SaaS PPC: The Beginner’s Guide to Using PPC for SaaS Marketing

Marketing your SaaS organically through purposeful content and SEO can be very rewarding for long-term, sustainable growth.

But what if you wish to target your exact customers for some short-term traffic and leads without wasting a dime on irrelevant audience?

Enter pay-per-click (PPC) advertising: primarily referring to advertising on search engines like Google (as opposed to social media ads), PPC is a form of online advertising where you pay for the clicks or impressions your ad receives instead of a set amount, in the form of a campaign that runs for a set number of days or budget.

Platforms like Google Ads allow you to laser-target your ideal customer profile (ICP) to drive qualified traffic and interested prospects who are searching for terms related to your SaaS product.

In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of PPC for SaaS companies, some common mistakes that make a SaaS PPC strategy ineffective, and some SaaS PPC tips that will help you make the most of your ad spend.

TL;DR

• PPC is an excellent marketing channel to retain the top spots on Google for important keywords while targeting your ideal prospects who are most likely to sign up for your SaaS.
• Not having a concrete strategy, targeting an overly narrow audience, and focusing only on BoFu are a few common PPC mistakes you need to avoid as a SaaS.
• Bidding on your competitors, using negative keywords, optimizing your landing pages, and running retargeting ads are some effective ways to maximize your ROI from Google Ads.

Chapter 1

Why PPC is a Great Marketing Channel for SaaS Businesses

Chapter 2

4 Common Reasons Why SaaS PPC Campaigns Fail

Chapter 3

How to Use PPC for SaaS Marketing: 5 Tactics to Maximize Your Paid Search ROI

Chapter 1

Why PPC is a Great Marketing Channel for SaaS Businesses

As an advertising platform, Google Ads allows you to create various types of campaigns, such as:

• Search Ads: Text ads that are displayed among search results on a Google results page.
• Display Ads: Image-based ads that are shown on web pages within the Google Display Network.
• Video Ads: Those 6 to 15 seconds ads you find on YouTube videos.
• And more.

In this post, we’re talking specifically about using search ads to put your SaaS in front of relevant searchers on Google. But why focus on Google Search?

Here are just a couple of the many reasons why:

• Google is the biggest and most popular search engine, receiving over 8.5 billion daily searches.
• Google search is the starting point for nearly half of all product searches.

Not to mention, if you do a quick Google search of your competitors, you’ll likely find them occupying “Sponsored” spots on the top of search results for crucial lead generation keywords like “marketing automation tool”.

And so, setting aside a budget to promote your SaaS using Google search ads isn’t a bad idea at all. A PPC SaaS marketing strategy lets you:

• Craft highly targeted campaigns that reach your potential customers at scale.
• Adjust your ad messaging based on the search terms used by your prospects. For example, if someone’s looking for enterprise HR software, you can showcase relevant features in the ad. If they want a small business solution, you can emphasize your freemium option.
• Analyze the return on investment in terms of data such as which ads earn more clicks and resonate more with your audience, which keywords drive more conversions, the cost per lead, the position of your ads on the search results based on your bid, etc.

Put simply, given that your competition is using Google Ads to promote their solutions, even if you’re ranking organically for a search term with well-optimized content, you are being pushed down the SERP beneath your rivals. And so, PPC serves as a great additional marketing channel to retain the top spots for important keywords while targeting the exact demographics who are most likely to sign up for your SaaS.

If you wish to read up on the very basics of Google Ads PPC — terminology, bidding process, setting up your Google Ads account and campaign — check out this great article from HubSpot.

Because in the next chapter, we’ll learn why SaaS PPC campaigns often fail to drive the desired results, before heading on to how you can make it work for your business.

Chapter 2

4 Common Reasons Why SaaS PPC Campaigns Fail

Here’s a quick overview of some common mistakes that render PPC ineffective.

1. Making constant changes to the campaign

For a new PPC campaign, you need to allow enough time to see if it’s driving the desired clicks and conversions.

Constantly tweaking and adjusting the campaign without allowing enough time for data to accumulate can disrupt its performance and hinder your SaaS PPC optimization efforts.

When launching a new ad campaign, make sure to set a baseline performance expectation and a permissible timeline to hit that, instead of being quick to make changes.

