution.

However, I would say manual is as close as you can get. On the hours, my recommendation if you don't want to pay to have them updated is just change them on Google, Bing, Yelp, Yellowpages, and Facebook. Your ranking shouldn't take a hit and that's where 99% of people are going to check. Takes less than 10 minutes.

 

[wra2010]

We used Synup at my old agency. They do make you sign on for a 12-month commitment so claiming the listings and then canceling isn't going to work with them. I like their customer service, which is the main reason we brought them on.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

We used Synup at my old agency. They do make you sign on for a 12-month commitment so claiming the listings and then canceling isn't going to work with them. I like their customer service, which is the main reason we brought them on.

I was told 3 months ago by a Synup employee (not a rep) that they no longer do that.

When was the last time you used them? You may have more up to date info than I do.

 

[wra2010]

Oh wow, that's new - and huge. Last I had contact with Synup was September.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Oh wow, that's new - and huge. Last I had contact with Synup was September.

It sounded crazy to me, and I emailed to clarify a couple of times haha, but he/she was insistent it was that way. I'd love someone who is using the service currently to chime in and let us know.

 

[Tim Colling]

I'd love someone who is using the service currently to chime in and let us know.

Me too.

 

[mattheffner]

I explored them in September of last year as a supplement to the manual work we do with the help of BrightLocal. I had to sign up for a year's contract but they worked with me on the price per location and I had 30 days to cancel the agreement after we signed. 3 weeks in I decided it wasn't for me and got out as there are too many limitations to the automated approach. By that time I had built citations for two locations and last I looked last month they had all stuck and hadn't reverted back at all. They claimed they wouldn't revert when I contacted them and it seems that has proven true.

I have some SAB that like to hide their address on the main sites but show it on the others where you can't hide it and with the "syncing" style approach of Synup (and likely Yext) I couldn't get access to a lot of the sites because of that approach. It also didn't find a lot of the duplicates that I knew was there for the one business. Overall Synup's citation options seemed more limited overall as well. So it really didn't save a lot of time from the manual work since we like to get detailed with the essential citations. Overall, they were helpful in CS and the platform seemed to work pretty well. I think I had roughly $25/location/mo. agreement. It had access to manage Google Posts and some decent reputations management tools though not nearly as advanced as the services that focus on reputation solely.

 

[Vincent Tobiaz]

I've never used or tested their product. However, awhile ago they claimed to me to fix all of your listings for a monthly fee, like Yext, except they don't revert. They also include reputation management. When I asked them if you could sign up for just one month, fix your listings, and stop paying, I was told that yes, you could do that, but they want to sell you on the full effects of their platform (reputation management, etc.) and hope you stick around.

I also know they, employee, a lot of overseas help, if not 100% overseas to reduce costs. They've also had I think at least 2 rounds of funding (7 figure funding I believe), so they are backed.

I'd be interested to hear from someone who has actually used them.

They are based in India. Ashwin is one of the founders I've worked with and used signup with for around 5 years at this point, and through many different versions of the tool. He's actually from Orlando originally.

They struggled until their most recent round last year.

I do like the review management tool and review generation emailer built in but I don't use them too much with clients. On top of the automatic citations, there are manual ones but they aren't very good and don't include authoritative industry-specific ones in health & law (Avvo) etc.

I'm grandfathered in at $6 per location, so I'm sticking with it. Not sure if I'd do $30 and would compare and shop other tools if I had to pay that.

To answer the others: It does what it does, pretty good. I still do my GMB/Bing/Yelp manually but connect them to Synup after. I think it'd be smart to use something like Brightlocal or Whitespark on TOP of Synup to get better citations outside those top 40.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

They are based in India. Ashwin one of the founders I've worked with and used signup with for around 5 years at this point, and through many different versions of the tool. He's actually from Orlando originally.

They struggled until their most recent round last year.

I do like the review management tool and review generation emailer built in but I don't use them too much with clients. On top of the automatic citations, there are manual ones but they aren't very good and don't include authoritative industry-specific ones in health & law (Avvo) etc.

I'm grandfathered in at $6 per location, so I'm sticking with it. Not sure if I'd do $30 and would compare and shop other tools if I had to pay that.

Great info. Thanks @VincentTobiaz!

 

[Yan Gilbert]

Was constantly getting pestered at LinkedIn, so decided to take one for the team and went through a sales call today.

At this point they are at 30$ USD per location per month. I was told you have to initially sign up for minimum a year with 5 location seats which comes to $1800 total. If you add more locations, it would be additional $30 per month each and the price per location reduces (slightly) after you reach a certain amount. I think the first level is 25 locations, it goes to $27 per month each (iirc).

Once the citation updating is done however, I don't see too much benefit of that part. You can easily update the citations with new information, but unless a business is moving, changing phone numbers, or logo, once it's done, it's done.

Interesting though is that you can disconnect Google, Yelp & Facebook from the updating process, so if you wanted to add a tracking number to the listing manually, you can do that without fear of it getting overwritten at some point afterwards.

There is a lot in their dashboard to go through... citations, review management, whitelabel reports all covered in that price. Everything is templated so for client updating it seems it would be an efficient process.

Overall, it seems a bit expensive though. But I can see an agency making good use by having a lower cost employee using these features since everything is setup for easy reporting.