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Many B2B SaaS companies abandon their paid media channels too early, without fully exploring all the options available to them, and based on hunches instead of data. Here's how to identify the best B2B SaaS marketing channels for your business
On SaaS Marketing Bites from Powered by Search, we bring you the best B2B SaaS insights shared by our team of growth experts. Each week, we publish a new episode on topics like landing page design, PPC marketing, SEO, CRO, marketing automation and growth strategy.
In our experience, many B2B SAS companies
abandon their paid media channels
too early without fully exploring
all the options available to them.
And based on hunches instead of data.
Now we've learned from discussions with
prospects and clients, that there is a
tendency to make false assumptions about
their optimal customer channel fit.
Often because of past difficulties
they faced while using one digital
marketing channel or another.
Some of the common challenges we
hear about include with Google ads.
Companies often reach a scaling
ceiling with the amount that
they can spend on keywords.
They want to target.
And when they reach the ceiling,
most transition over to Facebook or
LinkedIn ads, because they don't know
what else they can do with Google.
Now with LinkedIn ads.
They know it's supposed to be a
great channel for B to B advertising,
but they aren't sure whether they
want to invest in the higher costs
associated with the platform.
So they choose to advertise elsewhere or
tested out only in a limited way, which
is ultimately reflected in that results.
And with Facebook ads, they're able
to spend a lot of their budget,
but that customer acquisition
costs a high and it doesn't seem
to be leading to many conversions.
They suspect it's not the best
social media channel for a B
to B SAS product, but they feel
like they've run out of options.
So they continue advertising there anyway.
When B2B SAS businesses sign up to work
with us, we sent our initial project
around testing, paid media channels,
and we focus on paid as opposed to SEO
in the beginning for three reasons.
One, you can see who's converting
and you aren't left guessing about
how your traffic will convert.
Too.
You begin seeing results immediately
as opposed to needing to wait weeks or
months before you can see what's working.
And three, you can task content to find
out what's interesting to your prospects
and avoid investing in and creating SEO
content that lacks customer content fit.
By testing more of the options
available to you within each platform,
you can make more informed decisions
and be more confident, your spending
marketing budget in the right places.
And this episode will cover the
mistakes that we see, SAS marketers,
making our advice to mitigate those
mistakes and an overview of our approach
for finding customer channel fit.
When we test paid media
channels with new clients.
Marc: I'm Marc Thomas.
I'm the head of growth
at powered by search.
And today I'm going to talk you through
some of the best knowledge that we
have on building B2B SaaS businesses.
Now, if any of this is interesting
to you and you want to read more,
you should go to our website.
It's poweredbysearch.com
and check us out there.
Finding customer channel fit is
like having the wind at your back.
When you find it, everything's easier
because more potential customers are
close to the end of the sales cycle
and the congregated in one place.
Let's look at the general mistakes SAS
companies are making in this area of their
marketing efforts and then dig into the
channel specific mistakes that we see.
The first general mistake is
not testing certain channels.
For example, when prospects come
to us, they sometimes say they've
chosen not to run LinkedIn ads
because the click costs are too high.
The problem with this is that if
these assertions are not tested, then
companies are simply making assumptions
that can often be proven to be false.
So if your theory about B2B LinkedIn
ads is that they won't work for
you because they're too expensive.
You may be right.
But our stance is that you should test out
ads on LinkedIn to a certain scale before
writing it off as a non-viable channel.
Number two is not setting up a
workflow that maps out every step from
a channel through to a conversion.
SaaS businesses usually have
hypotheses about how they expect the
channels they using will perform.
But we haven't seen their strategy
for judging channel performance
to be much deeper than that.
Generally.
And our process, we set up a workflow
that maps out a path from that
channel through to a conversion.
A simple workflow can help you see the
subtle areas that you can tweak within a
channel to iterate and improve on things.
And better diagnose what's wrong
when things aren't working.
Without this workflow, you can easily
come to the conclusion that a channel
isn't working on the actual problem
could be the messaging in your ads.
The structure of your landing pages.
Or any other number of factors at play?
Number three is not setting up
remarketing from the outset and
also not using a pixel delay.
That's an old saying in the SEO world.
The best time to get
started was 10 years ago.
And the next time.
It's today.
The same principle applies to
remarketing in the paid media world.
You don't need to set up your
creative for remarketing ads from
the outset, but you do need to set
up your systems to begin collecting
the necessary data for remarketing.
