In this article, we talk about how can google ads help you advance your business goals. We will specifically focus on how B2B SaaS companies should effectively use google ads as a marketing channel. Google ads can help you generate leads & build brand awareness to help improve your conversions for a B2B SaaS business. We will also look into when a SaaS company should consider google ads as a serious marketing channel & how to scale up their investments in this channel.
What are google ads?
Paid digital advertising is one of the fastest ways to put your brand in front of the intended audience. There are two primary ways that google lets you advertise your product on the web.
Search campaigns
These are primarily text-based ads where you bid to show ads ( your landing pages/website) for keywords relevant to you. Given Google is the world’s largest search engine, getting your brand to show up for queries relevant to your product is a no-brainer. Search campaigns help you target a very specific set of people, as you are focusing on people who are actively searching for what you offer.
Display campaigns
This is more similar to traditional advertising where you reach out to relevant audiences with visually engaging ads as they explore the internet. Google display network has around 2 million websites where that will let you show your ads based on your selected criteria.
How can google ads help you advance your business goals?
In the context of B2B SaaS businesses, google ads are primarily used to serve the following major purposes.
Lead generation using Google Ads
Getting new prospects to discover your product is the single biggest factor responsible for a SaaS business’s success. Nothing can ever happen if you don’t have a decent top-of-the-funnel. You can invest your efforts in many acquisition channels to efficiently reach out to potential customers & paid ads are a sure-shot way of putting your product in front of your audience.
Search campaigns are an ideal fit for this goal. You basically run ad campaigns for keywords that are relevant to your business & pay google to show your website/landing page at the top of ad results. Leads naturally end up clicking on your website & you take them to a landing page where you somehow convince them to try out your product ( or some other CTA based on your goals ).
All you need to know are the keywords your potential customers are searching for & good messaging to convert these leads.
Brand awareness using Google Ads
Sometimes you are more interested in improving your brand awareness. Rather than getting your leads to sign up & starting using your product, you might be more interested in making people aware of your product.
Display campaigns are much better suited to serve this goal. With google’s display network you can strategically target people you want to across various sites.
Are google ads right for your SaaS business?
Should you put your money into google ads to drive leads? To improve your brand awareness? These are questions that every SaaS founder asks themselves time & again. There is no right answer, but let’s try to look at various factors that you need to consider before seriously investing in google ads.
Google Ads will definitely work most of the time
Even if you are just launching your SaaS (or) looking to scale, ads will work for you most of the time. They are definitely going to help you generate new leads. You should consider ads as one of your crucial acquisition channels if,
- You’ve got money in your bank ( say by raising external funding ) & you want to scale faster
- Your other acquisition channels ( like SEO ) are going to take time & you are looking for a few immediate wins
- You are absolutely clueless about where to get those first set of customers
Google Ads are costly & ROI is the key
Just because something’s going to work doesn’t mean it is the optimal option. Ads will give you leads, but they are very costly when compared to other potential acquisition channels. It’s very important to ensure that your return on investment ( ROI ) on ads makes sense for your business. The LTV to CAC ratio must work for you. You can’t spend 100$ on ads to get a 50$ customer.
Always test waters
If you have decided to use google ads as a growth channel for your business, don’t jump right into it. Do it on a small scale. Run a few smaller campaigns on selected keywords & estimate the ROI. Understand your conversions post click & work on improving it by optimizing landing pages etc.
It’s very important to start slow before you go full throttle, even when you are seriously considering investing in google ads.
Conclusion
I explained how can google ads help you advance your business goals in the context of B2B SaaS businesses. If done right, search-based ads will help you build a proper lead generation engine. But it’s also important to experiment & estimate the ROI of ads before scaling them.
