Many people think that Facebook is where they can connect with their friends, find interesting news, and watch stories. With retail consumers in mind, it is believed to be a great tool for B2C companies, where they can host challenges and offer freebies and discounts to boost sales. However, a lot of B2B brands think that Facebook advertising is worthless for their business. However, the truth is that it can be as rewarding as any other type of advertising. If you are one of those SaaS companies constantly hunting for effective methods to improve your customer acquisition process, you shouldn’t ignore Facebook advertising for SaaS.
Facebook ads can deliver major website traffic, generate qualified leads, boost sales, and drive conversions both to B2B and B2C brands. In this post, we will take you through the fundamental components of Facebook advertising for SaaS – and everything you need to find the right prospects and boost sales. .
Also, To read about our in-depth article that covers it all on digital marketing for SaaS, click here
1. Does Facebook Advertising for SaaS Work?
Like other industries, Facebook advertising for SaaS companies works well. However, you must use the right strategy to nurture and convert the leads. You can scale your campaigns to their full potential with the right process and offers. Though B2B companies operate differently than other businesses, the primary goal of Facebook ads B2B SaaS is – Conversion. Here is how SaaS companies can move their customers through the funnel –
Strangers > Visitors > Leads > Customers
You need to generate awareness by inviting “strangers” to consume information and know about your offerings. Then, lure the prospects with exclusive offers like – a free trial, a discount on a subscription, coupons, etc.
2. Benefits of Facebook Advertising for SaaS Businesses
- It is an effective way to drive website traffic
As an extensive social media network, Facebook advertisements reach many users and different demographics. Moreover, with the latest updates like catalog ads, shop tabs, stories, and status, it is an effective medium to connect and engage with potential customers.
- Facebook ads are easy to set up
With Facebook Business Manager, you can easily set up ad campaigns and generate quick results. In a recent survey, 57% of consumers said that social media advertisements play an essential role in their buying decision. The average conversion rate of social media ads is 9.21% across all industries.
- It is more cost effective than traditional advertising
Facebook advertising for SaaS is much more affordable than conventional channels like billboards, newsletters, radio, and TV. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to reach your target audience. You can start your Facebook ad campaign with as low as $10 and reach nearly 1,000 people instantly. The average cost per click of Facebook ads is $.30 – $.50.
- Easy to track and measure
With the help of Facebook ad analytics, you can easily measure the results of your marketing efforts. Install Meta Pixel (Formerly known as Facebook Pixel) to your website and track actions like – signing up for the newsletter, filling out the registration forms, subscribing to your services, etc. Based on the reports, you can optimize your campaigns and improve your results for future campaigns.
3. 25 Tips to Make your Facebook Ad Campaigns Successful
3.1 Know Your Buyer Persona
When selling your SaaS product, you must know the buyer persona. According to a recent study, 34% of customers broke relationships with their favorite brand after receiving irrelevant or disruptive marketing messages. Know your customer’s pain points and help them understand how your product can solve them. Consider how they view your product, their hesitations, and their concerns.
3.2 Prepare Creative Campaigns for Audiences
Segment your audience based on their interests, demographics, and their behavior. Place them in your marketing funnel and then create a ‘Facebook Saved Audience’ who is interested in your product. Use the Saved Audiences to reach the top of the funnel. Then, you can use ‘Facebook Custom Audience’ to create a new target audience and nurture existing audiences.
3.3 Make Engaging Ads at Different Stages
Create ads for different stages of the marketing funnel. In the awareness stage, share blog articles, case studies, and other content to increase brand awareness. In the Prospect stage, promote gated content, product demos, and free trials to give your SaaS product a try. Finally, in the lead stage, you can use Facebook ad tactics to support lead nurturing tactics.
3.4 Understand Where Customers Are in a Sales Funnel
Facebook Ads deliver results only when they are targeted at the right audience. You can create Facebook ads targeting audiences in different stages of the funnel. Develop cross-channel SaaS marketing strategies to push the audience through the conversion funnel. Make sure to set other campaign goals depending on the current stage of your audience.
3.5 Choose the Right Ad Placement
The placement of your Facebook ad plays a vital role in increasing the click-through rate (CTR) and boosting conversions. According to the Facebook experiment, Facebook ads had a 534% higher cost-per-click than mobile ads. In addition, you can opt for feeds, audience networks, in-stream videos, and instant articles to market your SaaS product.