As soon as your marketing campaigns
are alive, you want to be pixeling
website visitors who engage with
your ad and specific pages on your
website so that when you're ready
to begin remarketing, you haven't
missed out on these initial prospects.
The other thing that we do is
include a five second pixel delay
that tells the platform to only add
a remarketing pixel to someone who
actually waits for your page to load.
This allows you to avoid wasting
remarketing dollars on users who
click on your ad, but don't actually
engage with your page and allocate
those dollars to more qualified leads.
Number four.
Leaving the same ads running
without changing them up.
And we see this all the time.
By leaving the same ads running.
You create ad fatigue from your audience.
They grow tired of seeing the
same ad over and over, and this
can lead to lowering your quality
score and raising your PPC costs.
By periodically using new creative
with fresh visuals and messaging.
You can limit ad fatigue, avoid
turning off prospective new
customers and keep costs down.
Now let's look at some of
the channel specific mistakes
that we see
Google ads, specific mistakes.
Not for software companies nailing
your intent based search engine
channels like Google and bang is
essential because if customers are
looking for you and you want that.
They're going to choose
someone else who is.
Companies will typically bet
on the high intent keywords
directly related to that product.
But there are other areas to Google
ads where they miss opportunities.
Many choose not to use Google display
network, which reaches over 90% of
internet users because they think
banner advertising is un-targeted.
And frankly it is, if you execute
it poorly, we actually have a whole
episode on the display network,
which you should check out.
Number two.
Uh, there's avoid bidding on
competitor to keywords because
they perceive it to be unethical.
When in fact it can be done
tastefully and effectively.
Number three.
Often they'll choose not to bid
on keywords that include their
own brand name because they
assume they'll get those clicks.
And number four most won't use in market
or custom intent segments because they
are less familiar with these features.
All of the above, allow you to scale
your spending and ultimately your lead
generation further with Google ads.
LinkedIn specific mistakes.
A common mistake that we see with
LinkedIn is that companies will
decide higher click costs make it
less viable than other platforms.
But the metric they should
actually be making decisions around
is the cost to acquire a demo
As you can see in this graphic,
which is in the accompanying blog
posts, a link is in the description.
Higher click costs don't necessarily
mean higher cost per demo.
We've used simple hypothetical numbers
here, just to visualize this point.
Even though LinkedIn can be the most
expensive platform in our experience.
It's often worth investing more in
because the certainty that you're
reaching your target audience for B2B
is higher than any other platform.
The main mistakes we see SAS
marketers make with LinkedIn
can be summed up as one.
They don't give enough budget to
LinkedIn to be successful to they
set up targeting it's too specific.
For example, targeting a single job title.
And three, they deliver content
that doesn't fit the mindset
of their target customers.
When they using LinkedIn.
Now if you get your
targeting and content, right.
And given enough budget.
You can set yourself up for
better results on LinkedIn.
Facebook specific mistakes.
The biggest challenge would
be to be ads on Facebook.
Is that the audience, seeing your
ads is more likely to be B to C.
The way to overcome this is
to use ad copy and creative.
That it's very clear it's
for a specific person.
For example, by using ad copy, like
attention brand and creative managers.
Are you paying too much
for visual content?
Find out in less than two minutes.
Yeah.
It's can be seen by more
of the right people.
But often companies
miss the mark with this.
We also see B2B marketers go
wrong with Facebook ads when they
build audiences who demographics.
And interest versus using a
lookalike audiences, which are
based on real customers and
consistently yield better results.
And also opt not to use automated
or all placements for ads.
Uh, feature we see
actually works quite well.
And then finally use the same
creative across all ad platforms
instead they should use dedicated
creative for different placements
These are the mistakes.
We tend to see SAS businesses make when
it comes to their pay channel strategy.
What follows is a streamlined approach
that we've developed to test these
channels for SAS businesses in
order to determine their viability.
We'll look at that process now.
And our early projects with clients,
we work with them to establish the
right fit in three important areas.
Journey off of fit.
Customer content fit.
And customer channel fit.
Now, these are three of the eight
different types of fit that we think
about and help establish for our clients.
Again, we have a whole episode on
this and I blog posts that goes
into a lot of detail on our website.
And our journey offer and
customer content fits sanctions.
We do the setup work that
creates the foundation for
finding customer channel fit.
First we collaboratively develop a
lead magnet that we'll be offering to
prospects who are higher in the funnel.
They're not ready for
the demo or a trial yet.
For the lead magnet, we'll
typically use a case study.