2. Focusing on BoFu from the beginning

If you’re running Google search ads for the first time, your ad account has no historical data about your audience. This means if you’re targeting free trial sign-ups or demo requests with your ads right off the bat, your ads might be shown to people who aren’t exactly quality prospects, and you’ll be paying a higher cost per click (CPC) because you’re bidding on high conversion intent keywords. Not to mention the chances of converting B2B SaaS prospects in a single interaction are next to null.

So, instead, it’s a good idea to first focus on getting engagement on your top-of-the-funnel content (such as a resource page or lead magnet) to allow Google Ads time to learn and collect data on which clicks are valuable, based on the user’s actions on your ad’s landing page. This will help improve your audience targeting for bottom-of-the-funnel ads and reduce its CPC.

3. Targeting a very narrow audience

It makes sense to be specific when choosing your ad’s target audience demographics, but when your targeting is too narrow, the CPC tends to go up significantly due to higher competition for those keywords. This also means your ad will have very few impressions and even fewer clicks.

In other words, overly narrowing the target audience may result in limited reach and missed opportunities for conversions. So it’s important to strike a balance between targeting specificity and audience size to maximize your campaign’s reach and performance while lowering the CPC.

4. Not having a solid strategy

As with any marketing channel — SEO, email, social media, etc. — before starting off your Google ads endeavors, take the time to establish a high-level SaaS PPC strategy. Without it, you’re more likely to squander your budget.

Your strategy should include things like:

• Thorough keyword research to create a list of search terms that you’ll bid on for various stages of the funnel and when.
• Competitor analysis to understand how your biggest rivals are crafting their campaigns in terms of ad copy, positioning, keywords, etc. A tool like SpyFu is perfect for this.
• The features and benefits you should highlight in your ad copy and landing page.
• A landing page template you can reuse for your ads that target different buyer stages, its design elements such as CTAs and social proof.
• How often you would review and analyze ad performance data to identify optimization opportunities.

Only when you nail down your strategy should you proceed with running your first ad campaign.

Chapter 3

How to Use PPC for SaaS Marketing: 5 Tactics to Maximize Your Paid Search ROI

With the importance of PPC for SaaS companies clear and knowledge of the common mistakes to avoid, let’s now look at some of the best ways to optimize your ROI from Google Ads. Here are five SaaS PPC tips to drive better results with your Google Ads campaigns.

1. Calculate the “worth” of a lead

First things first, it’s crucial to determine the value of each new lead or freemium user you’ll gain from your ads. Before investing a cent, analyze your existing customer data to identify key metrics:

• Customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Freemium-to-paid conversion rate
• Average value of a freemium user (CLV ÷ freemium-to-paid conversion rate)
• Average deal size

Understanding these metrics allows you to forecast potential returns from your ads. Instead of focusing on surface-level metrics like CTR and CPC, think about the cost to acquire paying customers. By knowing the value of each lead, you can determine your ideal acquisition cost (CAC) and make informed decisions when it comes to ad investments. Ultimately, it’s the cost of acquiring paying customers that really matters.

2. Bid on the competition

If your SaaS is relatively new and you’re looking to generate brand awareness, then advertising yourself as a perfect alternative (provided that you actually are) to your already established competitors for specific buyer segments can be a great strategy.

For SaaS, this can take the form of product comparison or alternative-to pages wherein you pinpoint what your product does better, thus allowing you to better control the narrative for prospects who are weighing their options in terms of features, benefits, and pricing.

For example, Mailchimp is a well-known email marketing automation platform, but it has its limits. The company tends to increase its pricing rather often while shrinking its free plan, thus impacting its users. In turn, these users often wish to go for an alternative and even new prospects tend to look the other way to compare other options on the market.

So when you search for “Mailchimp alternatives”, you’ll find ads like these.

Note the headlines: “Free Plan & Unlimited Contacts”, and “Cheaper than Chimp” — playing directly on Mailchimp’s weaknesses. For prospects on the fence, this strategy works well.

So essentially, as a part of your SaaS PPC strategy, consider bidding on phrases like “<competitor product> alternatives” to convert such prospects with the help of well-designed SaaS competitor comparison pages.

