SaaS PPC Agency: How to Choose the Best One for Your SaaS Company

Can you also notice it? How competition among B2B SaaS companies are getting more challenging by the day?

If so, you should start dedicating more time and effort to your paid marketing activities in your SaaS company. Because creating and implementing a solid Pay per click strategy continues to play a big role in the growth of any SaaS business. Once you know how to use PPC accurately, it can be one of the most influential marketing tools you have at hand.

Nevertheless, if you are not sure how to do this, it is highly recommended that you hire a reliable SaaS PPC agency that get results to help your SaaS company.

Results we’ve achieved for some of our clients:

800 marketing qualified leads for Beakon software with LinkedIn ads

602 free trial users for the SaaS tool SERP Empire in 60 days with Google ads

29 new paid customers for RelayThat software in 45 days with Facebook ads

But results are enough to know what SaaS PPC agency to choose?

Unfortunately, there is not a straight answer to that question. Instead, you are about to discover that there remain several aspects for you to consider when choosing a PPC agency.

In this blog post, we will provide you with a comprehensive guide of the most essential elements to weigh when choosing a SaaS paid marketing agency for your company.

1 – The specificity of SaaS PPC vs traditional PPC

For many SaaS firms, it can be hard to set a unique goal and therefor create a direct approach when it comes to promoting their business. Opposite of e-commerce companies where you are able to promote a product directly to your target audience. Therefore, you will most likely have to experiment with different advertising strategies and include more top-of-the-funnel level keywords.

1.1 – Lead nurturing and top of the funnel

Multiple SaaS businesses are focusing on short tail, bottom-of-the-funnel keywords when promoting a free trial and trying to get new consumers to sign up. However, this is not a good strategy, as it makes the customer acquisition cost (CAC) much too high.

When you are operating within a competitive niche, this will consequently make most of your product-focused keywords too costly to bid on. On the other hand, if you are in less competitive niches, the keywords will not have enough volume.

So what is the solution to this matter?

Instead of promoting a free trial, we recommend promoting content that can be downloaded such as a free cheat sheet or an ebook.

When you share relevant content with your customer, you will gain two great benefits:

Create content that allows you to target less competitive long-tail keywords. Instead of targeting highly competitive product-focused keywords for your free trial.
When sharing relevant content you get the chance to educate prospects. You get the opportunity to explain how your product can be used as a problem-solver and the main benefits of your product over other solutions.

Furthermore, we highly recommend you to focus on top-of-the-funnel keywords. At this stage, it is all about engaging with prospects contextually, in correspond with their browsing history and interests. By focusing on the relevant top-of-the-funnel keywords during your prospects’ initial research phase you have the opportunity to target them in a more cost-effective way.

Case Study: How We Helped Kodo Survey to Generate 167% More Leads in 3 Months Using LinkedIn Ads

1.2 – Remarketing

Remarketing is vital for SaaS marketing

Remarketing is essential for all businesses with a long sales cycle. And SaaS businesses certainly falls under this category.

By using remarketing, you get the chance to display online advertising on different online platforms, to previous visitors to your website.

It is too aggressive?

Not at all, it is just a cost-effective way to encourage past visitors to return to your site.

You can start off by implementing a remarketing campaign that includes all visitors to your site. Use overall branded advertisement for this.

Once you get more experience and knowledge about your website users, you can start to utilize different remarketing tactics and PPC tips based on the specific pages people have visited or certain actions they have taken.

2 – When is the right time to hire a PPC agency for your SaaS?

For SaaS startups in a new market

If you are a SaaS company within a new market, you first have to create a demand for your services. Because right now, nobody is looking for your solution.

How should you do that?

First of all, you need to define a unique selling proposition and then you need to determine the ideal customer for your service.

So why is it so important to know your unique selling proposition (USP)?

Because this is exactly what makes, you stand out from the competitors.

You need to know what makes YOUR solution unique, and why prospects should choose YOUR software over others. Focus on the problem that your software solves and what key components that makes your product better than your competitors’.

Once you have your USP well defined, you have to make clear who your ideal customer is and what they are looking for. First then will you be able to customize your paid strategy and ad campaigns to your audience.

If you don’t feel you have the experience and knowledge to carry out the above, this is when you should be thinking of hiring an agency to help you out.

For SaaS in an established market

It can also be a good idea to hire a PPC agency when your SaaS company is operating within a well-established industry.

If you have other channels you can use for growing your business, you need to make sure to utilize these. Because in established markets you will find yourself within a huge competition, and you will most likely be competing against businesses with a much bigger advertising budget than you. And whom do you think you will win this challenge?

In addition, how quickly you are able to grow your business is essential in a market where new competitor appears every minute. If you don’t include different ways for you to grow your business, your competitors will beat you to it.

PPC agencies, therefore, seem like the right solution if you are struggling with the above challenges in an established industry. They can help you determine and employ all your different channels of growth.

However, this is not all.

You also want to know your customer acquisition cost (CAC) and your customer’s lifetime value (CLTV). Because in order for your business to be profitable you always want you CLTV to be greater than your CAC.

CLTV > CAC

This is not as easy as it might sound!

If you want to include Paid tactics for acquiring new trials and customer, you need to keep a really low CAC or a big enough CLTV.

