To help customers find information on the web, companies frequently use various advertising techniques, including Google Ads. SaaS companies are no exception. In this blog post, we will discuss the benefits of Google Ads for SaaS businesses, along with some best SaaS ads strategies to maximize your revenue with the help of Google Ads.
Table of Contents
What is SaaS?
SaaS stands for Software-as-a-Service, which is a cloud-based delivery model where the vendor provides the software application and takes care of the hosting, maintenance, and updates. The customer pays a subscription fee to access the software on demand, usually through a web browser or a mobile device.
It has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including:
- Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
- Financial planning
- Customer relationship management (CRM)
- Human resource management (HRM)
- Invoicing
- Content management
- Service desk management
SaaS is hosted and managed by a vendor. Salesforce.com, WebEx, Google Cloud, and iCloud are all examples of SaaS vendors.
The differences between using Google Ads in B2B (SaaS) and B2C businesses
Since I have explained what SaaS is, you can easily refer to SaaS as a B2B business model. Comparing the SaaS B2B model with the B2C model, there are two fundamental differences below.
B2B sales cycles are longer
Simply put, B2C sales are shorter because there are fewer stakeholders involved in the buying process. Individual consumers often make quicker decisions based on personal preferences, reviews, and immediate needs.
On the other hand, B2B SaaS typically involves a longer and more complex sales cycle, as SaaS products require more education, demonstration, and negotiation. According to SaaS Metrics, the average sales cycle for B2B SaaS deals ranges from 14 days for deals worth $2,000 in annual contract value (ACV) to 180 days or more for deals worth $100,000 in ACV.
For B2B businesses, the average sales cycle may vary depending on the industry and product type, but it is generally shorter than for SaaS products. Also, in B2B SaaS, lead nurturing is a crucial aspect of the sales process. Given the longer decision-making cycles, businesses focus on building relationships, providing valuable content, and addressing specific business pain points to nurture leads through the sales funnel.
B2B has a lower lead volume
B2C businesses often target a larger and more diverse customer base, which equally means this type of business has a higher lead volume. Since their products or services are intended for individual consumers, the potential market is significantly broader than B2B businesses.
B2B SaaS businesses, on the other hand, typically deal with a lower lead volume compared to B2C. This can be explained by how B2B businesses sell their products or services to other businesses, which often constitute a smaller pool than the vast number of consumers in the B2C market. However, each lead may represent a higher potential value.
How are SaaS businesses doing with Google Ads?
Currently, many SaaS businesses have chosen Google Ads as an advertising tool to attract potential clients and increase conversion rates. However, only a few businesses truly understand this advertising platform and know how to implement effective Google Ads strategies. Mega Digital conducted a survey with SaaS businesses to gain a deeper understanding of this issue. The survey is based on the following question: “How would you rate your Google Ads expertise and skills?”. The results of the survey shown below have solidified our arguments.
If you have little to no knowledge about how to execute an effective Google Ads campaign for your SaaS business, don’t worry. You’ve come to the right place. In the following sections, we’ll delve into the details, providing you with a step-by-step guide on how to navigate this process successfully.
Benefits of using Google Ads for your SaaS business
More than 55% of people surveyed say they use Google to discover or find a new brand (Source: Think with Google). Huge numbers of people use the Google search engine every day, and you don’t want your business to miss out on such a huge potential customer base. If you successfully promote your SaaS product, they will easily get that from the search results.
Using Google Ads for SaaS businesses can offer you a range of benefits, helping you reach a targeted audience, increase brand visibility, and drive conversions. Here are 5 key advantages:
Enhanced ROI
The SaaS sector places significant emphasis on the Return on Investment (ROI), a crucial metric for assessing the profitability of a specific system. Using Google Ads for SaaS offers the potential for increased ROI.
In comparison to conventional online advertising methods, Google Ads stands out as a more effective avenue for generating revenue, suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises aiming to boost their financial returns.
Improved conversion rates
Google Ads are one of the best ways to improve your SaaS company’s conversion rates. By precisely targeting your audience and bidding on relevant keywords, you ensure that your ads are displayed to users actively searching for your offerings, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
Higher SEO ranking
For every SaaS company that wishes to promote their tailored solutions to end customers, in this case are other businesses, they need to invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
While Google Ads and organic SEO are distinct strategies, there are ways in which using Google Ads for SaaS businesses can have a positive impact on SEO ranking. When users see your ads in the search results and click on them, it can lead to increased click-through rates (CTR). Higher CTR is a positive signal to search engines, and it may indirectly influence your SEO ranking.
Immediate visibility
Visibility in Google Ads is one of the most important digital advertising strategies. It’s also one of the best ways to get your products seen by a more targeted audience.
With Google Ads, SaaS businesses can achieve immediate visibility on Google search results and other partner websites. As soon as the campaign is set up and activated, the ads can be visible to users actively searching for relevant terms or browsing websites related to the SaaS business’s offerings.
This is particularly advantageous for quickly reaching potential customers when they are actively searching for related solutions.
Long-term brand value
To establish a long-lasting brand value for your SaaS company, it’s crucial to have a strategy for crafting compelling advertisements. And running ads on Google might be the right move to make. Utilizing Google Ads for SaaS enables the creation of relevant ads tailored to your target audience. When they recognize your brand in both paid and organic search results, it can enhance trust and credibility.
Best SaaS Ads Strategies using Google Ads
Building effective Google Ads campaigns for your SaaS business requires a strategic approach to maximize visibility, engagement, and conversions. Here are some best strategies suggested by Mega Digital that you should consider adopting:
1. Research thoroughly
Competitor analysis is a significantly crucial process for any type of business, whether that is a SaaS business or other digital business.
