Pro-Tip: Top Paid Marketing Channels for Your SaaS Business

Aside from organic methods, one of the most excellent platforms for lead generation is paid marketing channels.

In fact, a lot of known SaaS companies have a dedicated budget for paid advertising. It is also possible that the majority of their annual revenue comes from ads. If you’re using inbound marketing to grow your SaaS company, then paid marketing channels is one way to drive awareness of your business and put all that great content to work.

Here are some of the top paid marketing channels for your SaaS business:

Paid Search

If you’re a startup, then Google Ads could be an excellent customer acquisition platform for you.

It is a cost-effective way of driving visitors to your website and then lets your conversion rate optimization magic do its work from there.

However, paid search requires you to conduct keyword research first, which could be time-consuming. You’d also be surprised to see that some keywords cost as high as $100 per click. Not to mention that competition within the SaaS industry is fierce.

Use search advertising benchmark data to get a feel for what you can expect to pay to keep up with your competition.

That said, you’ll need to conduct thorough keyword research first and then target keywords with low to medium competition. Just keep in mind that your keywords should also bring revenue to your company. That way, you can make the most out of your limited budget. If you’re unsure of how to go about it, remember that there is a marketing agency for SaaS companies that you can tap for help.

Display Ads

Display ads that are creatively designed will entice users to click. These ads could be designed in different dimensions and placed in several sections on a webpage.

The visual cue of these display ads will help you with brand recall. So, make sure that you go along with design guidelines because otherwise, a poor design will negatively impact your brand image.

But how do you know which designs work best for you? Well, you need to test it first, since it usually varies for every business.

Just give it a go, measure the results, and then iterate your display ads to maximize results.

Here are a couple of display ad ideas:

• Implement a feel-good discount: Users are likely going to follow-through with a purchase if they think that they’re getting a good deal from it. That’s why you need to take advantage of this and include special offers and discounts.
• Choose your color palette wisely: When making image ads, color choices aren’t an exception. You have to pick the primary color for that ad and consider the psychological aspect of different colors. You could also pair your main color with a contrasting one so that your text will be easy to read, and the CTA buttons highly visible.

Here is an amazing display ad example by Orient DB for some extra inspiration!

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Retargeting

Retargeting allows you to target the right people with the right ads. It also allows you to convert window shoppers into enthusiastic buyers. Whenever a user visits your site, a cookie will be attached to their device, allowing you to retarget them with display ads when they visit other relevant websites.

For instance, a website visitor landed on your pricing page, read through it, and then moved on to another website. Retargeting will ensure that the website visitor sees your display ads on other websites that are relevant to your SaaS business.

Here are other retargeting ad ideas:

• Eye-catching banner or image: Ideally, it should draw the users’ attention to your ad. It should also be enticing enough to stop someone from whatever they’re doing and focus their attention on your message.
• Targeting the right audience with the right offers: It’s possible to target everyone with the same ads, but it’s likely going to be a bad idea. Ads should be personalized, based on your audience’s interest. That will see to it that you’re showing the right offer to the right audience.

Have a look at this retargeting ad by Adespresso that illustrates our point in the best way possible.

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Paid Content Discovery

Check out the sidebar and bottom part of any good website and you would come across a “related articles” widget that links to other websites. That’s called paid content discovery. This online advertising channel lets you promote your blog posts on other websites using a widget. Some of the popular paid content discovery channels are Outbrain and Taboola.

Usually, you are charged on a pay-per-click basis, so it is best to promote your highest-converting blog post. You could run an attribution report in Hubspot or Google Analytics to know which of your content brings in the most revenue.

Video Promotion

According to Wordstream, one-third of online activity is spent on viewing videos.

But before you dive straight into video marketing, you need to know first what purpose will your video serve, and why do you need it in the first place.

If your purpose is to use video content to get more leads for your business, then you’re in the right place. Video ads can be a powerful tool that lets you engage with your audience, creating a more meaningful connection between your brand and consumers.

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It also provides you with an opportunity to inspire, evoke emotion, and reach out to your audience in a more authentic way. So, why not start a YouTube channel and share your videos on social media platforms?

Here are some video promotion ideas:

• Keep the viewers emotionally invested: Your ad should offer something valuable to viewers. It’s best that you appeal to their emotions, and make it inspiring, educational, and entertaining.
• It shouldn’t be longer than it has to be: The most successful ads last a couple of minutes, but still, they have to be concise and should make an impact.

Social Media Ads

Social media is one of the biggest growth-yielding platforms on the internet. Millions of users interact on various social media platforms daily, making it a great avenue to run highly targeted ad campaigns.

It’s one of the modern marketing channels that has tremendously evolved over the years. This ad platform will help you scale your business in the next couple of years. You’re given the freedom to target users from different demographics and interests.

For instance, you can run a video ad on Facebook that features one of your clients and how your software was able to help them. And then you can target your video ad to show on the newsfeed of users who might be interested in your product or service.

One of the best things about social ads is that you don’t need a huge budget to drive more traffic and leads. Even if you spend just $20 or $50 a week, it can already make a massive change.

But still, you need to understand various ad platforms to be able to effectively use them. Luckily, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook all have precise targeting tools that would allow you to show your ads to your relevant target audience.

Examples of social media ads:

• Facebook Ads- Your goal here is to send more traffic back to your site, boost engagement, generate leads, and offer decent communication with users. Facebook owns Instagram so it isn’t a surprise that they have the same ads manager with the same ads.
• Twitter Ads- You can utilize this to gain more website clicks, through Twitter cards, and encouraging users to visit your site and start a conversation about your brand.
• Pinterest Ads- You will have to take the demographics of the userbase and their behavior on the site. You can use it to drive traffic on your site, boost brand awareness, and generate more revenue.
• YouTube Ads- You can use Youtube Ads to drive more leads, drive traffic to your site and increase awareness for your brand. You need a Google AdWords account to make ads for your Youtube channel.

Over to You

The greatest SaaS companies combine these top paid marketing channels and test them out frequently. Which paid marketing channel have you found effective so far in your SaaS business? Let us know in the comments!