PPC for SaaS - 6 Tips to Dominate Your Market

Targeting the right in-market customers can seem tricky without the right tools. Here are six effective PPC platforms that can aid you in reaching buyers without hassle.

In SaaS marketing, using keywords necessary for generating leads has a limit. Also, many SaaS brands find it challenging to distinguish B2B leads from B2C.

Nonetheless, SaaS marketing can still work well when PPC is integrated with your marketing strategy. For example, you can use PPC in various ways to target customers. With PPC, you can even re-target potential buyers who are still considering whether to buy or not.

This article will explore six PPC methods to help you zero in on your prospects and engage potential clients.

1. Competitor Keyword Bidding

SaaS products in a specific niche may be tough to locate with some keywords—especially non-brand words. But you can target your customers in your market when you bid on your competitors' names. This technique serves to guide you while you do your search. 

You can maximize your chances of adopting essential keywords for your niche and improving your search. First, consider using long-tailed keywords rather than generic keywords to narrow your search. Long-tailed keywords are better because they bring promising leads to PPC campaigns. Next, utilize keyword generators to find the best keywords for your search, but make sure they are a good fit for your software.

You can use a more significant competitor to increase leads in your brand marketing. However, it would be best to avoid mentioning your competitors' names while running your ad (to avoid trademark and ethical penalties).

 It is okay to point out your brand. Also, study your competitors and identify their weak points. You can learn from these faults and improve your brand. You can also use this to your advantage and secure buyers.

For example, An increase in the price of a competitor's product may cause customers to seek other alternatives. You can then get more leads by emphasizing your selling point—which may be a lower price.

Also, assuming your competitor lacks quality customer care, there are frequent negative reviews from users. You can capitalize on this by improving and marketing your exemplary customer service in your ads.

2. LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms

While LinkedIn advertising offers a good niche variety to target a B2B SaaS product-market directly, it tends to be expensive. Lead gen forms can aid in reducing the high cost per acquisition. This will also save extra charges for your budget and still get high conversion rates. Lead gen forms are ideal for small businesses. 

A user can fill and submit a form for an ad straight into the LinkedIn feed with a lead gen form. A prospect does not have to leave LinkedIn for a different site. As a result, you can earn your customer's trust by saving them the stress of clicking links.

Lead gen forms can also auto-fill any essential data for the user, including name, email, occupation, etc. This is an impressive feature that can assist you in keeping track of your prospects and provide better customer service.

CRMs and other third-party platforms can also be integrated with Lead gen forms to generate and sync possible leads. As a result, the Lead gen form delivers higher lead conversions and lesser cost per acquisition than a conventional landing page.

LinkedIn reports that lead gen form provides an average conversion rate of 13%, compared with the 2.35% landing page rate. Typically, lead gen forms are suited to facilitate a gated asset towards a high- or middle-funnel market. This helps you handpick your prospects and focus on following up with them. Also, it enables you to save time, money, and energy when you prioritize your interested buyers. 

3. Cross-Channel Retargeting

When it comes to PPC and SaaS marketing, various channels may become too separate, leading to miscommunication and unproductivity. On the other hand, channel synchronization enables the easy transfer of information and promotes lead conversion.

A majority of many SaaS businesses aim to get narrow audiences that may be interesting in having an interest in their products. Therefore, business owners also optimize marketing to reach the target market across channels.

For example, you aim to reach people belonging to a specific group or have particular titles using LinkedIn. You can also get your target audience by getting people to your site through a compelling piece of content or webinar.

Make sure to employ UTM parameters to highlight the specific audience you need. Then, you can create Google or Facebook channels to reach your selected audience. This audience should be those who visited URLs that contain the UTM parameters.

For example, a LinkedIn ad URL for individuals who visited a landing page from a Facebook channel using account-based targeting might have the following parameters:

   - utm_source = LinkedIn

- utm_medium = paidsocial
- utm_campaign = Landing_pageList4.

Then, you can generate a retargeting audience that “bears” this string from the URL: utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign=landing_pageList

4. Prospect List Targeting

You may have many potential users interested in your product by registering for a webinar. Creating a list will help you identify your primary audience. You can upload a list of your prospective buyers across automated marketing platforms or update the list by syncing it. List syncing also helps in tracking prospects and re-targeting them.

Major ad platforms such as Google, Quora, Microsoft Advertising, Facebook, linked on, and others can support a list of targeting.

Below are a few ideas on how to use prospect lists in ad channels:

- First, use a more compelling form of content to engage your prospect. For example, if a person initially registers for a webinar, pique their interest in reading a Buyer's Guide or buying a product.
- Identify potential customers who lose interest after registering for the webinar. Then, you can entice them with an extra discount or an extended free trial.
- If you give a trial period, ensure to make and sync a list of people in the trial period. This will aid in displaying ads emphasizing the merits of a premium.
- Upload a buyer list to prevent retargeting and waste your budget on secured buyers.
- Create a similar audience using a buyer list to reach people with similar interests to existing customers.

5. Account List Targeting

If you wish to reach specific companies, you can also utilize ABM (account-based marketing) and individual targeting. In addition, company targeting can be a beneficial tactic to reach your prospective companies.

The ABM tactic does not require you to use explicit opt-ins to target an audience or upload a list. This makes it more advantageous for individual targeting. For example, you may have access to an already-made list of the primary companies within your chosen industry or niche. Or rather, you can have a sales team compile a "wish" list of target accounts.

Of the many ad platforms, LinkedIn is the primary means of uploading account lists. This is because many companies tend to be available for listing.

Local markets should not be left out. You can employ agents to sync account lists in local ad platforms like Outbrain and Taboola. If you wish to target more significant buys, you may consider engaging ABM platforms to maximize your target listing.

 To be sure that you're gaining ground with the right decision-makers in the company, you can put extra targeting to the account lists. This may see tasking but will lead to better lead generation.

 For instance, you can display your ads to people interested in buying IT products while overlaying an IT job function and job seniority of the Director.

6. Video View Retargeting

 You may find it challenging to explain a SaaS product in a brief social content or post. This is because these products can offer complex solutions sometimes. In this case, you can use an explainer video to illustrate the existing problem and how the product will solve it. In addition, the video will provide and establish brand recognition for the product.

A well-prepared video explainer can provide visual illustrations to your customers, helping them engage better. It can serve as one of the best ways to relate with prospects and convince them to convert.

Platforms like Facebook, Youtube, and LinkedIn are great for running video ads to target a top-of-funnel audience and generate leads from video viewers. These social media platforms usually have high traffic and serve as suitable mediums to reach your target market. Then, you can retarget interested prospects with another CTA or an asset download.

Final Thoughts

One of the significant challenges in marketing a SaaS product is to reach the right in-market buyers. Also, using PPC for SaaS brands can get complicated if you don't have a working plan. You will need to work to combine several PPC methods and educate your prospects to convince them to buy.

Creating the right strategy tactics and ad formats on various platforms can help you maximize your resources and reach prospects. The six tactics explained above will guide you in implementing PPC into your strategies to reach and convert leads.