How to get the most out of a small Google Ads budget if you’re a B2B SaaS company

STEP 1: Attribution

If you can’t track where your traffic is coming from and then monitor their movement through your sales process, it does you no good to spend money on traffic. This means having a CRM and Marketing Automation software that can talk to each other to save first and last touch and proper tagging and firing done in your Google Tag Manager.

STEP 2: Goals

Goals can be a pretty straightforward process when you’re dealing with a single point of truth. Be it a Product Qualified Lead (PQL) or a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL), having it known across your department what the goal is can help drive strategy and make reporting easier with your attribution from step 1. 

STEP 3: One Cornerstone Piece

This piece of content is the one piece to rule them all. It’s why you exist and why you can compete against others in the market and those who will follow you. Having this piece be optimized around your “Why” or around your top value prop gives you an authority in the space. Thing SEO 101 from Moz. If your product can create or expand on an industry term that has low competition and ok search volume, even better. Creating this piece gives your paid and organic marketing a jump start. 

STEP 4: Free Trial

If you’re in the B2B software space you need a free trial, stop the presses, add runway, adjust the sprint. You can not gain trust nor promote the product easier and with less cost than driving free trials. With the lead in your product, you can monitor what they’re doing, what they need, and where to start the sales engagement to push them to the finish line. Instead of using focus groups or trusted industry peers, use your prospective customers and judge if your product is ready for their needs. Creating this process or a PQL marketing strategy is the newest and quickest way to gain product insights and drive sales. It also makes setting your marketing goals a breeze by having one point of truth. PQL created.

STEP 5: Segmented Lead Lists

To create a proper strategy, you need segmented lead lists that you can promote your content or product via high target channels. This can be within LinkedIn, Spiceworks (if you’re in the tech space), Google Marketing Platform, or even ABM programs like influ2. Using these lists to promote your cornerstone content will provide a way to brand your product and drive awareness and engagement to your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Once on your site, it opens up an opportunity to cookie the traffic even without conversion to get the biggest bang for your buck in Google Ads through Retargeting & Brand Promotion. 

STEP 6: Google Ads Structure 

This is step 6 because I needed to stress the importance of what is required (The other 5 steps) to make Google Ads work for you on a budget. The best way to take advantage of your budget is to make sure you’re retargeting the segmented list and covering your brand searches with ads that call back on the content or offer you’ve pitched them previously. Retargeting via searches within your keyword set, both display and text, will make sure your ICP remembers your name and adds you to their short list. Keeping your target list focused within G-Ads also allows you to keep your CAC/LTV ratio lower by attacking your ICP who are more likely to test and buy. 

If you’re interested in growing your B2B SaaS product but need direction and help to run a program like this, feel free to connect with me and join the Formulytic family.