Swipe Files - 📂 How to NOT suck at SaaS ads

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Today's newsletter is by my friend and SaaS ads expert Lewis Mudrich.

Lewis works with dozens of SaaS companies to run ads on their behalf in his work with his agency, KonvertLab.

And for the Swipe Files audience only, he's sharing his advice for how to not suck at running ads for SaaS.

If you'd rather watch the video version of this instead:

Respectfully, most software companies are dangerous to themselves & their marketing budgets when it comes to online advertising.

I've seen many cases where the company was better off literally lighting the money on fire...

At least it’d be more interesting to watch.

From spending $10s of thousands of dollars on completely irrelevant keywords to accidentally being shown for adult-related searches…

I've seen it all.

Common Theme: ​
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Hopefully, I can help shed some light on this, help make you an ROI, & save a lot of money from being burned along the way.

“Paid ads didn’t work for us”..​
..is the classic line I’ll often hear on sales calls.

This sentence is always followed by further questioning from myself.

Usually, this leads to me finding out that the way the prospect was “doing paid ads”, could be the equivalent of me “being a stunt-double” for Jackie Chan...

I’d love to work with Jackie, but I once tried to “follow-up” my friend’s breakdancing at a wedding only to end up face down on the floor so.. might not be the best candidate for that.

(Also if you find that video online - please report it, ty).

The Basics

Assuming your software is actually useful / good / valuable, etc - the paid ads strategy to minimize your potential losses early on & maximize wins (while learning) depends on the type of your SaaS.

Is your SaaS one that:

• Prospects are searching for?

OR

• One that prospects would love to have ONCE they know this solution even exists?

Your answer immediately starts narrowing down which advertising strategy you should use, first. (See visual chart below).

To wrap this point up, each ad platform has its own interest level & you can use that to your advantage / disadvantage.

For example, someone watching Youtube videos on a particular topic could be curious & more likely to buy than someone scrolling through their Facebook feed.

Google Ads

Ol’ faithful. Ol’ tried & true. Google Ads is the best place to find the highest intent traffic to convert into sales since they’re searching for what you have to offer.

• ❌ Cheaper Costs

• ✅ Highly Qualified Traffic

• ✅ High Intent to Purchase

These types of visitors already have their company credit card in one hand, & their mouse in the other (see visual aid).

Screenshot from my video: Tips for B2B Leads & Sales (SaaS Guide)​

Google Ads is one of the most expensive platforms due to competition driving up those damn CPCs because…. the traffic actually converts into sales! Go figure.

So, a decent sized budget is needed for this to work reliably. Lot of it depends on CPCs for your niche but a good rule of thumb is come at this with at least a few thousand/mo to spend.

Anything less gets risky as you have a LOT less wiggle room to learn what’s going to consistently drive you high quality booked calls / paying customers.

If not, you’ll run out of budget before you get your first sale & claim the platform “doesn't work”.

Competitive Edge:

One key to making your Google Ads campaign work is to have an amazing landing page that people can look at & within a few seconds make a decision to read further or convert.

If people even get slightly confused on “What’s In It For Them”, then before you blink, they’ve already hit that dreaded “back” button.

• “What can you do to help me & how do you do that (roughly)?”​
​Answer that for the prospect as quickly as possible in the first section (hero) of the landing page

• “Can I trust you & do you have the features I’m looking for?”
​Answer that throughout the page (as concisely as possible).

• “How do I take the next step?”​
CTAs should be very prominent & point (usually) towards 1 action.

Takeaway:

There’s only so much you can do about your CPCs but there’s a TON you can do about your landing page conversion rates.

Moving on..

Facebook Ads

• ✅ Cheaper Costs

• ❌ Highly Qualified B2B Traffic

• ❌ High Intent to Purchase

Great for scale. Bad for high quality B2B SaaS traffic (usually).

Far cheaper costs than Linkedin but from all the extensive testing done over the years, it’s better to steer clear of this traffic channel at first unless you have a large budget to get through the stepp learning curve. It could take you $20k to get your first enterprise sale here, who knows?

✅ It’s great for low-friction offers like webinars, lead magnets, etc.

❌ Hard for booking demo calls (unlike Google).

✅ Great for retargeting.

You can mess up on the creatives & still be fine here because your costs are going to be much lower than Linkedin.

That being said, you should still have amazing creatives.

Linkedin Ads

Basically imagine if Facebook had way higher quality B2B traffic. That’s Linkedin Ads.

Now, also imagine if it was way more expensive.

You guessed it! Linkedin Ads!

• ❌ Cheaper Costs

• ✅ Highly Qualified B2B Traffic

• ❌ High Intent to Purchase

We’ve seen a lot of success with Linkedin Ads when clients have larger budgets to explore how to actually get these colder traffic sources to convert into high quality leads (MQLS -> SQLs).

There’s quite a bit of “figuring it out” because once you get your offer + targeting + creative right on this platform, you’ll quickly find yourself having a large list of highly qualified email opt-ins but crickets when it comes to trying to move them to booking a call / starting a trial.

It’s a lot easier said than done. Just because they opted in for your webinar does not mean they’re anywhere near being ready to buy.

⬆️ Figuring this funnel / nurturing sequence out, will become the bane of your existence if you haven’t done it before.

Your creatives better be good because you’re going to be paying quite a bit per click.

Also, great for retargeting.

Youtube Ads

Great for finding people interested in / watching videos on certain topics. Great for remarketing.

• ✅ Cheaper Costs

• ⚠️ Highly Qualified B2B Traffic

• ⚠️ High Intent to Purchase

Traffic quality can be questionable & I’ve noticed a lot of the traffic is more “beginner-focused”. Depending on what your solution is, that could actually be a good thing.

People often come to this platform to learn / be entertained so keep that in mind.

Requirement:

The way to win here is to absolutely dominate with your video creative.

You’re quite literally interrupting someones viewing experience so it better be a damn good interruption.

Make sure your pre-roll ads are punchy, you literally have seconds before that skip button appears.

Wonderful for retargeting.

Summary

Basically there’s a lot of ways to lose money in SaaS advertising if you don’t know some best practices.

You can get lucky with paid ads early on, but I’m focusing on:

• Consistency & Scalability

I once got a 6 figure deal from $500-ish in ad spend. It happens.

But if you can’t get your averages within an ideal range, it could be another $50k+ til a similar enterprise deal comes along again. Now you’re just playing the lottery.

Control the controllables & maximize your chances of success based on the platform you’re choosing.

Also, if you’re going on a platform that supports video, always opt for creating video ads - you get far better reach & usually better results (if the video ad is actually good).

Most of the time, just start with Google Ads.

You’ll sleep better at night.

Links & Resources

​SaaS Ads (Youtube Playlist) by Lewis Mudrich

​KonvertLab (my agency)

​lewis@konvertlab.com (my email)

Lewis Mudrich (...my name)

✌️

—Lewis

Thanks again to Lewis for sharing. Make sure to go follow him on Twitter.

What did you think?

—Corey

p.s. do you want to be able to compare your marketing metrics with other SaaS companies? Fill out the State of SaaS Marketing Survey →​

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