Facebook Marketing for SaaS: 21 Rules to Smash Your ROI

Like other industries, Facebook marketing for SaaS requires a solid understanding of your Facebook marketing funnel and the top ad strategies.

The main difference between marketing SaaS products and physical products, though, is that the former only exists on your computer screen. 

This means that the SaaS marketers must tackle this problem: they don't have a physical product. They must convince people of a transformation that hasn’t happened yet…and then put money behind it.

What’s the best way to do that?You’re in the right place. We consider ourselves expert SaaS Facebook advertising sherpas (on the Marketing Maturity Mountain).

One thing's for sure: SaaS marketing is a craft on its own with its peculiarities, best practices, and white hat hacks.   

Let's see what makes a SaaS marketer's work different from, say, a retail marketer's job—and figure out how to reach our ideal Facebook user most effectively.

1. SaaS marketing is mainly digital. As SaaS products exist online, their entire marketing strategy is primarily focused on digital marketing activities (minus the occasional trade show demonstrations). This means you have to keep up with the trending strategies to generate leads on digital platforms, and ensure that you’re doing so in a way that captures your audience’s attention. Social listening will be invaluable to you here. 
2. SaaS products are “endless.” Once you've built it, there's no limit to the number of licenses you can hand out. This makes sales demos and free sampling a low-cost strategy, as well as one you should consider for your prospects.
3. Sales happen fast. All it takes to buy a SaaS product is a few clicks. Of course, there might be an onboarding process to get used to the new tool. Simplifying all the elements of your funnel and ads, as many SaaS companies do, is an effective way to present the visual of “fast, efficient, easy” to your consumer—which, in itself, is enough to entice users to join sometimes. 

  Here's how Peter Cohen, the managing partner of SaaS Marketing Strategy Advisors, put it:  

“When [SaaS customers] need a solution, they do some online research, maybe ask a colleague, try the solution or watch a demo, and then buy. The whole process might take a few days, maybe a few hours. There's no long, drawn out sales engagements, RFIs and RFPs, head-to-head “bake-offs,” contract negotiations, blah, blah, blah. Customers find it, they see it, they like it, they buy it. Done.”

1. A few more things before we go: 

Sounds easy, right? Kind of. 

Beyond these benefits, there are also multiple problems that you might encounter as a SaaS marketer.   

For example: If you're selling B2B software, the sales cycle can be long and you need to put a lot of effort into convincing the prospects your product is the best option. It's Also difficult for many teams to explain their product to new users without getting overly technical.  

So, how can you master the Facebook marketing for SaaS, uncover all the secret ad hacks and double your CTRs?   

By learning from the best.   

Without further ado, let’s get into 26 SaaS Facebook ad examples and hacks that each follow a near-magic set of rules to convert more leads into customers.   

 The best part? Many of these hacks can also be applied to the marketing strategy of other types of products. The SaaS marketers are a smart bunch, often working with tight budgets.  

When selling a SaaS product (or any kind of product), knowing your buyer personas is critical to success.  

Sure, this step is simple, but don’t overlook the simple power that knowing your SaaS clients and prospects has on your bottom line.

53% of users surveyed felt “connected” to a brand that had values that aligned with their own.  . 66% of the aforementioned group linked those feelings of connectivity to trust—and trust leads to conversions and lifelong brand advocates.

The first example we’ll call to the stage is Moz: a leading SaaS product in the SEO space. Their team was able to make $1 million extra, all from interviewing their customers and improving their product accordingly.   

Our takeaway? Once you find out your potential customer's pain points and learn how your product could solve these, you'll be able to craft more relevant Facebook ads.   

And that's where the marketing magic happens.  

So, how can you get started with developing your SaaS buyer personas?  

We’re so glad you asked. In her article for the Business.com blog, Tabitha Naylor suggested that marketers focus on:

• Pain points and challenges. These encompass your customers' goals, what they want to accomplish, and what’s in the way of them; as well as their journey to finding your business.
• Values and beliefs. This consideration forces marketers to think about the hesitations and concerns of your customers as they relate to held values. Ask yourself: How do they view your product or service, and how does that impact how much information they need to make a decision?
• Behaviors and preferences. Your customers come to the buying experience with expectations and preconceived notions. Are they shoppers who want the thrill of the bargain or expect a more refined experience? Selling a weight loss program will be more emotionally charged than, say, selling routers.

Once you're aware of an audience group's place in your Facebook marketing funnel and know what they're interested in, combine these two insights to create superstar campaigns.   