3.6 Track Every Online Conversion
Track the cost-per-acquisition of your Facebook campaigns to understand their performance. One of the most amazing things about Facebook ad campaigns for SaaS is everything happens online, .i.e, conversions, sales, and ads. Set up a Facebook pixel on your website to track actions such as cost per lead, cost per mobile install, cost per click on the landing page, and more.
3.7 Boost Brand Awareness
Have you ever heard of Talview, Apptivo, or Appointy? The biggest problem with SaaS marketing is that people are unaware of their existence. So, before you think of selling your SaaS product, you must ensure your audience knows about your brand. Instead, you can focus on educating your audience about the need for the product by sharing informative and engaging content.
3.8 Invest in Content Marketing
According to a recent survey, 88% of B2B SaaS companies use content marketing to market their products and services. However, SaaS companies that frequently release new tools might find it difficult to explain why their product is much better than competitors. Facebook advertising helps boost your content marketing efforts, allowing you to create and distribute quality content to a specific audience. By creating valuable and relevant content, you might capture the attention of people who might not know about your company.
3.9 Educate Customers About Your Product
Educating customers on the right platform ensures that they understand the benefits and value of your product. Facebook Ads helps you reach a wider audience and educate them about your product so that they can exploit them to their full potential. The best way to market your SaaS product is to include impressive data points in the message so that users can trust your product.
3.10 Try Case Studies
A B2B case study is an extension of your brand that demonstrates your brand’s capabilities, worth, and credibility. It tells the success story of a customer that has experienced tangible benefits by investing in your product. Share your product case studies to explain its features and build trust among your target audience. People will likely trust your product if you talk about how it helped some of your customers. Then, you can add a nudge to start a free trial instead of selling your product.
3.11 Keep Customer Testimonials Handy
Customer testimonials are statements or reviews given by your clients or customers to appreciate your work and endorse your services. Like case studies, user testimonials in Facebook Ads build curiosity among users. In addition, they take your marketing efforts one step ahead, as 97% of B2B buyers believe them more credible than other types of content. You can try Facebook A/B testing to see the ads that bring the best results.
3.12 Highlight Product Benefits
When it comes to SaaS marketing, you must write compelling copies with the right tone and context to showcase your product’s USPs. For example, just explaining the features of your SaaS products might not help you convince the audience. Instead, help them understand the benefits of using your product. For example, Heap explained its benefits in a Facebook ad by comparing it with Google Analytics, which is one of the popular tools.
3.13 Mention Product Features
As a part of your social media marketing strategy, you can showcase the best features of your SaaS product. A simple ad copy can look like something with features listed and nothing else. Make sure your target audience is familiar with the industry jargon. Make sure to list the features considering the interest of the custom audience segmented based on the landing pages.
3.14 Add Custom Illustrations
By using explanatory images and illustrations to explain the features and benefits of your products, you can instantly build curiosity in people. Did you know that you have 50 milliseconds to make a good impression? If your visitors are visually engaged right at the beginning, they will eventually be interested in knowing more about your products.
3.15 Create a Product Video
As we always discuss, video ads allow you to show off your SaaS product or brand using a video. Create video ads or boost a post that includes a video from your Facebook page. For instance, Asana had a product video instead of an image to show how it works, which caught the attention of millions of active users. According to a survey, nearly ⅔ of consumers prefer watching short videos on social media platforms. Use tools like Animaker or Vimeo to create high-quality product videos.
3.16 Include Product Screenshot
Facebook Ads with actual images of products help you convey the message precisely. You can use product screenshots, logos, and even to bring your products in front of the right audience. Use high-quality images with contrasting backgrounds to deliver the right message.
3.17 Give Clear Information About the Product
Provide clear details about the product in a sentence to capture the audience’s attention at a glance. If you are remarketing your product to a warm lead, you can still mention how it will help them. Make sure to explain the benefits of your product in other parts of your Facebook ad. For instance, see the Facebook Ad by Wrike that says – “Is your marketing team overwhelmed with tasks and struggling to stay afloat? The ad copy says precisely what they sell with simple and crisp messaging.
