PPC for SaaS: How to Make Your Money Back From Your Ad Campaigns
Software as a Service (SaaS) is ubiquitous. It reaches across all sectors and industries, piggybacking on the Big Data revolution and taking full advantage of modern tech like AI, automation, and machine learning.
How Our Clients Did Last Month
Month-over-month traffic trends. Source: Google Search Console
With the power to take over menial, complicated, and time-consuming tasks, B2B SaaS’s ability to help businesses succeed is practically baked into its technology.
But that’s also why it’s so hard to be an outlier: the SaaS industry is just so competitive.
Whether it’s a CRM, ERP, funeral home software (yes, it exists) or a plain old project management tool, you’re up against stiff competition. That’s why it makes sense to incorporate PPC ads into your SaaS marketing strategies.
Let’s take a look at how to build successful PPC campaigns for SaaS companies to outshine your competitors.
In just one year of inheriting their ad campaigns, we helped this SaaS company boost their conversions by 297%.
What We Mean When We Say PPC for SaaS
PPC for SaaS is short for ‘pay-per-click for software as a service’ (you probably now understand why everyone shortens it). Let’s break down those two definitions even more:
What Is PPC?
PPC is an advertising model in which advertisers pay a fee only when a user clicks on an ad.
You, the advertiser, bid on a keyword on platforms like Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, or social media channels. When your target audience (who you’ve narrowed down by demographics, psychographics, etc.) does a Google search with this term, your ad bid is assessed in real time. If it meets the platform’s complex set of requirements, it will appear at or near the top of search results.
And then, if the user clicks, you’re charged the bid amount.
The amount of your bid isn’t the only deciding factor. Platforms also consider things like your ad’s relevance to the keyword as well as its quality, both of which point to the need for a PPC advertising strategy. For example, many SaaS companies use Google Ads to retarget previous site visitors.
What Is SaaS?
Software as a Service is a subscription model in which users or companies pay to use cloud-based software on a monthly or yearly basis. SaaS features and functionality are usually offered on a tier system, and users are often offered the flexibility to move up or down a tier depending on their needs.
SaaS products often make full use of machine learning, AI, and automation to offer time-saving features and help improve overall business efficiency.
The use cases of B2B SaaS are endless. We mentioned at the top of the post that there’s such a thing as funeral home SaaS, but more broadly speaking, B2B SaaS can be offered for customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), project management, content management, e-commerce, comms, billing, accounting, etc.
Why PPC Marketing Is Important for B2B SaaS Companies
PPC SaaS campaigns help you meet your target audience exactly where and when they’re looking for software solutions. Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of investing in tailored SaaS PPC strategies:
Captures High-Intent Buyers at the Right Moment
Most B2B SaaS buyers will begin their search for software solutions on Google, Bing, or AI search, so why not take advantage of this critical moment by appearing in highly visible locations?
With the right keyword alignment and messaging for your campaigns for SaaS, you can expect high conversion rates and significantly improved marketing ROI.
Works Fast to Get You Results
PPC is one of the many ways to target your B2B SaaS buyer and, compared to the most common marketing channels, it can yield lightning-fast results.
Don’t get us wrong—SEO is a powerful marketing strategy that no SaaS company can conceivably live without. As we said earlier, most B2B buying journeys start on search engines, and SEO is a sustainable and long-term strategy for free visibility.
But it will never be as fast as PPC management for SaaS companies.
So if you’re looking for something a little more instant—whether you’re trying to promote a seasonal product or your sales pipeline is looking a little empty—PPC can start pulling in leads almost right away (caveat being: if done properly).
Feeds Data into Your Broader Marketing Strategy
Due to its speed, PPC can get you on page one of a SERP in as little as a few hours, and have highly qualified leads bloating your sales pipeline in just a matter of weeks.
Quick results also mean quick feedback loops. One of the biggest benefits of paid search and PPC is how quickly you can collect insights into what messaging, CTAs, and audience segments are giving you the best results.
With all that data constantly flooding in, you’ll start fine-tuning not only your ad campaigns, but also your SEO, email, social media, and content marketing strategies. Plus, the more data you collect, the smarter your B2B SEO campaigns will be and the less you’ll depend on PPC to help fill up your pipelines.
Supports Complex Buyer Journeys
As a B2B SaaS business, you know how challenging and long the buyer’s journey is. There’s no such thing as a short sell when it comes to B2B software. For one, there’s more than just one decision-maker involved. Additionally not all prospects are ready to buy, and the problems they need solving aren’t straightforward. Some are only just starting to look for SaaS solutions, while others are somewhere in the consideration stage and taking their time to compare products and try demos.
No matter which stage of the marketing funnel your target audience is at, the long sales cycle means that engagement is key.
PPC allows you to create tailored messaging for every stage of intent in your SaaS niche, thereby taking advantage of lead nurturing opportunities.
It’s also another reason why retargeting is a widely used strategy because past site visitors and qualified leads will remember you even after they’ve exited your website.
Highly Targeted and Scalable
When you invest in ad campaigns on Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, or social media advertising, you have the unique ability to precisely target who gets to see your ads. Yes, you’re not paying just to show up— you’re focused on getting clicks from one type of search engine user: a genuine prospect.
With PPC ads, you can choose your audience down to minutest details, which is not only a smart way to avoid ad waste but also boosts ad efficiency.
Why waste your time advertising your SaaS business in front of the wrong crowd? This ability to narrow down your audience is something that SEO is not capable of doing.
Many marketing teams leverage the data they receive from these ad campaigns to fine-tune their keyword research and optimise their SEO content pages.
CPL from $10.5k to $2k and Boosted MQLs by 880% in Just 12 Months
“Achieving an 880% increase in MQLs with only double the budget can be attributed to hiring Geeky Tech as our PPC agency and adopting their recommended strategy. The results speak for themselves.”
