SaaS · Google Ads
Google Ads for SaaS
Search catches SaaS buyers at the moment of intent — comparing tools, searching the category, or typing a competitor's name. High intent, high cost-per-click, and unforgiving of wasted spend.
What I audit in the first 30 days
Same order every time — each step depends on the one before it.
Conversion signal quality
Is the account optimizing to demo requests and trials that convert to paid — or to any form fill? Feeding qualified-lead and revenue signal back is what separates a profitable SaaS account from an expensive one.
Intent tiers and waste
Category, competitor, and jobs-to-be-done keywords behave differently and deserve different bids. The search-terms report usually shows real budget leaking to informational and irrelevant queries.
Landing page per intent
A competitor-comparison searcher and a category searcher want different pages. Generic homepage traffic is where high-CPC SaaS clicks go to die.
The playbook
The levers that consistently move these accounts, roughly in order of impact.
Structure by intent tier
Category, competitor, and problem-aware keywords in separate campaigns with their own bids, budgets, and pages — so the highest-value intent isn't averaged away.
Optimize to revenue, not leads
Feed qualified-lead and closed-revenue signal back into bidding so Smart Bidding learns to find buyers, not form-fillers.
Competitor terms, handled carefully
Bidding on rivals' names can be cheap, high-intent volume — with the right message and a page that earns the switch. Done wrong it's a budget fire.
A page for every campaign
Comparison pages, category pages, use-case pages — matched to the search, not a one-size homepage that makes the buyer start over.
Aggressive, maintained negatives
SaaS queries pull in jobs, tutorials, and free-tool seekers. Weekly pruning keeps expensive clicks on buyers.
The benchmarks I hold to
| Benchmark | Typical range |
|---|---|
| CPC, category keywords | $4 – $25 |
| Cost per qualified lead | $100 – $500 |
| Landing page CVR | 3 – 10% |
| Lead → paid | 10 – 25% |
Run this in your shop
If bays are empty while the phone rings, the leak is measurable — and fixable.