Before using Google Ads to promote your products, you must conduct a comprehensive competitive analysis about how your competitors advertise and succeed in their promotion. It will help get the idea that your industry has potential for Google Ads. Also, Google Ads has powerful features like “auction insights” to help you easily get information about your competitors who are using the same keywords as you.
2. Set the right keywords
When searching for SaaS solutions, potential clients might use some specific terms that show their concerns and desires. Therefore, to capture the most potential clients possible, your business should conduct thorough keyword research to identify the most accurate and high-converting terms and phrases that they might use. Use a mix of all keyword match types (broad, phrase, and exact match keywords) to cover various search intents.
For instance, security and technology issues can greatly influence the users’ intention to adopt SaaS services. Therefore, SaaS vendors should emphasize these issues and include the keywords related to their ad campaigns.
3. Choose the right ad objectives and bidding strategies
As a SaaS company, you will probably aim for conversions like filling in a form on your contact page. This will increase your chance of getting more qualified leads for your email marketing campaigns. Naturally, you may come to the conclusion that it’s optimal to focus your bidding strategy entirely on conversions.
However, this is not necessarily the case and is the downfall of many young SaaS companies that are new to Google Ads. New SaaS companies often face the challenge of limited brand recognition. Focusing solely on conversions may neglect the importance of building brand awareness. Also, potential clients may not have enough space to understand the benefits of your solution.
For this reason, I would recommend newbies begin with the ‘maximize clicks’ objective instead. Run this for a month to get lots of traffic to your landing pages. Clicks can lead to conversions. Offering incentives like free trials can help speed this along. Once you’ve built up your conversion rate and gathered plenty of data, you can begin thinking of a conversion-based bidding strategy as Google has data to work off. And obviously, the bigger your budget, the quicker you can make this happen.
Learn more: Best Google Ads Bidding Strategies and Pro Tips in 2024
4. Focus on the landing page
A landing page is at the forefront of your business in the online world. The quality of your landing page gives the very first impression about your brand to your audience. Poorly executed or difficult-to-navigate landing pages will have a detrimental effect on your conversion rates.
Campaigns should enable your brand’s landing page to feature well in Google’s search engine results page (SERPs), so once you’ve gone through the hurdle of building your campaign and getting your audience to stop by, you then want to make sure your landing pages are optimized for conversions. The content should align with the ad messaging, and there should be a clear and prominent call-to-action (CTA). Don’t forget to test different variations to find the most effective layout.
5. Be patient with the funnel strategy
As I have mentioned earlier, SaaS companies are expected to be involved in a prolonged sales cycle, in which several stages take place. It is nowhere near an overnight process. This usually results from the fact the client has to conduct thorough research to ensure the product/service behind your brand’s campaign will be worth the investment. Therefore, patience is much needed here.
A funnel strategy in Google Ads is a powerful approach to guide potential customers through the buying journey, from initial awareness to conversion. It involves crafting a series of ad campaigns targeting different stages of the funnel with specific goals and messages.
Also, you can monitor where the lead is at any time within the sales funnel. It is a crucial part of understanding our leads and when (and if) they choose to convert. It also helps us understand the buying journey from our client’s perspective, which can be helpful for future campaigns.
6. Implement remarketing
Remarketing is a powerful digital marketing strategy that involves targeting users who have previously interacted with your website or mobile app with customized ads. For SaaS businesses, remarketing plays a crucial role in re-engaging potential clients who have previously visited your website but did not convert.
Inside Google Ads, you can install a remarketing tag on your website. This tag tracks user interactions and builds lists of visitors for remarketing. Next, you define specific audience segments by creating remarketing lists based on various criteria, such as all website visitors, users who visited specific pages, or those who completed certain actions. Once you have that data, start crafting engaging ad copies that resonate with your remarketing audience.
7. Measure constantly and keep updated
Due to its subscription business model, SaaS is vulnerable to quick changes in user preferences. Therefore, measuring user activities and behavior becomes essential to SaaS solutions’ existence and further development.
Case Study: Boosting SaaS Growth with Google Ads
Background
Our client, Plivo, a leading SaaS company in India focused on providing cloud communication platforms for SMS and voice calls, wanted to increase their user base and improve their conversion rate. They decided to leverage Google Ads, aiming to reach a wider audience and drive more qualified leads to their website.
Strategy
Plivo, with the help of Mega Digital, a trusted Google Ads agency, developed a comprehensive Google Ads strategy aimed at business growth. Together, we created ads highlighting the product’s ease of use and affordability. We also used customer testimonials as social proof to build trust and credibility.
Implementation
The campaign was launched across various platforms within the Google Ads network, including:
- Search ads
- Display ads
- YouTube ads
The ads were targeted to specific demographics and regions that aligned with Plivo’s ideal customer profile.
Results
The results of the campaign were impressive:
- Increased user base: The campaign resulted in a 25% increase in the client base within the first quarter of 2023.
- Improved conversion rate: The conversion rate improved by 15%, indicating that the leads generated were highly qualified.
- High ROAS: For every dollar spent on the campaign, Plivo generated $3 in revenue, representing a 170% return on ad spend.
Wrap-up
To achieve the overall growth of your SaaS company, you should consider using Google Ads to leverage your product promotion campaigns. In this blog post, we have discussed how you can take full advantage of what Google Ads can do for the sake of your SaaS company’s advertising success. Whether you’re using Google Ads for B2B SaaS, implementing SaaS Google Ads, or looking for the best SaaS ads, this guide has you covered.