One option to reach people interested in your product is to create a Meta Ads Manager Saved Audience that's interested in products and brands similar to yours.  

For example: If you were selling social media marketing software, you could target other big vendors like HootSuite and HubSpot and combine these with additional interests like content and digital marketing. 

Typically, marketers find success using the Saved Audiences to reach the TOFU (top of the funnel) audience who's unfamiliar with your product.  

Once a person has visited your website, you can use another custom audience to create a new target audience of warm leads, choosing the audience source of your preference. 

When marketing your SaaS product on Facebook, there are appropriate offers for every stage of your marketing funnel.
 
In the Awareness stage, share blog articles, case studies, and other content with the goal of increasing brand awareness and building thought leadership.
 
In the Prospecting stage, turn on the heat on your offers and promote gated content, free trials, product demos, and customer testimonials to convince people to give your SaaS product a try.
 
In the Lead stage, convert the free trial users into paying customers usingFacebook advertising to support your other lead nurturing tactics.
 
In the Purchasing stage of your funnel, offer content that helps to better understand your product and make relevant discount offers to entice people to sign up for the paid version of your product.   

Remember: The goal throughout your marketing funnel should be making people feel empowered by your product.  

Ready to kick it up a notch? When remarketing to a warm audience, segment people based on the landing pages they visited and create hyper-targeted offers, focusing on the top benefits for SaaS companies like theirs across every specific use case.  

As you read all the SaaS Facebook marketing ideas above, you may have felt the urge to get started with new campaigns right away.  

But don’t. At least,not yet.

Each of the Facebook ads above only delivers results when targeted at the right Facebook audience. That’s where a Facebook marketing funnel comes into play.

A comprehensive conversion funnel significantly enhances your campaign results across industries. Here’s how:

• It allows you to effectively visualize and target Facebook audiences across various funnel stages.
• Marketers then take that info and create ROI-blowing offers and campaigns that fit each funnel stage, based on our Facebook ad examples here.

• They also use the funnel to develop cross-channel SaaS marketing strategies to move people through your conversion funnel.
• Lastly, your funnel helps you create different SaaS Facebook ad campaign goals depending on the current audience's relationship with your brand.

There are over 20 ad placement options to choose from, so feel free to experiment and roll with what performs best at different stages of your funnel.  

One of the most awesome things about Facebook marketing for SaaS businesses is that almost everything happens online: the ads, conversions, purchases…   Which means that you can track literally every sweet point of data from your great SaaS Facebook ad variants.

Don’t get us wrong. It takes some extra work to set up proper Facebook ad conversion tracking. But believe us, you don’t want to miss this! The Meta Conversions API (or CAPI) for short is about to be your best friend.

Here’s a helpful Meta resource all about CAPI—and details about how to set it up by your specific use case.  

The problem with many SaaS (and all other kinds of) products is that people have never heard about them. Trello, Inecta, Wrike, Figma…Ever heard of these SaaS solutions?   So, if a person saw a Facebook ad that said “The Best Software for X” with a call to action “Buy Now,” they would likely consider the ad irrelevant and maybe even intrusive. Perhaps, you didn't even know you had a need for “X” yet. Is a potential buyer supposed to trust you're “the best” when they know you just want to take their money? You can't expect your target audience to love your SaaS product from the moment they see it.  

Instead, you could try to focus your Facebook marketing for SaaS products on increasing brand awareness and educating your audience about the need for your product by sharing helpful content to earn their trust. Enter: Content marketing. 

For example, Shopify is sharing a blog article on building a side business without quitting the day job.   This is highly relevant to their target audience – small business owners and people looking to build an online store.  

  By sharing helpful content with your potential future customers, you build brand recognition early on; laying the foundation for strategic sales-oriented offers and conversions in the later phases of your marketing funnel.

With approximately 92% of all B2B businesses out there using content marketing, it’s no surprise that quality is key to a solid content marketing strategy—at least, if you want to break through the saturation that other SaaS businesses are pumping out. 

There are many benefits to content marketing, one of them establishing your brand as an industry expert. (This is especially important in the SaaS business where new tools are frequently released.) 

Sure, it might be difficult to explain the differences of your product from the one of your competitor.   However, you can differentiate your SaaS brand as an industry expert by creating and promoting high-value content on a specific topic that's also relevant to your target audience. Facebook is the perfect platform for amplifying your content reach. 

Sprinklr, for instance, is using Facebook to promote their eBook on marketing strategies. 
Note: Some of the Facebook ad examples here were collected using the AdEspresso Facebook Ads Gallery and thereby do not have the “Sponsored” sign attached.
 

