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Facebook Ads: Understanding the Secret Weapon of Top SaaS Brands

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Are you sure your SaaS brand can stand out in the fast-growing software space?

Insider reports that 86 percent of companies expect SaaS to meet most of their software needs by 2022.

If you’re in the software-as-a-service business, you’ve probably already realized the power of Facebook ads as a SaaS marketing strategy to bring in new customers to your business. But if you’re just getting started with Facebook ads, it can be challenging to know where to begin or what steps to take next.

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(Source: Backlinko)

This beginner’s guide to using Facebook ads for SaaS companies will walk you through everything you need to know about creating compelling Facebook ads that generate results. So make sure you read every word to ensure your SaaS business gets the results it deserves!

But before we go into the details, here’s what you should expect from this article:

  • Can Facebook Ads work for SaaS companies?
  • Top 7 reasons to leverage Facebook Ads
  • 4 Ways Facebook gathers professional data
  • The Facebook Ad funnel
  • 4 Facebook Ad campaigns your SaaS company should focus on
  • Examples of SaaS brands using Facebook Ads to boost conversions

Read on to learn more.

Can Facebook Ads Work for SaaS Companies?

The number of monthly active Facebook users increased by about 2 million between October 2021 and January 2022. This information is excellent news for SaaS companies interested in running Facebook ads.

If you’re running a SaaS company and haven’t started using Facebook ads yet, you may be missing out on a vast potential source of revenue, signups, and leads. Therefore, Facebook ads should be a vital part of your saas marketing plan.

What are Facebook Ads? 

When you see an ad on Facebook, a company has spent money to get it in front of your face, whether on the News Feed or your targeted search results. As a result, many software companies have learned to use Facebook Ads to generate leads and increase sales over the last few years.

Why Facebook ads?

Admittedly, it’s become a cliché. But you’re here because you want to learn about Facebook ads for Saas companies—so let’s just go ahead and say it: Social media is where your audience lives. With over 2.91 billion monthly active users worldwide, more people are connected through social media every day.

It’s no surprise then that 65% (two-thirds) of marketers plan to spend more of their budget on social platforms in 2022.

What does all of that mean?

If you’re marketing Saas products or services, Facebook is probably one of your best bets for getting results.

Can Facebook Ads work for SaaS companies?

With their growing adoption of web-based applications, companies are looking for ways to market and advertise them. It is, in fact, very possible that Facebook ads can be pretty effective when it comes to marketing Saas products. If you are wondering why then consider these facts:

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(Source: eMarketer)

  • On average, a Facebook user clicks on 11 Facebook ads per month;
  • There are millions of businesses already using them; and
  • They have a wide range of targeting options available.

These reasons make Facebook ads one of the best choices for marketing Saas products or services.

How can you be sure your campaign will be successful?

You should consider all of the various factors that could influence the success of your saas marketing plan. An excellent way to do so would be to use what is known as a PPC (pay per click) model, which means that you will only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Hence, you won’t have to pay anything if no one clicks on it.

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(Source: The Marcom Avenue)

Once you understand how a PPC model works, you should begin with creating a SaaS ad. The first thing to remember here is that different SaaS ads work better for various products or services.

Top 7 Reasons to Leverage Facebook Ads

The simple fact is that you’re missing out on a prime marketing opportunity if you don’t market on Facebook. On top of that, Facebook has a high average conversion rate of 9.21% across all industries. So don’t be left behind!

Here are 7 reasons to encourage you to start leveraging Facebook ads for your SaaS marketing campaign:

1. You Can Do it Quickly. 

You can set up a SaaS ad in less than 30 seconds or just a few minutes. But, first, you need an image, headline, text, and a call-to-action button (which must link back to your landing page).

2. No Coding Required.

You don’t need any knowledge of HTML or other programming languages to set up your ads on Facebook.

3. It’s Easy to Target Specific Audiences and Interests.

If you want to reach only people interested in a specific topic, age group, or demographic, you can easily do so with Facebook ads for SaaS companies—and it takes just a few clicks!