3. Use negative keywords for audience exclusion

As the name suggests, negative keywords are the phrases you don’t want your ad to show up for. While setting up your ad campaign, you can explicitly enter these keywords to tell Google “Don’t waste my campaign budget by showing ads for these user queries”.

For instance, if your SaaS is built for an SMB audience, you may want to add “enterprise” as a negative keyword so your budget isn’t wasted on ads shown for searches that include the query “enterprise”.

By carefully brainstorming negative keywords, you can prevent your ads from being triggered by irrelevant search queries and audiences that are a bad fit for your SaaS product. This ensures that your budget is allocated toward reaching the most relevant and high-converting audience.

Put simply, implementing negative keywords allows you to refine your targeting, improve ad relevance, and ultimately increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your SaaS PPC campaigns in driving qualified traffic and generating quality leads.

4. Improve your landing page relevance and credibility

Every customer segment has unique problems and priorities. In PPC campaigns, using a single generic landing page for all prospects is not ideal if you’re aiming for a higher conversion rate.

The search intent behind keywords often indicates specific needs that may differ from what your general product landing page emphasizes. Tailoring landing pages to align with the search intent allows you to address the specific pain points and requirements of different customer segments, enhancing the relevance and effectiveness of your PPC campaigns.

Case in point: Salesforce has two sets of ads with distinct landing pages targeting small businesses and enterprise customers.

For small businesses, here’s the ad and its respective landing page:

And for enterprise prospects, here’s the ad and its respective landing page:

So if you’re selling a CRM SaaS and your prospects are hunting a “CRM that integrates with Slack,” build a dedicated landing page that emphasizes that.

In short, by providing customized landing experiences, you can increase conversions and deliver a more personalized journey for your prospects.

But having super-relevant, dedicated landing pages is half the battle — your landing pages should also be compelling enough for the visitor to actually take action instead of bouncing away.

While an appealing design is foundational, the make or break of your ad’s landing page is largely its credibility i.e. social proof in the form of customer testimonials, product reviews, etc. Here are a few ways to make your landing page offer more credible and convincing:

• Include customer quotes from testimonials, interviews, case studies, and third-party review sites like G2 and Capterra.
• Use real pictures of customers along with their job titles and company name.
• Have a section that showcases success numbers, such as “Trusted by 100+ brands” with logos of high-profile customers.

Together, greater landing page relevance and credibility are critical to your ad’s Quality Score and conversion rate.

5. Consider retargeting ads

As we mentioned earlier, the odds of converting B2B SaaS prospects in a single interaction are minuscule. Often, it takes multiple touchpoints to build a presence in your prospects’ minds for them to eventually become familiar enough to give your product a shot. That’s what retargeting ads are about.

Retargeting ads are a form of display ads (not search ads) that specifically target users who have previously interacted with your website. While you may first think of them as those “annoying stalky ads”, when executed correctly, remarketing ads can be a powerful tool for addressing objections and boosting conversions.

By leveraging remarketing ads, you can:

• Create a targeted remarketing audience based on specific pages, such as your pricing page or an audience-specific product landing page. This ensures that your ads are shown to relevant prospects without spamming all visitors to your blog.
• Use the website visits audience segment in Google Ads to exclude paying customers who are already using your product. This enables you to focus your advertising efforts on acquiring new customers.
• Showcase case studies or videos that demonstrate your product in action, addressing common objections raised by prospective customers. This builds confidence in your solution, ultimately improving conversions.

In short, retargeting ads are a cost-effective way to re-engage prospects who know your brand’s content but haven’t yet given your product a try — and deserve a place in your SaaS PPC strategy.

Ready to Incorporate PPC in Your SaaS Marketing Strategy?

PPC isn’t a quick win but can drive faster results than organic content marketing. However, without the right know-how, it can become a costly venture instead of a conversion driver. From strategic planning to compelling landing pages, a lot goes into an effective Google Ads campaign.

Looking to leverage PPC to boost sign-ups and not just traffic?

If you’d rather focus on enhancing your product than mastering PPC, get in touch with us. As a SaaS PPC agency, our experts will take care of the strategy and execution of your PPC advertising while you and your team can concentrate on growing your SaaS product.

Author

Pratik Dholakiya

Pratik Dholakiya is the Founder of Growfusely, a SaaS content marketing agency specializing in content and data-driven SEO.