Why is Facebook advertising a vital marketing channel for your B2B SaaS business?
Facebook crossed 3 billion active monthly users in the third quarter of 2023.
As the most extensive global social media platform, Facebook is vital for connecting with SaaS prospects.
Also, Facebook’s ad reach is a whopping 1.98 billion people!
- SaaS buyers are internet savvy; therefore, Facebook ads are great for reaching them with targeted messages.
- Facebook offers a feature-rich ad platform to connect with people interested in buying your B2B SaaS.
- You can use Facebook to run custom ad campaigns to target buyers from specific locations across the globe.
- Facebook allows you to retarget people who have already visited your website. Hence, Facebook ads are great for converting high-intent SaaS buyers.
- Facebook offers several ad formats to showcase your product USPs creatively and experientially.
Limitations of Facebook as an Ad Platform for SaaS
Let’s look at why some B2B SaaS marketers avoid Facebook for running ad campaigns:
- Since Facebook is a personal social networking platform, many B2B SaaS marketers don’t consider it ideal for reaching professional decision-makers.
- The SaaS buying cycle is usually quite long. Therefore, if you’re selling a high-ticket enterprise product, you may not see the best results on a platform like Facebook.
Despite these limitations, 91% of B2B marketers prefer Facebook over LinkedIn.
At TripleDart, we have experience in creating winning Facebook campaigns for B2B SaaS businesses. For instance, we helped Fincent generate $150k in pipeline using Facebook and Google ads.
Therefore, we’ve put together this in-depth post to help you understand the nuts and bolts of Facebook ads and how you can use them to run profitable campaigns for your B2B SaaS business.
So, do read it till the very end.
How to use Facebook Ads for B2B SaaS
1. Building an Audience Using Lists
Don’t forget that the success of your Facebook ad campaigns depends on the accuracy of your ad targeting. Here are some ways to create custom audiences and connect with people who already know your business:
2. Custom Audiences Using Prospects
There’s a reason to be happy if you already have an opt-in list of prospects.
These could be those who signed up for your newsletter or took a free product trial. You can simply upload this list to target warm leads and convert them into customers.
3. An Audience of Website Visitors
Your website visitors are another set of people who already know about your solution. Facebook gives you a chance to reconnect with them.
You can simply install the Meta Pixel on your website to build a list of people who’ve visited your site. Make your list more focused by targeting people who visited specific product pages. You can even create a list of people who’ve visited your website recently.
High intent and Low intent page visitors
4. An Audience of App Users
By registering your app to Meta for developers, you can create a list of those who’ve downloaded or made purchases in your app.
This way, you can target prospects already using your mobile application.
5. Prospects Who Engaged With Your Content
A fantastic way to reach high-intent buyers is to show ads to those who have engaged with your content. Facebook allows you to create custom audiences of those who may have clicked on your ad, responded to an event, or spent time watching a video. You can list all those who engaged with your content in the last 30 days.
6. Create Lookalike Audiences
Does it feel like your audience list is too small? Don’t worry; you can expand your custom audiences by creating their lookalike.
What is a lookalike audience?
Facebook’s system analyses your source audience's demographics, interests, and behaviour. It then identifies new people who share similar qualities. What a magical way to reach just the people you want!
Choose a percentage range to determine how closely you want the new audience to match your source audience. Smaller percentages result in a closer match, while larger percentages create a broader audience.
What’s more? You can also customise the location of your lookalike audience.
7. Experiment With Ad Content
Trying different content formats helps you improve campaign yields. Keep your SaaS audience and ad goals in mind while promoting different content types with your Facebook ads. Here are some content formats you can explore.
- Use carousel ads to explain your SaaS product's key features and benefits. You can use the problem-solution model to present your product in a story.
- Offer a guide or a course to build a relationship with your audience.
- Promote a case study or a customer testimonial to target users in the decision stage of the buyer’s journey.
- An excellent way is to use numbers to highlight the results you’ve achieved for your existing customers.
8. Don’t Forget Facebook Remarketing
Facebook remarketing is crucial in running successful SaaS ad campaigns.
Facebook remarketing ads get 3X the engagement than regular Facebook ads. (Source)
- Remarketing lets you reach hot leads and increase the chances of conversion.