4. You Can Use Multiple Images and CTAs (Call-to-Actions).

You can include up to 10 images in your Facebook ad campaign. And if it doesn’t get much attention, simply replace it with another one until you find a SaaS ad that works best for your audience.

5. You Can Easily Track Which Ads Work Best.

With Facebook’s built-in analytics tool, Facebook Audience Insights, you can see how many people click on your SaaS ads and how long they stay on your landing page after clicking on a SaaS ad. 

6. You Don’t Need to Pay Per Click

Instead of paying per click, you only pay when someone buys something from your website. In other words, Facebook ads are a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) marketing strategy.

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(Source: WebFX)

7. Retargeting is Easier

You can retarget users who visited your site but didn’t convert into customers yet. It is beneficial for SaaS businesses because it allows you to bring back potential customers by showing them relevant ads based on their previous activity on your site.

4 Ways Facebook Gathers Professional Data

Learning how to use Facebook ads in your SaaS marketing strategy can be complicated and confusing, especially if you’re new to SaaS marketing and digital advertising.

Here are four ways Facebook gathers professional data and uses it to target you with relevant ads.

1.  Shadow Profiles:

Facebook mines its data primarily through shadow profiles: if you don’t have a profile on one of their apps, they build one based on your friends’ activity. And they can use that shadow profile to target you with ads.

It may sound creepy, but there’s nothing illegal about it; all social media platforms do something similar.

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(Source: Groovy Publishing)

2.  Your Friends’ Activities:

They can use your friends’ activity on Facebook to target you with ads, even if you don’t have your profile. So, for example, if one of your friends likes a page or posts something public, that activity is recorded and stored by Facebook—and can be used to target you with relevant ads in their News Feed.

3. Advertisers’ Data: 

To help advertisers target users more effectively, Facebook allows them to upload information about their customers. This information could include names, email addresses, phone numbers, and home addresses–anything marketers want to know about their customers.

When these third-party companies upload customer information into Facebook’s database, it gives them more options for targeting users with relevant ads.

4. Other Users’ Information:

The last way Facebook gathers professional data is by using other users’ information to target them with ads.

For example, let’s say you create a new account on LinkedIn and connect it to your Facebook account. Once they see you have linked accounts, they will begin serving up LinkedIn ads in your News Feed—because they now know what kind of professional activities you engage in outside of Facebook.

The Facebook Ad Funnel

If you’re not familiar with them, funnels are a marketing term to describe how people who visit your website end up converting into leads or customers. It starts with an ad, moves through a customer journey, and ends with an acquisition goal.

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(Source: Yatter)

And while every business is different, there are some consistencies you should know about—particularly when it comes to effective SaaS advertising on Facebook.

Here’s what happens after someone clicks on one of your SaaS ads:

  • Clicking on your SaaS ad takes users to a landing page that has been optimized for conversions. It could be anything from a sign-up form to downloading content or trying out your product. The point is that they’ve clicked, so now you have their attention. So you need to capitalize on it.
  • If they don’t convert right away, you can use retargeting ads to keep them engaged and remind them of what they saw in your original ad. These are called remarketing ads and are a great way to increase engagement (and sales) if someone doesn’t convert immediately after clicking through one of your ads.
  • Suppose someone does convert, then congratulations! You’ve turned a potential customer into a lead.

4 Facebook Ad Campaigns Your SaaS Company Should Focus On

To get you going, let’s explore four of our favorite Facebook ad campaigns that work incredibly well for your SaaS marketing strategy:

1. Lead Generation:

Your marketing funnel starts at top-of-funnel and ends at bottom-of-funnel. Therefore, your funnel should be full of traffic to nurture through to eventual sale—and lead generation ads are a great way to fuel that traffic.

The goal is to create a SaaS advertising campaign that drives people into your sales funnel—which includes capturing their email addresses in exchange for an incentive (like an ebook or webinar).

