As a SaaS business, you know that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be a great way to drive traffic and conversions. But with a limited budget, it’s important to make the most of your PPC spending. Here’s everything you need to know about PPC for SaaS businesses, including tips for success:

PPC for SaaS Businesses

PPC for SaaS is a pay-per-click advertising model in which advertisers only pay for leads that result in customers signing up for the software-as-a-service product.

The PPC model benefits both advertisers and software companies, allowing marketers to only pay for the leads that are most likely to be converted and for software developers to get a steady flow of new paying customers.

Of course, we love organic website traffic. But we also like getting our hands dirty and trying good old-fashioned marketing strategies.

Sometimes, you need those sales to happen a little quicker than organic content marketing can do. We get it.

While pay-per-click campaigns can be great for getting your company’s conversion rates up quickly, they can also be wild and unpredictable. It’s important to learn the ins and outs of them before jumping in head first.

Learning a few tricks is better before you’re forced to use one.

You’re in luck because you’re here to learn about pay-per-click for software as a service. You’ll know how to outwit any bears that come at you.

Let’s be clear about something:

PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, is a digital SaaS marketing strategy in which advertisers only pay when their ad is clicked. This makes PPC an effective and efficient way to reach your target market.

Benefits of Using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) for SaaS Businesses

Depending on your company’s growth stage, the benefits of paid search will be different.

Early-stage of the SaaS company

So, you’ve been running your company on your own up to this point. Or maybe you just got your first-round funding.

Welcome to the exciting world of business-to-business software as a service!

Pay-per-click advertising can target specific audiences, which helps you figure out what types of content and messaging resonate most with your audience.

This can help:

If you’re an early-stage startup, you can do a few things. You can test different messages, try various audiences, and expand to new markets. You should also familiarize yourself with the different available advertising platforms.

Pro tip: As an early stage startup, it’s important to test your audience and message before spending a lot of money on paid ads. Once you have your content marketing strategy in place, you can easily start running some targeted campaigns.

Once you’ve established your brand and know what your audience likes, then your marketing to them will be that much more effective.

“If your startup is in the early stage, focus on building your brand and generating high-quality traffic through content marketing before diving into paid search.” Dylan Hey.

You’re right; because Drift has such a strong brand, they don’t have to worry too much about their conversion rate. They live the (call) dream!

Mid to late stage of SaaS companies

If you’re already getting 10,000 to 100,000+ visits to your site each month, then you’re probably looking for other, more scalable ways to acquire customers. One great option is pay-per-click advertising.

Enter PPC.

An optimized pay-per-click campaign can help you generate more quality leads for your business, increase your brand’s awareness, and get more visitors to your site.

An optimized PPC ad campaign can help you generate great analytics, test out new market opportunities, support your content creation, and find the best mix of networks.

Remarketing Ads

Whether your business is an early-stage, mid-stage, or late-stage company, you should have some retargeting campaign running.

Remarkting ads are an effective way to stay top-of-mind with your prospects. By serving your ads to consumers who have already visited your site, you can ensure that your brand is seen by the people who are most likely to be interested in your product or service.

When you go to a website for the 100th time and start seeing ads that cater to your interests, that’s called remarketing.

Remarketing ads are a great way to stay in touch with your buyers. Not only are they cost-effective, but they’re also extremely effective.

Pro tip: In a business-to-business sales process, you need to communicate with your prospect 8-16 times before they are ready to buy. Remarketing via Facebook ads, YouTube video ads, Instagram posts, and Google Display Network — basically any advertising network — gives you a way to present relevant information to your prospects.

Remarketing is the best way to ensure your target audience remembers you. You can remarket to your audience for a super low cost.

Remarketing is your friend!

Questions You Should Ask as a PPC Beginner

We aren’t trying to talk down to you, new PPC marketers. But… we are.

These are the questions that you should ask!

The main aim of Your PPC SaaS Ads

No need to be philosophical here, but asking what the goal of your PPC campaign is is a good first step.

What is the purpose of these advertisements?

A bad answer is, “Uh, well, lead generation, I suppose.”.

To generate more meetings.

You want to ensure you don’t spend too much money on ads, so you want to be as targeted as possible.

What’s the point of a mission if there’s no purpose behind it?

digital has always been focused on three main metrics:

digital has always been focused on three main goals: scheduling more sales meetings, getting more people to sign up for free trials, and increasing the number of sales meetings that result in revenue.

The idea behind these statistics is that each metric has a different meaning.

More Questions you should ask

To understand why your SaaS PPC campaigns are so important, ask yourself questions like these:

What are we optimizing these ads for?

Are we targetting brand terms or generic search terms?