Head of Marketing
Reasons Why SaaS PPC Campaigns Fail to Generate Leads
Don’t get us wrong. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do PPC, just as there’s a right way and a wrong way to do, well, just about everything.
We’ve met with many SaaS brands who’ve sworn off Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads forever because they’ve overspent their marketing budget and don’t have any leads to show for it.
When we ask them about the search terms they’re using or their targeting strategies, their response is usually something along the lines of, ‘Oops, we didn’t know we needed a strategy.‘
So, let’s take a closer look at the most common reasons for campaign failure:
Poor Keyword Targeting
There’s throwing something at the wall to see what sticks, and then there’s just throwing your money away. Poor keyword targeting can end up costing your marketing team quite a lot of time and money. Choosing the wrong keyword, or not making use of negative keywords, can lower your click-through rates (CTR), as well as your conversion rates because suddenly your ads are being shown to the wrong audience.
Additionally, the less relevant your ads, the lower your quality score will be—a potentially costly mistake.
The antidote: keyword research, ideal customer research, and competitor research. For all you research haters out there, don’t worry, there are more SEO tools than there are satellites in the sky (not really, but it’s close).
Weak Ad Copy
If you’re not getting any bites, you might want to look at your ad copy. Is it super generic, or worse, rife with spelling mistakes? Remember that users need a pretty valid reason to click on a sponsored search result, so make sure that your ad copy is engaging, addresses your audience’s pain point, and is topped off with a clear call to action.
But not to worry, because you can edit your ads as you go. Simply refine your copy using different (maybe more compelling and aligned?) language and watch how your audience responds.
Ineffective Landing Pages
Your ad might be worthy of an award, but if the user is clicking through to a hot mess of a landing page, they’ve just lost all interest. Don’t kill your chance of conversions right when the user is getting interested.
Make sure your landing pages are fast, user-friendly, well-written, and engaging. Your CTAs should also be compelling enough to click through again, so this is where A/B testing can help lower your cost per click.
Poor Conversion Tracking
If you don’t have Google Tag Manager or goal tracking set up in Analytics, how do you know if you’re achieving the desired results? A huge sin in B2B PPC advertising is treating it like a talent scout that rarely checks into the office. In fact, you need to monitor it even more closely than you would SEO pages, because every click comes with a cost.
Conversion tracking gives your team clarity on your ROI and provides you with the data you need to tweak your ads for better performance.
How to Build PPC Campaigns to Boost Conversion Rates
Thanks to all that data, SaaS marketers can use more precise PPC tactics to build better campaigns that won’t feel so much like throwing money at a vague idea to see what sticks. Follow these best practices to make the most of your ad spend:
Know Your Audience & Identify Buyer Personas
Here we have the very crux of your campaign efforts: knowing who the heck your SaaS clients are. It takes more than understanding which industry your audience comes from and the job roles they fill.
In other words, you’ll need to build your ideal customer profile and gather enough data to understand the client well enough to create messaging that resonates with their needs and goals. The more specific you get, the more likely you’ll find the right note.
Pair Keyword Research With High Intent
Much like SEO, finding the right keywords and creating content to match the search intent is essential for creating effective messaging. You don’t need to be a hero in this—feel free to use search engine tools like Ahrefs to find the most relevant search terms.
Your keywords should be aligned with your marketing team’s PPC campaign goals; so, if you’re looking for more demo sign-ups, then focus more on keywords that people would be using in the consideration stage of their buyer journey.
A common mistake marketers make is to cast a wide net by using a generic keyword with lots of search volume. But this is probably not the best use of your SaaS marketing budget.
In fact, you probably want to do the opposite: rather than targeting broad, generic terms with high search volume but also high competition, try using long-tail keywords. These may have lower search volume, but as they are more specific, users are probably close to the bottom of the funnel and more likely to become leads.
Align Ad Copy With Landing Pages and Use Strong CTAs
PPC is just an invitation. Users who click on your ads still need to be convinced about your SaaS product’s unique value proposition. This is where your landing page needs to shine.
It should immediately tell users what makes your SaaS product the solution they’ve been looking for and provide social proof to further persuade them of your brand credibility. But more than just the right messaging, your landing pages represent your brand, so the design, layout, and CTAs should all be an extension of the quality your SaaS product offers.
Use landing pages to offer up enticing lead magnets that offer real value and use strong CTAs that make it impossible to resist your offering. Lastly, if you’re going to go through all this trouble of running ads and throwing up optimised landing pages, make sure they’re also fast and responsive.
Try Retargeting PPC Tactics
Being able to track past site visitors has opened up possibilities for remarketing—a highly effective advertising strategy that targets users who’ve already engaged with your website or brand. Not everyone who visits your site is ready to book a call, schedule a demo, or otherwise engage further with your brand right away.
But with retargeting, you can follow these visitors beyond your website to stay top of mind and increase the chances of future site visits.
Ongoing Monitoring: Adjust Based on Performance
Running PPC ads as background noise just isn’t an efficient use of your SaaS marketing budget. When your PPC campaign goes live, you enter into a new phase: monitoring.
Luckily, you probably have all the tools you need to get those marketing insights to drive up ROI. PPC metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost-per acquisitions provide direct insights into how well your ads are faring.
We recommend closely monitoring your campaigns and using your data to play with your messaging until you find something that works.
Uncover the Best PPC Strategies for Your SaaS Business
When it comes to PPC for SaaS, the right campaigns can offer fast results and high MRR. With the right keyword strategies, your team will be generating qualified leads and accelerating growth, all while feeding the marketing machine with tasty insights.
In other words, meet your audience where they’re at with full-funnel campaigns or drive conversions with high-intent messaging.