3.18 A Free Trial Doesn’t Hurt
The best way to push potential leads across the sales funnel is by offering freebies. For example, include a free trial offer in the Facebook ad link description to boost confidence in your target audience. As a result, they are more likely to try your product and turn into potential customers. You could also try two different ad sets with a 7-day trial and a 14-day trial and see which one performs better.
3.19 Include a Free Demo
Many people want to try a product to know more about its features. It may be a good idea to offer a one-to-one sales demo, PPT, pre-recorded demo videos, and live discussion with the potential lead. You can use lead forms to let users sign up for free demos directly from the platform.
3.20 Retarget Old Customers
The reason that the majority of leads hardly turn into potential customers is that they are either unaware of how to use the product or have a wrong impression of the product. Once the user has signed up for a free trial, the next step is to nurture them by retargeting them with different ad copies that help them know more about the product.
3.21 Focus On Action-Oriented Emails Marketing
Email marketing is another best way to nurture the leads captured on Facebook. Users who have signed up for a free trial should be provided with relevant coupons or discount offers to sign up for the full version of your product. In addition, you can create a Facebook custom audience by pulling out the email IDs that were used to test the software. This way, you can reach a lookalike audience and market your products.
3.22 Let Your Product Go Viral for Market Itself
With unlimited SaaS products in the market, it’s hard to convince the right audience. To market your product, you can give away your product for free for a limited period for smaller groups. It helps raise brand awareness, drives website traffic/signups, and even increases the likelihood of conversions. For instance, Scoro has been offering their product 100% free for 14-days, which seems to work well.
3.23 Share Accomplishments With Your Audience
Is your SaaS product published on any third party or review site? Leverage this opportunity to increase brand awareness and give your existing customers the confidence that they are using the best product in the market. Also, include rewards, recognitions, and other achievements in the Facebook ad to promote your product.
3.24 Set up a Marketing Automation
When marketing SaaS products, you can set up automated email marketing funnels to nurture leads throughout the customer journey. For example, use Facebook lead Ads to make signup or subscription easier for your cold leads. In addition, if a user has downloaded your eBook by providing your contact information, you can pull them into a marketing automation campaign.
3.25 Stay Visible for Longer Retention
Acquiring new customers is one of the primary goals for SaaS companies. According to a survey, 89% of SaaS companies consider customer acquisition a top priority, while 59% of companies believe in retaining existing customers. Therefore, your Facebook ad strategy should not be just confined to attracting leads. You also need to retain the existing ones by sending promotional offers, discounts, or freebies.
4. B2B Facebook Ad Examples for SaaS
- Slack
Slack, one of the leading messaging platforms, ran an ad campaign on Facebook with a headline – “Reduce your email by 48.6%”. Who would not want to reduce their email clutter, that too, by 48.6%? This advertisement by Slack on reducing email clutter is incredibly relevant, fun, and engaging. This is the best example of Facebook advertising for SaaS immediately grabbing the target audience’s attention. They conveyed the message with minimal text that included relevant points and key champion words such as pleasant, productive, and simpler.
- Squarespace
Squarespace is an American website building and hosting company that grabbed the attention of millions of Facebook users with its video ad. With a budget to hire a renowned celebrity like John Malkovich, they could capture the audience within 7 seconds. From this, we can say, creating funny and engaging video ads on Facebook is always a good trick to gain traction.
- Asana
Asana is a mobile and web work management platform that helps teams manage their work. To promote their services, they executed a Facebook ad campaign with a one-sentence headline “Get Asana. Get Results.”, which is easy to read within 3 seconds. Their idea to use a short & crisp headline worked well in achieving their strategic goals.
5. FAQs
5.1 How Can I Promote My SaaS Product on Facebook?
You need a solid marketing strategy along with a highly focused product. When working on Facebook Ads for B2B SaaS, visuals and creatives make a difference in ad performance. According to Sources, 45% of companies use ‘Learn More’ and 20% use ‘Sign Up’ as their primary CTA. Here are the steps to promote your SaaS product on Facebook –
- Understand the funnel
To advertise your B2B SaaS product, you need to know the baseline metrics, including CPC, CTR, cost per acquisition, and conversion rates from each stage. Then, validate different stages of the funnel and understand their impact.
