Dylan Hey’s Post

I analyzed the Google ad account of a $5M ARR B2B SaaS company this week. Here are the Hubspot stats: - Ad spend: $75,000 over the last 12 months - Leads: 2,073 ($36 CPL) - Won deals: 7 - Revenue: ~$140k (ACV is 20k) So high-level looking decent - that's a 2x ROI on the ad spend to revenue. Great. Let’s keep them running. But when I dug into the campaigns, I saw two things: 1. Out of the 7 deals, 5 of them converted on the search term being the COMPANY NAME (and *just* the company name) I would argue that those customers didn’t come from your Google ads - they would’ve become customers anyway. If someone googles the name of your company, you’ve won. They’re looking for you. 2. The remaining 2 deals both converted on the same ONE (non-branded) search term. They are running 100s of search terms. And this search term was a low-volume, high-intent keyword. It didn't generate a lot of leads, so the CPL for that search term was very high compared to the average. The bulk of the leads came from broad, high-level, “top-of-funnel” search terms, which helped drive down the average CPL, but none of them converted. Actually, once I looked at them in Hubspot, I could tell quickly that they will never convert: all of them had personal emails (@yahoo, @gmail etc) and besides visiting that landing page once from the Google ad click, never came back or interacted with anything else from that company. TAKEAWAY Now, considering that only 2 out of 7 customers came from Google ads, that’s $40k in revenue for $75k of spend. Suddenly, we’re underwater. Surface-level, your Google ads might look good. But probably: - Your branded search terms do all the heavy lifting  - You might want to reconsider spending budget on YOUR COMPANY NAME at all - The non-branded search terms generate the bulk of the leads and drive down overall CPL, but mostly just provide low-quality leads that go nowhere - Out of your non-branded terms, it’s generally a handful few of low-volume, high-intent keywords that drive all the value there In the above case, we can probably cut 80%+ of the ad spend while getting the same results for deals and revenue. #advertisement #marketing #googleads #b2b

I analyzed the Google ad account of a $5M ARR B2B SaaS company this week. Here are the Hubspot stats: - Ad spend: $75,000 over the last 12 months - Leads: 2,073 ($36 CPL) - Won deals: 7 - Revenue: ~$140k (ACV is 20k) So high-level looking decent - that's a 2x ROI on the ad spend to revenue. Great. Let’s keep them running. But when I dug into the campaigns, I saw two things: 1. Out of the 7 deals, 5 of them converted on the search term being the COMPANY NAME (and *just* the company name) I would argue that those customers didn’t come from your Google ads - they would’ve become customers anyway. If someone googles the name of your company, you’ve won. They’re looking for you. 2. The remaining 2 deals both converted on the same ONE (non-branded) search term. They are running 100s of search terms. And this search term was a low-volume, high-intent keyword. It didn't generate a lot of leads, so the CPL for that search term was very high compared to the average. The bulk of the leads came from broad, high-level, “top-of-funnel” search terms, which helped drive down the average CPL, but none of them converted. Actually, once I looked at them in Hubspot, I could tell quickly that they will never convert: all of them had personal emails (@yahoo, @gmail etc) and besides visiting that landing page once from the Google ad click, never came back or interacted with anything else from that company. TAKEAWAY Now, considering that only 2 out of 7 customers came from Google ads, that’s $40k in revenue for $75k of spend. Suddenly, we’re underwater. Surface-level, your Google ads might look good. But probably: - Your branded search terms do all the heavy lifting  - You might want to reconsider spending budget on YOUR COMPANY NAME at all - The non-branded search terms generate the bulk of the leads and drive down overall CPL, but mostly just provide low-quality leads that go nowhere - Out of your non-branded terms, it’s generally a handful few of low-volume, high-intent keywords that drive all the value there In the above case, we can probably cut 80%+ of the ad spend while getting the same results for deals and revenue. #advertisement #marketing #googleads #b2b

A great example of why you can't just look at the superficial stats to see if an ad campaign is working or not. With limited marketing budgets, digging into the data to see where deals are really coming from and understanding the buyer's journey is more important than ever.