Are we targeting the Top of the Funnel (ToFu), Middle of the funnel (MoFu), or Bottom of the funnel (BoFu)?

You should also consider how the copy of the ad reflects the specific stage in the sales cycle and what the buyer’s experience will be once they click on your link. Lastly, you should think about what your Call to Action (CTA) is and what unique selling proposition (USP) you have.

Instead of just trying to get the prospect’s attention, you should be focused on how to convert them once you’ve reached them on the phone. You can better understand how they will respond to your advertisements by asking questions.

Mistakes You Should Avoid

Many businesses fail to use proper segmentation in their PPC ad campaigns.

They’ll often split their keyword list into two separate groups: branded and unbranded keywords.

Some companies make the mistake of thinking that they only need to focus on branded keywords, but that’s not the case. It’s important to target branded and unbranded keywords to ensure that your company appears in as many relevant search results as possible.

Segmenting your keyword list by funnel stages will help you target your search terms more appropriately.

By segmenting your ads by the audience, you help ensure that your ads are as relevant as possible. For instance, if you have both ToFU and BOFU terms in the same ad group, it cannot be very clear for your audience.

For instance, your software company that sells podcasting software targets two types of search terms. The first is a broad term, “podcasting,” while the second is more specific, “how to start a Podcast.”.

The first is for buyers close to making a purchase decision, while the latter is for those in an education phase.

Google doesn’t understand the ad’s purpose and avoids showing it.

PPC For SaaS

User Experience

Before spending money on pay-per-click advertising, consider the experience of the person clicking on your advertisement. Think about the end-to-end experience of that person, from when they first see your ads to when they convert.

How can you optimize your ad’s landing page, CTA, and the desired actions you want people to take?

You can optimize user experience by optimizing your ad, landing pages, CTA, and the action you want users to take.

After considering those questions, you can begin testing PPC strategies.

Best Practices and Strategies For PPC

Please continue reading to learn our top tips for SaaS PPC advertising. These proven PPC strategies and best practices should not be overlooked. You must also measure important SaaS metrics like ARR, MRR, and churn.

Measure PPC performance by establishing a baseline

Establishing a baseline KPI (key performance indicator) when you run PPC ads is essential. This will allow you to set clear goals and evaluate whether your efforts have been successful.

Here are some calculations to determine how much money you should spend, how many clicks, and how much to pay for each demo. The third metric is a great example of a KPI that can measure success. You can replace demos with any of the key actions on your site: converts.

• Calculate Total Advertising Budget: Total Budget = Target Number Of Closed Deals per Month x Target CAC (the amount that you are willing to pay for a customer new)
• Calculate the Number of Clicks Required: Clicks = Demos Per Monthly Needed (Closed Offers Per Month / Conversion Rat) / Visitor To Demo Conversion Rate
• Calculate Baseline Target Cost per Demo: Target Cost per Demo = Total Ad Budget / Demos Needed.

Your ad should tell the leads what they need to know.

Your PPC ad campaigns’ effectiveness will be affected by the quality and style of your ad copy. Ad copy that is in line with the mindset of your target market will result in a higher CTR and, therefore, more clicks. Understanding the prospect’s mindset and putting yourself in their shoes is important. This includes who they are, what motivates them, and what they need. By empathizing with them, you can create ad copy that people will click on.

CTR will be higher if your ad copy matches your keywords. You can increase conversion rates if your ad copy aligns with your keywords and the landing page.

PPC For SaaS

Be a trusted source

There are many SaaS businesses in the market. It is important to build trust with prospects through every interaction. Your website should contain all the information someone needs to decide for you. Showcase reviews, past clients, and any recognition you have received in the past.

Your ad copy should explain why your company stands out and how you can help prospects solve their current problems. You can mention quotes from satisfied customers, publications you’ve been in, or case studies you’ve done, even though your ads are limited in characters.

These themes should be the focus of your ad copy.

• Describe the mission of your company.
• Describe what you are about.
• Please describe how you can help.
• Why they should be able to trust you with the tools they require.

PPC budget

To figure out what your PPC campaign’s monthly spend should be, follow these steps:

To figure out how much you should spend on your PPC campaign, start by defining the goals you want to achieve. Then, think about what needs to be done to get the number of visitors you need. To figure out what your cost per click will be, look back at your past campaigns. Then, divide the total cost by the number of clicks.

There you have it! Your PPC campaign.

Conclusion: PPC For SaaS

PPC for SaaS can be a great way to drive traffic and conversions for your business – but it’s important to make the most of your budget. By targeting long-tail keywords, using negative keywords, and testing different ad copy, you can ensure that your advertising campaigns are as effective as possible. And by setting realistic budgets and monitoring your spending closely, you can avoid overspending on PPC altogether.