- Also, Facebook CPCs are much lower than those of LinkedIn. Hence, a Facebook remarketing campaign will likely reduce customer acquisition costs and improve ROAS.
9. Write Compelling Ad Copy
Copy is the first thing your ad prospects see. That’s why ad copy is critical to your SaaS Facebook ad campaigns. Here are some cool ad copy tips:
- Use a hook line to grab the audience's attention. You can start with a question, an analogy, a pun, or a question. Connect your hook with a key problem your audience might be facing. Here’s an interesting example from Fincent:
- An excellent option is to showcase a number or a statistic in your SaaS ad copy. Take a look at this example from Hootsuite:
- Quotes from satisfied customers can work wonders, too.
- You must use a call-to-action to let your audience know what to do next. You could experiment with phrases like “Get started” or “Try for free.”
- Create urgency using phrases like “Last chance” or “Act now.”
Remember that compelling ad copy is the heart and soul of a winning SaaS Facebook ad campaign.
10. Use A Funnel Approach
Funnel marketing helps you communicate with the right people at the right time with the right messages.
Awareness
It’s that stage when a buyer doesn’t know about your solution. It’s the best time to share educational content, such as blog posts, e-books, podcasts, and educational videos. Such free content helps start a relationship with your audience.
TOFU campaigns like these work best in the initial 0-20 days of your Facebook advertising efforts. The typical objectives of these campaigns include brand awareness, reach, traffic, and video views. Here’s an excellent example of an awareness-stage ad from Ahrefs:
Prospecting Stage
At this stage, you want to nurture leads and get them to try your product. It’s ideal to tell them about your product’s benefits and lure them with exciting offers. MOFU campaigns are about product storytelling through carousel ads and explainer videos. These work best in the next 20-40 days of your campaign. Here’s an intelligent MOFU ad from ActiveCampaign, the popular email marketing tool:
Decision Stage
It’s that crucial stage of a customer’s journey when she’s ready to buy and looking for the best-fit product. It’s when you should go deeper and offer social proof to your B2B SaaS prospects. Showcase customer testimonials and positive product reviews. Tell how your SaaS provides a better ROI than competing products.
A BOFU campaign like this works best between 40 and 70 days from the day you start your Facebook advertising. Here’s an interesting example of a BOFU ad from Slack:
Post-Purchase Stage
In the retention phase of the buyer’s journey, promoting content about your after-sales support is ideal. Such ads help you to increase customer retention and lifetime value. They also help fetch you word-of-mouth publicity for your SaaS.
Find The Right Ad Placements
Facebook allows you numerous ad placement options to make the most of your SaaS ad campaigns.
1. Mobile and Desktop Newsfeeds
When you choose a newsfeed placement, your ad appears directly in your audience’s Facebook feed. A newsfeed placement is ideal for top-of-the-funnel SaaS campaigns as they help maximise your brand’s reach.
2. Instant Articles
Instant articles offer a way for marketers to share educational content with their audience. Such native content is a great way to get more clicks and engagement from your Facebook ads.
3. Video Feeds
Video feeds are great for adding in-stream ads to organic video content on Facebook.
You must remember that More than 2 billion people watch videos on Facebook each month.
Use such ads to tell an immersive product story and get more conversions.
4. Search Ads
This type of placement is excellent for showing ads to people looking for solutions in your niche. Hence, it’s a terrific option for targeting people closer to making a purchase.
5. In-Stories
Since Stories has become a popular content format on Facebook and Instagram, ads with this placement are quite beneficial. Use an attention-grabbing CTA to drive traffic to your product page and generate qualified leads.
6. Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger offers an incredible place to connect with SaaS buyers directly. You can place either Home ads or Story ads in Facebook Messenger. Look at this Story ad from Fincent:
For improved results, A/B test different versions of your campaign copy and ad placements.
Final Thoughts
Facebook Ads are a cost-effective way to grow your B2B SaaS business. As a social network, Facebook offers a broad audience and innovative ad formats and placements to help you lure prospects into your sales funnel. And it’s an effective platform to reach your ideal customers through customised campaigns.
All you have to do is align your ad messages with your campaign goals and marketing funnel.
But for the best returns on your Facebook ad investments, consider hiring an experienced agency like TripleDart.
Book a call here now, and our experts will be happy to help you.