The key to success with Google Ads for Lead Gen: Offline Conversion Tracking. If you're doing Lead Gen, you know bad lead quality is a serious problem. (Especially with pMax, but Search too) The fix: Offline Conversion Tracking (OCT). - Feed closed deals back into Google Ads. - See the real impact of your campaigns. - Optimize for higher-quality leads. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗢𝗖𝗧 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸? Customer data is matched with online identifiers (e.g., GCLID, GBRAID, WBRAID, email, etc.) to link offline conversions to your campaigns, keywords, and ads. If you want to go really advanced, you can use this data to: - Create a custom predictive CLV model. - Switch to Value-Based Bidding to let Smart Bidding optimize for high-quality leads or even sales. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝘂𝗽 𝗢𝗖𝗧 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗳𝗲𝘄 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀: 1. Manual/scheduled uploads in Google Ads 2. Platform-native OCT imports 3. Zapier + Google Sheets 4. Google Ads API For most cases, Zapier + Google Sheets is the best option. 𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗹𝘆, 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱: 1. Conversions from clicks with Click IDs 2. Enhanced Conversions for Leads with first-party data This is where it gets kinda technical... But there is a way to combine both of them for the highest possible hit rates (giving you the highest accuracy of data). In workshop 1 of our upcoming Google Ads Masterclass, we'll show you how to: - Set up OCT with minimum effort. - Create a predictive CLV framework. - Optimize for high-quality leads or even closed deals with Value-Based Bidding. Bob Meijer is a master at this stuff. You'll walk away with a new weapon that will scale your Lead Gen campaigns like nothing else. Next to that, you'll get up to speed on the latest strategies that work for Search, Shopping, pMax, and tons of Experiments. Consider enrolling if you are serious about getting a competitive edge in PPC. Join 100+ experienced Google Ads Specialists here: https://lnkd.in/eXsjJWXv

Maximizing results from Advertising budget is a challenge for B2B SaaS marketing leaders. You need to divide it between the short-term and long-term strategies. How do you ensure you can work on long-term initiatives? Maximize short-term results first. And Paid search is ideal for it. You'll launch campaigns and get the first results in a few weeks. Here is a 3-step process to achieve it: 1/ Research your industry - Do comprehensive keyword research and find everything you can that people search. 2/ Shortlist relevant terms - Only a fraction will be relevant but it will generate traffic with intent. 3/ Build & Launch campaigns - Categorize keywords, propose ads and create landing pages, and launch in Google Ads. This is what you do after launch: 1. Wait for 2 weeks until you have some data (yes it's not immediate) and optimize terms and bidding. 2. After 1-3 months of running the experimental phase, you should have more data on what works. 3. In 3-6 months you know what works and what to scale and pause. The goal is to maximize Impression share: - Increase bidding for TOP keywords - Split unicorns to separate campaigns - TOP Keywords in an exact match to separate ad group etc. And optimize the conversion rate: - Tailor the landing page to the keyword - Test different CTAs on the landing page - Shift to a smart bidding strategy - Pause some keywords This will help you to generate direct results in the short term. And you can start with demand creation tactics like Paid social which takes time to work. Combining short-term with long-term strategies is crucial to prevent growth plateau later. But ensure that you have an ongoing inflow of good leads first. #googleads #searchads #b2bmarketing Need help getting results from Paid Search? 👇 Get in touch if you are: - In B2B SaaS with market fit in existing category - Struggling to get quality leads or reasonable CPA - You don't have in-house Paid ads expertise - Your Paid media spend is >$25k/month (or looking to scale)