For B2B startups it is often found to be easier to reach the necessary CLTVs. Yet, if you are not sure how exactly to make this happen, it might be the right time for you to hire a PPC agency to help you.

Tips to choose the right SaaS PPC agency for your business.

Below you will find a list of points to consider if you are going to hire an agency:

Are they certified? Verify if they have the AdWords Certification and are Google Search certified.
Do they have reports, case studies, eBooks, etc.? This will not only tell you if they are among the best and have a lot of experience within this field. Yet you can also get an understanding of their thinking and processes in relation to PPC.
Which SaaS companies have they worked with? Make sure that the agency has worked with some similar clients to your business. Then you know they have the required knowledge and experience.
Check their online reviews. Only choose an agency with great reviews. Avoid anyone with a positive rating of less than 95 %.
Do they only do AdWords? If yes, then choose another agency. Because the right agency should be able to utilize multiple advertising channels and guide, you about the right marketing mix. This is especially important for a SaaS startup company.

3 – SaaS PPC agency pricing

When choosing a SaaS PPC agency it is very important to consider the fee structure as well. Because different PPC agencies work with different price structures. You have to find the one that seems most appropriate for your company.

3.1 – Flat rate

A flat rate price structure is very simple. Here you will pay the agency a fixed price that both parties have agreed to before running the advertising campaign.

3.2 – Hourly rates

This price structure also includes the PPC agency to charge an agreed amount, but it is charged on an hourly basis.

Using an hourly rate pricing structure can sometimes undermine the efficiency of the ad campaign. Which is a bad thing. Because the campaign performance should really depend on the agency’s efficient rather than the time they spend on the campaign.

3.3 – A fixed percentage of the budget

By using this structure, the agency will be charging a fixed percentage of the overall ad campaign budget. This is normally about 10-20 % of the total ad spend.

A fixed percentage of the budget structure is a very logical and useful price structure because larger budgets will need more efforts from the agency.

3.4 – Performance basis

With this price structure, the agency is paid according to the results they deliver.

This is not a great price model for any agency, as good results often take time to generate. You will not necessary gain great results straight away.

Furthermore, there are also a number of market factors that can impact any SEM marketing campaign. Factors, which the agency cannot control. This doesn’t mean that the agency is not doing great work and shouldn’t be paid.

Case Study: How We Boosted Beakon Leads by 9x Using PPC

4- SaaS PPC Agency vs. SaaS PPC Consultant

Once you start searching the market for a PPC expert to help you, you will discover that you are left with an option between a SaaS PPC agency and a SaaS PPC consultant.

So which one should you choose?

Well, the choice needs to be made based on the requirements for YOUR business. However, below are some essential factors to keep in mind.

4.1 – SaaS PPC Consultant: Pros and Cons.

Pros of hiring a SaaS PPC consultant:
- Flexibility: You can often hire a consultant within a few days for a new small project. Whereas, the process of hiring an agency would take several weeks.
- Lower rates: Typically, agencies have a larger overhead than consultants have and are therefore more likely to charge more. If your budget is limited, it can be a good idea to hire a consultant.
- Personal dedication: The reputation of a consultant is at risk for every job that he takes. Therefore, a consultant will often be more willing to make an extra effort, which can be highly beneficial for your company.
Cons of hiring a SaaS PPC consultant
- Fewer resources: A consultant might have access to fewer or less advanced tools compared to a PPC agency. This could potentially have a negative impact on your overall PPC marketing campaigns.
- Limited skillset: Most consultants will specialize within ONE field, like Google Ads OR Facebook Ads. If they run out of options from their “go-to” strategies, this can be a big challenge. Therefore, you need to make sure that a consultant possesses different skill sets in order to succeed.

4.2 – SaaS PPC Agency: Pros and Cons.

Pros of hiring a SaaS PPC agency
- Tools: PPC agencies often have access to a wide and more advanced set of tools. This might include automated bid management software that can help deliver the best campaign results.
- Continuity and accountability: You will get assistance to your PPC campaigns from a whole team rather than one individual. This guarantees that your instructions are shared and utilized by more than just one person.
Cons of hiring a SaaS PPC agency
- Higher Costs: When hiring a PPC agency it will often be more costly. This is due to the fact that the overall cost will have to include employee benefits, holidays, pensions, holidays, office rent, etc. Furthermore, there will most likely be more than just one person handling your account. This means that the agency needs to charge more for their service.
- Quality Assurance: It is unavoidable that employees move to other agencies and that team changes. When this happens there is no guarantee that, the replacement you will get for your PPC campaigns will be able to deliver the same quality work as the previous employees.
- Location: It is unlikely that your chosen SaaS PPC agency will be located near you. Therefore, you need to be prepared to travel for initial meetings. However, this is made a lot easier today with the use of Skype and conference call systems.

Conclusion

As you can see from the above, there is a wide range of factors to consider when choosing the right SaaS PPC agency for your business.

Make sure you have clarified your goals and objectives before you start the search for your advertising agency.

This will help you define what aspects are most important to focus on and help you pick the right company.

If you’d like to learn more about how we help B2B SaaS companies grow their MRR through SEO and PPC, contact us online or send us an email today at info@getuplead.com to speak with someone on our team.