Differentiating B2B from B2C intent can be quite challenging, especially when SaaS Marketing falls in niche categories with limited relevant keywords.
Nevertheless, according to the SaaS PPC Agency Getuplead https://getuplead.com/saas-ppc-agency/, there are several ways you can use PPC in reaching potential customers
and reengaging customers who are in the consideration phase.
This article discusses 4 PPC tactics SaaS companies can use in targeting the right people, keeping their products in mind.
4 PPC Tactics For Effective Targeting In Saas Marketing
Tactic #1 – Competitor Keyword Bidding
Sometimes, nailing down non-brand search keywords for niche SaaS products can be quite difficult. An effective tactic for targeting people looking for your product, especially when starting their search, is to bid on competitor names.
You latching on to the familiarity of a larger competitor with more search volume than your brand is possible.
Although for trademark and ethical reasons, you shouldn’t directly mention your competitor by name in an ad. However, you can highlight the differentiators for your brand. Always research your competitors, keeping tabs on their areas of weakness and your area of strength.
For instance, if a competitor recently increased their prices, current users and those still researching may be open to other options. In this case, if your brand’s selling point is more efficient pricing, then you should capitalize on it.
While researching your competitor, you may discover that they receive frequent complaints about their customer service. You can also capitalize on this if your brand is known for positive customer service. All you need do is highlight your strengths in your business ads compared to your competitor.
Tactic #2 – LinkedIn Lead Generation Forms
LinkedIn targeting offers the most niche options for directly reaching the audience of a B2B SaaS product. However, LinkedIn advertising can be quite pricey.
Fortunately, lead gen forms can bring down the cost per acquisition
Lead gen forms allow users directly submit forms for offers directly within the LinkedIn feed without leaving to do so on a website
The forms will auto-fill details on the user’s account, such as name, job title, and email. Furthermore, You can directly sync the leads to automation platforms and CRMs.
Lead gen forms reduce friction, and they often convert at a higher rate with a lower cost per acquisition than using a dedicated landing page.
A LinkedIn study shows that the estimated average conversion rate on a lead gen form is 13%, while that of a landing page is 2.35%
Lead gen forms best promote gated assets towards a higher funnel or mid-funnel audience. Afterward, you can follow up with individuals who submit the form using a marketing automation platform.
Tactic #3 – Cross-channel Retargeting
A major pain point of SaaS businesses is reaching narrow audiences with few relevant targeting options on each platform. Retargeting potential customers across channels is a way of maximizing reach to the right individuals.
For instance, you may use LinkedIn to target people with specific titles, work for companies on an account list, or members of certain groups.
Although LinkedIn may be the only platform for directly targeting an audience using these criteria, getting people to your site for higher funnel tasks like reading a content piece or signing up for a webinar allows you to add them to your audience for retargeting.
Ensure you use proper UTM parameters to map out the specific audience for retargeting.
Afterward, you can create a retargeting audience of people that visited URLs containing such parameters using Google or Facebook.
For instance, for a campaign using account-based targeting, when people visit the webinar signup page, the LinkedIn ad URL will have parameters such as;
Utm_source = linkedin
Utm_medium = paidsocial
Utm_campaign = Webinar_AccountList4.
Afterward, you can create a retargeting audience containing this string from the URL: utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign=Webinar_AccountList
Tactic #4 – Video View Retargeting
SaaS products sometimes provide complex solutions that a brief social post cannot easily explain. You can present a problem and how your product solves it with an explainer video, establishing initial brand recognition.
Suppose a video does not work for immediate conversion. In that case, you can still run a video ad on LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube, to target the top of the funnel audience, creating an audience based on video viewers.
Afterward, you can retarder the engaged viewers using another CTA or asset download.
Final Verdict
It can be challenging to reach the right in-market buyers for a SaaS product. However, in the end, it is rewarding if you nail down the right strategy by testing across several platforms and ad formats.
Your longer-term strategy and reviewing tactics can yield long-term customers if you have the right tracking infrastructure for properly measuring upgrades, trial/demo registrations, and recurring subscriptions.
You also need to ensure that you can properly attribute the results you get to each campaign and platform and test new tactics.