The funnel approach to building a great pipeline, the 91Ninjas way. 💰 Making PPC work for your SaaS business might seem a bit overwhelming at times. With so many channels, communication routes, and creatives to test, we sometimes end up focussing on data points that don’t matter. End result? A wrong strategy, poor optimizations, and a failed acquisition effort. Here is an approach we have seen working while setting up PPC as a scaleable channel for our SaaS brands.👇 1️⃣ Look at the full funnel: Don’t restrict yourself to just numbers of leads generated and CPL. The goal of PPC is to drive business and for that, we should look at the full funnel irrespective of who owns what part of the funnel. It is only when you look at the broader picture that you would be able to identify gaps and suggest corrective measures for business growth. 2️⃣ Find the sweet spot for your CAC: When you start, focus heavily on experimentation for the first 3 months. Try multiple channels, communication, and creative routes. Test all optimization levers you have - bidding strategies, device targeting, landing page, etc. Keep your budgets small but ensure it is enough to get you decent data to make a decision. The goal at this stage is to identify the channel & optimal CAC that can work best for your business. 3️⃣ Optimize every step of the funnel: Within 3 months, your business should have set up all processes, and KPIs in place so the marketing and sales team are operating at ~90% efficiency. Look at the funnel, and see which parts of the funnel have the most drop-offs. Work towards fixing those. Have poor CTRs? Work on ad copy & targeting. Have poor click-to-lead conversions? Work on the landing page. Have poor SQL to opportunity conversions? Go through call recordings, find gaps, and fix them. Also, ensure the lead nurturing program is set up properly. 4️⃣ Scaleup>>Optimize>>Scaleup>>Optimize: Now that your funnel is optimized and you have enough data to know optimal CAC across channels, you are ready to scale up. Based on the data, eliminate non performing channels and campaigns. Create the right channel and campaign mix and start scaling slowly. As you scale, your CAC will shoot up so go a bit slow and optimize CAC. The goal here is to scale up at optimal cost. So the cycle will look like this → Scale up>>Optimize CAC>>Scale up>>Optimize CAC 🔁 5️⃣ Identify more growth levers: With a predictable pipeline now coming from your proven channel mix, look for other customer acquisition and revenue growth opportunities. Don’t be dependent on one channel only. It is the right time to build a Demand Generation motion in place so that in the next few months, you will have more channels working for you. Got any more tips? Tell us 👇 #PPCStrategy #91Ninjas #B2BMarketing #MarketingTips #SaaS #B2BSaaS

Paid Search is too complex for a lean B2B SaaS marketing team. As a marketing leader, you have too many responsibilities. 🤹 Handling Paid Ads and working on strategy doesn't make sense. It's time-consuming and a big headache for you. You can't do all these necessary tasks and don't get crazy: 🤯 - Keyword research - Ad copywriting - Landing page optimization - Bid adjustments - Performance tracking - Reporting But finding the right person for that is also not easy. Here are 4 main things to look for: - Knowledge of Ad platforms and B2B Acquisition - Understanding B2B SaaS customer journey and sales funnel - Not focusing on leads but on pipeline - Proven track record in B2B SaaS Good expertise will have a shorter time to market. And you don't have time. Set the right foundation and learn fast what works. #searchads #googleads #b2bmarketing Need help getting better results from Paid Search? 👇 Get in touch if you are: - In B2B SaaS with market fit in existing category - Struggling to get quality leads or reasonable CPA - You don't have in-house Paid Ads expertise - Your Paid media spend is >$25k/month (or looking to scale)