Here's another example by Ahrefs, where the marketing team has run an original case study to help their target audience – digital marketers.  

Not sure to start when it comes to making your Facebook ads work in your content marketing strategy? All you have to do is ask yourself two questions:

• Is the topic of the content relevant to my target audience?
• Is the eBook/blog article/guide high in quality and establishing us as industry experts?

  If the answer to both is positive, you'll know you're on the right path.
  

Catching people's attention with high-quality content is just one way to increase brand awareness. Some dedicate some budget to running a Facebook ads awareness campaign to make sure a large proportion of your potential customers know about your product.   

When using this type of Facebook advertising strategy, your goal should be presenting your product in the best light possible. An example of this would be the creation of a particular ad highlighting the number of your product's users, using that metric as a quantitative indicator of its quality or “social proof.”   

For example, Dropbox's past awareness Facebook ad says that more than 90,000 businesses are using their product.  

The construction of the ad itself is just as important as the campaign strategy when it comes to SaaS companies looking to build brand awareness. For example: Did you notice that Dropbox has placed the impressive number right in the Facebook ad image? That's because your ad image is the first thing people will see and read.
 
Tip: Continuously gather case study material that addresses pain points your clients have, inevitably promoting your product as THE premiere solution for the global audience as a whole. While it is a life of time and resources up-front, sharing your product’s case studies is beneficial for several reasons:

• It explains your product and its features via a story. According to The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the emotional response to an ad has far greater influence on a consumer's reported intent to buy a product than other triggers or prompts.
• People are likely to trust product reviews over other forms of outreach or text-based ads. Per Demand Sage, 84% of B2B decision makers start the buying process with a referral.
• You can use a soft sell instead of a straightforward sales offer. People don’t like being sold to or talked at. They enjoy connection. Creating your ads with that in mind will boost your demo requests. (Trust us. We’ve done it.)

For example, Pipedrive's sharing a case study of how an online retailer used their SaaS product.  

Tip: Promote your case studies for SaaS products to people who are in the middle of the funnel (MOFU) level of the sales process—or who are already familiar with your product, but need an additional nudge to start a free trial or complete their purchase.  

Similarly to case studies, your customer testimonials hold power to make people feel more enthusiastic about your product.   The common line of thinking goes like this: “If others are benefitting from this product, I might be able to benefit as well.”  

There’s a reason you likely noticed dozens of client testimonials on SaaS landing pages and Facebook ad examples out there, after all. (It’s because they work.)
   

And here's an example by AdEspresso—a Facebook carousel that's showcasing positive feedback from multiple users.  

When it comes to Facebook ad copywriting and increasing the CTR, think about what's most relevant and compelling for your target audience.
 
And what’s compelling for your audience isn’t a list of your SaaS product's benefits and features. (Although, sometimes, it can be helpful). You’ll want to bring it full circle into the actual, tangible benefits your customers can get from your product—just like ClickUp does. Then, you can speak to the features once your customers understand why they should listen.

 Speaking of which… 

The product features are every SaaS company's pride. After all, that's what makes their product valuable for the users. That's why it sometimes pays off to mention your software features in the Facebook ad copy when the time is right.   For example, here's a straightforward Facebook ad example by Teamwork.com, listing four of their product features in the main ad copy of the SaaS Facebook Ad.  

Here are three best practices for displaying your SaaS product features in a Facebook ad:

1. Don't list ALL your features – Only include the features that are most relevant to your potential buyers. You don’t want to overwhelm them with a SaaS Facebook ad a mile long. 
2. Support the message with the rest of your ad copy – As you mention your features in the main ad copy, also explain the benefit and gains they bring to the buyer.
3. Include landing page-specific features – If you're unsure which features to include, target features that your customers are interested in based on the landing pages they've visited.

Another way to communicate your product's benefits is to create custom illustrations and use them as your Facebook ad images.   

There's another reason to use explanatory images. Estimates suggest that only 4% of digital ads are viewed for over 2 seconds. So, if your Facebook ad image is able to instantly explain how your product works, people could be more interested in finding out more.   

A great example of this is Favro's Facebook ad image, which explains how the product gives a simple overview of all the customer projects on a single dashboard.  

Videos take plenty of resources to create—but the ROI and payoff are worth it. Shoppers are 1.81 times more likely to buy than non-viewers; and 66% of all consumers want to learn about a product by watching a video.

The best part of video content? There are endless opportunities to personalize your pitch based on the resources you have available. 