2. Website Traffic:

The most obvious use case for Facebook ads is driving website traffic. If you want more eyes on your site, you need more people visiting it. Whether they sign up or not is irrelevant; they may see something they like while browsing around and return later when they’re ready to buy.

3. Engagement & Retargeting:

Facebook allows retargeting down to the individual level, meaning you can target someone who has visited your site and bring them back for another visit. 

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(Source: Acquisio)

You can also run engagement ads to drive conversions from people who have already signed up for your product or service. Do not neglect to target those who have added items to their cart but haven’t purchased your SaaS product.

4. Video View Campaigns:

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(Source: Biteable)

Since video content is becoming increasingly important online, why not drive video views? Facebook offers three different video view ads:

  • Reach and Frequency
  • Clicks to Website
  • App Installs

Reach and Frequency works best if you want to build brand awareness by showing your video to as many people as possible over time. Clicks to Website helps users directly navigate to your site after watching a video ad. And App Installs lets you promote apps within Facebook mobile app install ads.

Examples of SaaS Brands using Facebook Ads to Boost Conversions

Now that you’ve read up on how to get started with your Facebook ads for SaaS companies, it’s time to look at a few examples of how some big shots in the SaaS industry are using Facebook ads to increase their customer base.

1) HubSpot

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HubSpot is a marketing automation platform focused on attracting visitors, converting leads into customers, and increasing customer loyalty.  

They use Facebook ads to target users interested in content marketing or creating sales funnels.

The ad appears to be an actual photograph of an employee! It’s difficult to say no to the ad copy and the focus on the 100 percent free offer.

Other things that make this ad effective are the usage of emojis and the use of a conversational style that the audience can relate to.

This ad is one of our favorites because it shows the company through the eyes of the client while simultaneously highlighting the customer and their product.

2) Salesforce

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Salesforce is a cloud-based solution that lets you create meaningful customer experiences using software and services. This popular CRM application benefits both small and large enterprises. The company also offers an Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform for marketing automation, finance, and human resource management.

Salesforce uses Facebook ads for SaaS companies to find new companies that want to leverage their technology to improve their overall experience.

Their charming and extremely vivid illustrations are a visual treat that you won’t be able to ignore. In addition, they use effective marketing messages like “bring your brand and customers together” to win the heart of their target audience.

3)  Dropbox

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Dropbox is a cloud storage and file hosting service founded in 2007. Dropbox uses Facebook ads to target people interested in startups, small businesses, and technology. 

It is appealing because of its basic style, which conveys the correct message straightforwardly and concisely. Furthermore, the colors themselves are incredibly striking! In addition, the phrase “back up your memories” is meant to elicit an emotional response from the user.

4) Udemy

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Udemy is an online learning platform where people can create courses and sell them to others. They use Facebook ads to target new audiences based on interests like business or tech and demographic information like age or gender.

All of the pieces of this ad work together to depict future trends that business owners should be aware of.

In the ad graphic, Udemy highlighted the number 6 to let their target market ponder how these particular trends would influence them.

Get Creative With Your Facebook Ads

Facebook has made it simple to create ads that have high chances of success, provided you know what to do, how to do it well, and how to track your progress to optimize along the way.

Have you considered hiring a SaaS advertising firm?

Flying V Group is the best SaaS advertising firm for your digital marketing needs. Our team is always at your beck and call to help create visually-appealing Facebook ads for SaaS companies and optimize them for increased conversions. Contact us.

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Written by Robb Fahrion

Robb Fahrion is a Co-Founder and Partner of Flying V Group. Robb has helped over 350+ companies build their businesses online and is responsible for building Flying V Group into one of the premier marketing agencies in the United States. Robb and his team have managed over $10M in marketing budget and continue to accelerate the growth of clients' businesses. A love for business and competition is what fuels Robb to create dynamic marketing plans to help his clients grow exponentially.

May 12, 2022

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