Calculator.
Cheat sheet or mistake list in PDF form.
The goal is to create high quality
relevant content that will stand
out to their ideal customers as
something that's actually useful.
Ultimately that's the key to
good content marketing, right?
Next we design and develop a landing
page funnel that maps out the journey
customers will take from a channel
through, to a conversion, including
a two-step email marketing automation
that delivers the lead magnet.
And later a follow up
email from me sales person.
Then we begin setting up our campaigns
in each of the platforms where
we'll test for customer channel fit.
Each of them are set up to
begin collecting remarketing
data from the outset.
Including a five second pixel delay.
And we test all three simultaneously.
Here are the key elements to
our approach for each platform
And our deep dive on scaling
Google ads available on our blog.
We provide an in-depth look at our
process that we use to scale ad spend
and conversions for our clients.
We walk you through the
how and why for each step.
For example, targeting within market and
custom intent segments, letting Google
show ads to people they've determined
are in the market to buy what you sell.
Brand consideration intent.
Showing ads to people who search your
brand plus reviews or your brand plus
alternatives, directing traffic to you
and not to review sites like Capterra.
Brand versus competitor intent, showing
ads to people who search your brand versus
competitor and send visitors to an honest
comparison page hosted on your own site.
And Google display network
managed placements.
That's displaying ads to people on
websites related to your general topic
to reach people higher in the funnel.
Example software for ax industry.
And uploading target account lists.
Target with Google's customer match
feature to reach audiences that
share characteristics with your
pre-existing customers or leads.
Also on LinkedIn.
We have an article about
this on our blog too.
I'm going to get that tattooed to my arm.
I'm sure.
Our director of paid media, that he
offers his recommendations on how to
get your targeting and content, right.
With LinkedIn.
And explains why LinkedIn
is often worth more budget.
For targeting cast a wide net.
LinkedIn works best when you
give it a range of related job
titles to start and then see
which specific titles, industries,
and companies are engaging with.
You.
Use those for remarketing.
And then for content communicate
that it can be easily consumed.
We find LinkedIn users respond better
to messaging that implies your content
is digestible and immediately useful.
While we often see a lower
volume of leads through LinkedIn.
The lead quality is usually higher and the
customer acquisition costs can work out
to be a similar one to other platforms.
I finally Facebook.
We find the greatest results
with Facebook come from using it.
Suite of targeting features.
Specifically, we use the look alike.
Audience features in a variety of ways.
1% customer lookalikes.
And by uploading a list of existing
customers or members we'll create a 1%
look alike audience for each country.
Facebook then shows your, as do
you use, as they've determined a
similar to your customers based
on the data that you provide.
Using things like state country,
email, phone number LTV.
Et cetera.
1% SQL lookalikes.
We'll also create lookalike audiences
based on sales qualified leads
that are either collected through
a CRM or a list of users who have
previously converted and booked demos.
And then broad interest
and look alike, overlap.
Finally we'll create audiences using
behavior interests and demographics that
match those of our clients, customers.
In addition to using lookalike
audiences, we show remarketing
ads to people who have visited our
website or downloaded a lead magnet.
And if our client has a
prospect list from their CRM.
We'll target those users
specifically using that emails.
For ad placement, we'll currently use
all types for both static and video ads,
which are shown in feeds and stories.
And in some cases we're using messenger
to deliver lead magnets and demos to.
Let's pull this all together.
Over the last five to eight years,
opinions in the digital marketing
community have shifted back and
forth about how much we can trust the
features of these advertising platforms.
Now from our perspective as
the capabilities of all these
platforms continue to improve
and become more sophisticated.
We find that more and more.
We can rely on the targeting features.
They're offering to get great results.
The approaches to each platform
listed above are some of the most
effective forms of advertising
currently available to SAS businesses.
By testing out each of these platforms
to their full capacity, you can
increase your level of certainty
that you're investing in the optimal
channels for your digital advertising.
I'll see you next time
.
Marc: now, if you enjoyed that
today and you want to do something
about your B2B SaaS marketing,
you should get in touch with us.
You can do that by going to
poweredbysearch.com and checking
out our assessment page.
Or you can browse the case studies
and blogs that we have on the site.
Now if you're not ready to do
that, definitely say hi anyway,
you can ping me on Twitter.
I'm @iammarcthomas that's Marc with a C.
Or you can ping our founder and CEO,
@devbasu and connect with us there.
Looking forward to seeing you
again for another episode.