Wrike leveraged the power of video in their marketing flow by including a product video as the second slide of their Facebook carousel ad.  

Autopilot's took a similar approach, using videos instead of images across their Facebook SaaS campaigns.    

As we see in the Autopilot example above, it’s powerful to show your product in action when creating an explanatory video ad, allowing your potential buyers to imagine themselves using it. 

Tip: Keep your Facebook ad videos short not to lose the right momentum.   You can use tools like Animoto or PowToon to create high-quality product and demo videos (pretty) effortlessly.  

If video marketing seems like too big of a commitment to you, test a simpler approach by including your product's screenshot in the Facebook ad image. This is a tactic used by many SaaS brands. That's exactly what Podium has done in the past.

Here's another example of static, branded ad images by Drift. The company is not just using the product screenshot, they've also enhanced it with some custom design elements to ensure brand awareness is carried all the way through.    

  Best practices for including your SaaS product's screenshot in Facebook ad images:

• Use a high-resolution image. Make sure that your product looks “good” in the ad image, and is free of “noise” or distracting background elements.
• Use a computer screen or laptop as the frame. To deliver the message that your product is a software tool, it’s best to place it inside the frame of a computer—mimicking what users will see when they engage with your tool.
• Use contrasting backgrounds. Ensure that your product screenshot is clearly differentiated from the background. In the Facebook ad examples above, the key visual points of the image blur into the backgrounds a little too much, making it hard for the viewer to see what the interface truly looks like.

Effective sales copy comes down to a single idea: accessibility. You need your audience to understand what it is you’re selling, clearly communicating what your SaaS product is and how it helps end users. 

For example, Scoro's Facebook ad headline says exactly what they're selling: Project Management Software.   As a prospect sees the ad in their Facebook news feed, they can immediately recall why they might have encountered the product in the first place. That's especially useful if you're running retargeting Facebook campaigns.  

 Tip: As you use your Facebook ad headline to tell the ad viewers what it is you're selling, make sure to mention your product's benefits in the other parts of your ad copy.  

Free trials “work” when it comes to conversions and higher customer lifetime value, as they establish a baseline level of trust from the start. Out of all the forms of incentivization out there, First Page Sage has found that: 

• 15.9% of all paid ad “free trial” offers convert to paid users
• 2.9% of all freemium-to-paid users fully convert
• 51% of users and viewers will leverage a paid ad “free trial” offer“

  
These compelling stats are likely why we see tools like Prezi, for instance, including the free trial offer across channels—from content marketing CTAs to their Facebook ad's link description.  

Sprout Social's Facebook ad goes a bit further and includes the free trial offer in two text placements—the ad image and in the headline—ensuring it's highly visible.    

So, now that we’ve established that we need one—what's the perfect length for a SaaS trial period?

The answer: Every product and sub-niche is different. You’ll ultimately have to trial different lengths and find one your customers resonate with.

An example of a test like this would include creating two Facebook ads: one that offers a 14-day free trial and another that provides a 30-day trial period.  

Product demos are especially relevant for companies selling the more complex type of SaaS solutions that require a deeper dive to win a customer. 
There are multiple forms of SaaS demos that companies can use:

• One-on-one demos, such as those you’d offer via an online call
• Live meetings with the potential customer
• A PowerPoint presentation demo
• Pre-recorded demo videos

For example: AppExchange’s past Facebook ad offers a free demo for a product called GetFeedback.  

Tip: Looking to scale brand awareness quickly? Use the inbuilt Facebook ad forms to let people sign up for free demos without leaving the social media platform.  

Remember: After a person has signed up for a free trial of your product, they're only halfway on their path to the final conversion: becoming a paying customer. In the free trial phase, you should make the new user like your product and feel excited about the prospect of using it in the long term.   

Triggered email marketing campaigns are a way of sending emails to your SaaS product users based on the actions they take inside the product. This level of customer engagement often leads to:

• Higher engagement
• Higher click-through rates
• Increased customer retention
• Increased overall customer and lead satisfaction

However, there's no reason why you should limit yourself to triggered email campaigns. It’s best to also support these campaigns with a correlating Facebook ad strategy.

For example: We believe  Twillio could be promoting their webinar to free trial users who may have interacted with previous campaigns, but still need to be convinced about the product's benefits.  

 
To set up activity-based SaaS Facebook campaigns, create a Dynamic Ad in the Ads Manager and set up your preferred conversion events. More on that here. 

Wouldn't it be nice if you could get people super hyped about your product, creating a viral loop of fame and sales?