The funnel approach to building a great pipeline, the 91Ninjas way. 💰 Making PPC work for your SaaS business might seem a bit overwhelming at times. With so many channels, communication routes, and creatives to test, we sometimes end up focussing on data points that don’t matter. End result? A wrong strategy, poor optimizations, and a failed acquisition effort. Here is an approach we have seen working while setting up PPC as a scaleable channel for our SaaS brands.👇 1️⃣ Look at the full funnel: Don’t restrict yourself to just numbers of leads generated and CPL. The goal of PPC is to drive business and for that, we should look at the full funnel irrespective of who owns what part of the funnel. It is only when you look at the broader picture that you would be able to identify gaps and suggest corrective measures for business growth. 2️⃣ Find the sweet spot for your CAC: When you start, focus heavily on experimentation for the first 3 months. Try multiple channels, communication, and creative routes. Test all optimization levers you have - bidding strategies, device targeting, landing page, etc. Keep your budgets small but ensure it is enough to get you decent data to make a decision. The goal at this stage is to identify the channel & optimal CAC that can work best for your business. 3️⃣ Optimize every step of the funnel: Within 3 months, your business should have set up all processes, and KPIs in place so the marketing and sales team are operating at ~90% efficiency. Look at the funnel, and see which parts of the funnel have the most drop-offs. Work towards fixing those. Have poor CTRs? Work on ad copy & targeting. Have poor click-to-lead conversions? Work on the landing page. Have poor SQL to opportunity conversions? Go through call recordings, find gaps, and fix them. Also, ensure the lead nurturing program is set up properly. 4️⃣ Scaleup>>Optimize>>Scaleup>>Optimize: Now that your funnel is optimized and you have enough data to know optimal CAC across channels, you are ready to scale up. Based on the data, eliminate nonperforming channels and campaigns. Create the right channel and campaign mix and start scaling slowly. As you scale, your CAC will shoot up so go a bit slow and optimize CAC. The goal here is to scale up at optimal cost. So the cycle will look like this → Scale up>>Optimize CAC>>Scale up>>Optimize CAC 🔁 5️⃣ Identify more growth levers: With a predictable pipeline now coming from your proven channel mix, look for other customer acquisition and revenue growth opportunities. Don’t be dependent on one channel only. It is the right time to build a Demand Generation motion in place so that in the next few months, you will have more channels working for you. Anything else you would like to add here? Happy Tuesday! #tuesdaytips #saasgrowth #saas #saasmarketing #ppc —---- Every Tuesday, I share actionable tips that SaaS marketers can apply to get results. Follow me to know how to do #SaaS Marketing the 91Ninjas way 😉

How to improve the performance of your ads... If you’re not sure if your ads are performing well, here’s some targets to aim for in the #B2B #SaaS space... If the click-through rate of your Google PPC ads is under 3%, there’s room for improvement. If your landing page conversion rate is below 7%, there’s room for improvement. When I'm working with clients I typically aim to have our landing pages convert at around 12-15% before shifting my focus to optimize another area or look to introduce a new marketing channel. Optimize what you have running before adding new channels. Here’s how to do that... Step 1: Know your ideal buyer (their industry, role, pain points, and goals) Step 2: Use the words & phrases they use to describe their problem and objectives in your ads & landing page Step 3: Segment your ads and landing page for each buyer persona Here’s a story... I was recently talking to the lead marketer at a software company that was spending millions on ads, but only breaking even. Their CPL was too high, and they asked me if it was possible to reduce their CPL in HALF. My answer... let’s look at your current conversion rates and do the math to see where it needs to be to do it. After reviewing their ads and landing page, I spotted the problems and biggest areas of opportunity.... 1) They were directing traffic to their home page instead of a landing page 2) They had 3 buyer personas but were sending all their ads to the same landing page. The solution? Segment your ads so each buyer persona has it's own group of ads, and a landing page that speaks directly to them. If you’re above $2-$3M ARR, you can start focusing on 2-3 buyer personas (If you’re under $2M ARR, focus on one buyer persona and one main marketing channel first) For each persona, identify: - what are they struggling with? - what’s painful about that? - what are they trying to do? - why does that important for them? - what’s the outcome your product helps them achieve? Create an ad set for each persona (if using social media ads, create an audience for each persona) So 3 buyer personas, 3 ad sets (1 per each persona) 3 landing pages (1 per each ad set) Your ad and landing page should be specifically speaking to your buyer persona using their pain points, and what they care about achieving. The main message on your ad, should consistently follow on your landing page above the fold. The branding/visuals/colours of your ad should follow consistently on your landing page. The landing page should look and feel like an extension of the ad to your target buyer. And it should speak specifically to their pain points, needs, what they care about, and use the words/phrases they use to talk about what they’re struggling with and what they’re wanting your product to help them do. That’s how you get world-class conversion rates on your ads and landing pages, and increase the ROI on ad spend. #saasmarketing #roas #conversionoptimization #b2bmarketing