The world of PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is constantly evolving. It plays a significant role within your overall marketing strategy. As we enter the second half of 2024, it’s crucial for SaaS businesses to stay ahead of the curve. A well-executed PPC for SaaS campaign can drive targeted traffic, increase brand visibility, and ultimately boost conversions. In this article, I’ll be exploring 8 best practices that will help SaaS businesses like yours succeed in their PPC endeavours this year. We’ll be delving into industry trends, crafting compelling ad copy, optimising landing pages, plus more.
Let’s begin.
1. What are your objectives?
While it may be tempting to go full steam ahead from the get-go, your results will suffer tremendously if you don’t lay the foundations for any of your PPC for SaaS campaigns. This is why your objectives must be defined clearly.
Whether it’s:
- Increasing website traffic
- Driving sales
- or generating leads
Setting yourself clear objectives will guide your campaign strategy and ensure that your efforts are aligned with your business goals.
At this stage, it’s also useful to be specific with your objectives. Being vague will only lead to mediocre results. Ask yourself questions like:
- What percentage of increased website traffic do we want?
- What does driving sales look like for us? What number are we trying to achieve?
- How many leads do we want to generate? Is it monthly or quarterly?
By being specific, you and your team can be strategic in all aspects of the decision-making process throughout your PPC for SaaS campaigns.
2. Who are your target audience?
You can set all the objectives you want. But if you’re not aware of who your audience is, their pain points, and the solution you offer, you won’t possess the skills required for business storytelling. This will result in your PPC for SaaS efforts counting for zero.
Understanding your target audience is the foundation to any of your successful PPC for SaaS campaigns.
This is what to do:
Conduct thorough market research to identify your ideal customer profiles, pain points, and preferences. Once you’ve done this, the next step is to tailor your ad messaging and targeting options to resonate with your target audience. This will significantly increase the chances of engagement and conversions.
Top tip: If you find yourself struggling with identifying your customer profiles, consider carrying out user-research to help you with this. ‘The Mom Test’ methodology is by far the most popular user-research model used by companies globally.
Once you’ve nailed down steps 1 & 2, it’s now time to get technical.
3. Be thorough with your keyword research
The phrase ‘keyword research’ is bandied about a lot in the PPC space. Yet, many businesses, including those in SaaS, take this on without being sufficiently informed about what keyword research actually entails. There is an art to this endeavour.
Within the backbone of any PPC for SaaS campaign, it’s vital that you identify relevant keywords that actually align with your business offerings and target audience search intent.
How to do this:
Use keyword research tools like Google keyword planner and Ahrefs (amongst others), coupled with analytics, to uncover high-volume, low-competition keywords that can drive qualified traffic to your website.
Once you’ve done this, incorporate these keywords strategically into your ad copy and landing page content. If you don’t do this, your PPC for SaaS campaigns will become disjointed, resulting in underwhelming results.
As I just mentioned above, ad copy is intrinsic within this process.
4. The importance of crafting compelling ad copy
Compelling ad copy is paramount to grabbing your audience attention and driving click-throughs. For this reason, you must be able to write concise and engaging ad copy which highlights the unique value proposition of your SaaS product or service. Focus on the benefits and solutions your SaaS service offers rather than just listing its features. Use strong call-to-action phrases that prompt users to take the desired action.
If you’re looking for a bit of inspiration, I’d like to share these ad examples by Mailchimp, which include some very clever copy and accompanying imagery. Notice how none of the copy mentions Mailchimp. Instead, ask the audience to naturally come to that conclusion through the creative itself.
If you don’t currently have an in-house Copywriter, you may want to consider hiring one. They can help with PPC for SaaS campaign copy as well as landing pages. This leads us nicely to step number 5.
5. You must optimise your landing pages
By now, you would have firmly established your chosen keywords through keyword research which we discussed in step 3.
Now, your Copywriter can begin weaving these keywords into their landing page creatives, just as they would have done in the ad copy. A well-designed landing page is crucial to converting PPC traffic into leads and conversions. Be sure to optimise your landing pages by aligning them with the ad copy. By adopting this approach, you are more likely to create a seamless user experience for your PPC for SaaS campaigns.
Top tip: With the help of your front-end designer/developer, make sure the landing pages load quickly, have a clear and compelling headline, concise and persuasive content, and a prominent call-to-action (CTA). Maintain the effectiveness of your PPC for SaaS campaigns by regularly testing and optimising your landing pages for maximum conversions.
The work doesn’t stop there, though.
6. Monitor your conversions
We’ve covered a lot of details so far, but to maximise your PPC campaign’s potential, tracking your conversion rate will guide you towards gauging its success.
How to do this:
Use tracking pixels or codes on your website to track actions such as purchases, submissions, and sign-ups. These are key bits of data. Tracking them will provide you with insights into which of your keywords, ads, and campaigns are driving most conversions. You can then use this data to optimise your campaigns accordingly.
7. There’s more to monitoring and optimising
One aspect of PPC for SaaS campaigns that should never cease is monitoring and optimising. I’d go as far as saying that they’re critical to their success. This is why you must review your campaign performance on a regular basis without fail.
How to do this:
- Analyse your key metrics, such as click-through-rates (CTR), conversion rates (CR), and cost-per-acquisition (CPA).
- Then, identify underperforming ads or keywords and make data-driven adjustments to improve the effectiveness of your campaigns.
8. Keep your finger on the pulse
Running a SaaS business can be a challenge at the best of times. With so much to keep on top of, it’s sometimes easy to have your blinkers on without an awareness of the goings on within your industry.
Don’t let this be you. For you to be able to stay on a continuous upwards trajectory, you must, at all times, be well-informed about the latest trends within your industry. Only then can you place your company in pole position. By innovating your product, it will surpass what your competition is doing.
How to stay ahead
The PPC landscape is a dynamic one. New trends and technologies are always emerging. Keep yourself in the loop with industry news, attending webinars, marketing events and following influential PPC experts through online articles and social media platforms. Also, don’t shy away from experimenting with new features and ad formats offered by PPC platforms, such as responsive search and video ads. You can then leverage their potential and gain a competitive edge.
To conclude
PPC advertising presents immense opportunities for SaaS businesses to drive lead generation, targeted traffic, and revenue. By following the above steps and staying informed about the latest industry trends, you’ll possess all the tools to optimise your PPC campaigns and achieve your 2024 goals and ambitions.
Remember to continuously monitor, test and refine your strategies. Success for your business will be dependent on the level of your diligence towards your PPC for SaaS campaign strategy. Above all, enjoy the process.