(You can. Or, you can try.)While we can't give you a 100% guarantee it will work, you could try referral marketing to increase your sales, so long as the hidden costs of maintaining the product and servers are considered.   

You can also consider giving your product away for free to small teams. Sound counterproductive? It’s not. Here are a couple of reasons why this is the go-to trick for many SaaS tools in the pre-launch phase:

• As you give your product away for free, you increase the likelihood of getting more happy customers who will also refer your brand to their friends and colleagues. 
• Referral marketing is estimated to generate 3-5x higher conversion rates for a given product, per Demand Sage. 
• Additionally, more than 90% of consumers trust word-of-mouth referrals more than other marketing formats. 

(Suddenly, the free giveaway idea starts to seem pretty cool.)
 
Asana's been offering their product for free to teams of up to 10 people for quite some time. And it seems to work out really well. They're still doing it.  

Of course, you could find new ways to sell product updates or develop a Freemium model where more advanced tools are only included in the paid versions of your SaaS product.  We use Asana internally at KlientBoost for a team of almost 100, so we can speak to the huge value of this freemium model for a team of <10. 

When it comes to SaaS marketing channels, what I've seen working over and over again is a mixture of paid and organic reach.  

In his article about the best SaaS growth hacks, Matthew Barby suggests that you set up an automated email marketing funnel that leads people towards the final purchase. I was speaking at the GrowthHacker's Conference with Matthew and loved his ideas.   Here's an email flow he brings as an example:  

But the question remains: How can you get people to your email marketing funnel in the first place?   

One of the easiest ways is to share gated content. And to make the sign-up even easier for your prospects, you can use the Facebook Lead Ads. 

A great example of Lead Ads in action is AdEspresso’s old ad campaign, where they offered a free eBook bundle.  

As a person clicked on their ad, a popup window appeared where they had to fill in the name and email address in exchange for the eBook.    

After a person had downloaded the eBook and given the SaaS company their contact information, they entered into an automated email marketing flow and started to receive emails with additional helpful content.    

Tip: You can use popular email marketing tools like MailChimp to set up the automated email flow in a couple of hours. This way, you'll be supporting your Facebook marketing for SaaS products.  

Many SaaS founders struggle with the question: “What is an acceptable churn rate?”
  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, the churn rate is the annual percentage rate at which customers stop subscribing to a service.   According to an article by SaaS growth expert Lincoln Murphy,  the 5% – 7% annual churn – the good churn rate – translates to 0.42 – 0.58% monthly churn.   As Lincoln put it: “You want a churn rate that is as low as possible.”
  And when it comes to customer retention, Facebook ads can help you succeed. 
MailChimp's sharing on Facebook helpful guides to marketing automation to help their new customers succeed when using the SaaS product.  

There's another hidden benefit to occasionally delivering Facebook ads to your existing customer base – they keep perceiving you as an industry expert.  

Tip: You can also use this advanced retention tactic: Create a Facebook Custom Audience of paying users who haven't used your product for a while and run an ad campaign to remind them of all the possible benefits they're missing out on.  

Acquiring new customers is the top priority for SaaS businesses, but there's always room for renewals and upselling.

As you're setting up your own Facebook Ads marketing funnel, try to find the balance between getting new leads into your sales cycle and keeping your current customers happy and cared for. This “long game” approach balances your sales and marketing strategies, allowing you to get the best of both worlds regarding sustainable growth and retention. 

SaaS marketing, like any sub-industry, has its benefits and challenges. 

Understanding the foundational marketing concepts that underlie 360-degree SaaS marketing funnels and steps is key as you get your product marketing strategy up and running. Use these Facebook Ad examples, apply these go-to hacks, test, tune, and watch your profit flow—then, come back here and let us know the best tip that worked for you. We’re rooting for you!

Track key metrics including cost per trial signup, conversion rate from trial to paid, customer lifetime value (CLV), and overall customer acquisition cost (CAC). Successful SaaS companies typically aim for a CLV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1 for sustainable growth through Facebook advertising.

Video ads and carousel formats show higher engagement rates for SaaS products. Use video ads to demonstrate product features and benefits, while carousel ads work well for showcasing multiple use cases or customer testimonials. Dynamic ads perform best for retargeting campaigns based on specific user actions.

Expect 2-3 weeks of testing to optimize campaigns and gather meaningful data. Sure, while initial results often appear within 5-7 days, achieving stable cost per acquisition (CPA) typically takes 30-45 days of consistent campaign optimization and audience refinement.