- Choose the right audience
Your Facebook ads should target the right audience after thorough research and analysis. Leverage the Facebook algorithm to identify relevant customers at different ad set levels. For example, you can target the audience based on location, age, demographics, and interest. The AI of Facebook analyses your ad copy and images and finds prospects who they believe are your ideal target.
- Nurture the leads
According to Proactive Selling by William Miller, the sales process of B2B is something like – Awareness > Educate > Validate > Justify > Close. When it comes to Facebook advertising, you need to help users along their journeys and add more steps to improve conversions dramatically.
- Provide discounts and offers
You can offer giveaways like a free demo, a discount on a subscription, or extend the subscription to nurture your leads and push them through the sales funnel. Make sure to pay attention to existing customers by retargeting them with an offer or specific piece of content. Track and measure the results
to determine the efficiency of your Facebook ad campaign for SaaS, you need to calculate the total income by your investment. Set up a conversion API to see which channel is more profitable.
5.2 What are the types of Facebook Ad Formats for B2B SaaS
- Image Ads
These are the easiest ads to get started with Facebook advertising for SaaS. With stunning visuals, a catchy heading, appropriate CTAs, and a relevant link – they help you tell your brand story or promote a product/service using a single photo.
- Video Ads
Video ads are the best way to capture the attention of your target audience. You can seamlessly engage your audience with in-stream videos and reach people where they share their ideas.
- Poll Ads
Facebook Poll Ads allow advertisers to use the 2-answer poll to interact with their audience. They appear on news feeds and stories on mobile devices only and help boost your page’s engagement and drive potential traffic to your website.
- Carousel Ads
Facebook carousel ads in the instant experience category include unlimited images and videos. Carousel ads work best if you want to tell a story about your SaaS product or brand..
- Slideshow Ads
Slideshow ads take a series of still images that offer a visually engaging ad format without spending much time on videos. Create slideshows with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 10 images/videos to create transitions and effects, and illusions of movements. They can help you simplify a complex process and target people with slow internet connections or older devices.
- Collection Ads
Collection ads come in the Instant Experience ads category, which can be optimized to give users the best experience while browsing on their mobile devices. They entail a cover image or video and take the user to a landing page, website, or app.
- Instant Experience Ads
Instant experience ads refer to full-screen type ads that launch as soon as someone taps on them on their phone. They’ll show up in stories, news feeds, and other places with plenty of buttons and links to add.
- Lead Ads
Lead form ads help you reach people and direct them to a fillable form that your audience can fill out. Typically, they capture names, email addresses, and contact numbers. As a result, advertisers capitalize on getting better conversions for their Facebook ad campaigns.
- Dynamic Ads
Dynamic ads on Facebook allow you to promote your SaaS products to customers most
likely interested in them. For example, when someone visits a product page or adds a product to the shopping cart, you can retarget them with a specific product on their Facebook feed.
- Messenger Ads
Facebook Messenger ads are shown in millions of people’s inboxes. You must choose Messenger format while creating your ad and select Facebook feed. You can also opt for “click-to-Messenger” to start a messenger conversation on your Facebook page.
- Stories Ads
Stories Ads are mobile-screen video formats that allow you to maximize the screen without expecting the viewers to rotate the screen. As a result, you can create stunning stories in simple steps using StoriesAds.
5.3 Why should I use Facebook advertising for SaaS?
Facebook has more than 2.8 billion active users, the most extensive user base of all other social media platforms. As a result, Facebook advertising has the most sophisticated and advanced targeting capabilities, which SaaS companies can leverage to reach potential customers.
5.4 Which is the most effective type of Facebook ad?
Individual Facebook ads are suited for specific needs and have pros and cons for instance – lead generation ads can bring leads instantly without going off the platform. Conversely, image ads help in boosting brand awareness and engage the target audience.
6. About Growth Ganik
Growth Ganik is a rapidly evolving digital marketing agency in Sydney, Australia that specializes in SEO, content marketing, marketing strategy and lead generation.
We work with clients from leading brands and industries such as B2B SaaS, nonprofits and more to develop profitable digital marketing solutions that are data-driven to support all kinds of business goals from widening user bases, gaining more traction for online engagement, to increasing conversion and helping businesses scale up.
For creative tailor-made digital solutions and sustainable growth insights, get in touch with us!
