If your Saas is trying to determine how well your PPC campaigns are performing, or what kind of performance to expect, look no further.
We have broken down the average SaaS PPC Conversion rates by channel, conv. Type, funnel stage, and more.
Not to mention, as you read on you will learn how to improve them.
At the end of the day, your SaaS PPC conversion rate is a contributor to the most important success factor in your account: Return On Investment.
In PPC, conversion rates are typically numbers you look at for the sake of optimizing your ROI.
Unless your conversion rate is at zero of course, then you might want to rethink your PPC campaign strategy.
Here is a PPC FAQ article to better understand each PPC channel’s strength.
For SaaS, PPC normally refers to one of these:
Each of these platforms has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some convert at a higher percentage, some have cheaper clicks, and some have more or less reach.
In this article, we will be focusing mostly on Search Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Facebook/Instagram Ads.
The Average conversion rate for SaaS businesses has been clocked at anywhere between 1.5% and 3% overall.
But that’s overall, not considering any influencing factors.
As mentioned, your average SaaS PPC conversion rates will be dependent on a combination of variables.
The main contributors to variance in your PPC conversion rates will be channel and conversion type.
Let’s first take a look at how the type of conversion you ask for will impact your conversion rate.
Your Average conversion percentage for SaaS companies using PPC can be broken down to the type of conversion being asked for.
Those conversions include (not limited to):
Tracking a click-through conversion in SaaS is just tracking designated button clicks and page views.
In most cases, this is the easiest conversion to achieve in SaaS advertising since it requires the least effort from the site visitor.
Because of that, click-through conversions have been measured to convert around 10.1% of the time.
Form submissions can differ greatly. From asking for just an email to asking for a full company profile, form submission conversions are very versatile.
In SaaS, these conversions are often the standard when gauging PPC success.
Form submission conversion rates for SaaS PPC have been clocked at 2.4%
You’ll notice this conversion is significantly lower than the click through conversion type.
That’s because this conversion is of much more value to your company.
Typically, the more form fields required, the more qualified the SaaS lead.
For free trials that do require credit cards, you will often see an average SaaS PPC conversion rate of around 7%.
SaaSs who utilize free trials without credit cards must realize that a higher conversion rate (sometimes even spanning up to 15%) will be met with a massive dropoff. Your conversion from free trial to paying subscriber will likely be lower than free trials which require credit cards.
Requiring a credit card will drop your PPC visitor-to-free trial conversion rate.
If your SaaS chooses to go this route, understand that you will convert less upfront.
However, you may see more paying subscribers convert per 100 free trials.
Keep an eye on that customer lifetime value. It will likely decrease once users are charged for their first month and then cancel.
Your B2B SaaS will likely be looking for lead forms that turn into paying customers.
Obviously, this will apply to B2C SaaS as well but B2B conversion rates will be much lower in this category.
We’ve found that the average B2B click-to-customer rate is around 1%.
In the B2B industries we deal with, this low number is compensated by an extremely large value of sale.
Our B2B customer values are typically anywhere from $10k – $1M.
If your SaaS has a CLV closer to the $100-$500 range, you can expect cheaper clicks and a higher conversion rate. Around 3% – 4% is more accurate in this range.
Your SaaS PPC campaigns will also vary in conversion rates depending on the channel you use.
Focusing on Facebook, Search Ads, Display Ads, and LinkedIn Ads for SaaS, let’s see how the channel you advertise on affects your average conversion rates.
Facebook isn’t really geared for most SaaS companies, however, it can work really well if your target audience is there.
Companies like Adobe, Wordstream, & Salesforce all use Facebook to bring 2%-6% of their users to their sites.
What do these companies have in common?
So what can you expect for your SaaS Facebook conversion rate?
Somewhere between 1%-12%, depending on the type of conversion you are after.
LinkedIn ads are typically aimed to be used by B2B SaaS companies.
With that in mind, LinkiedIn conversions rates for SaaS advertisers are anywhere from 2% – 15%.
The 2% end more reflect form fills and free trials whereas the 15% will reflect certain clicks on the advertiser’s site.
For SaaS search ads, you can expect conversion rates to average around 2.3%
Search ads are able to target multiple funnel stages.
Each funnel stage will have a different average cost per conversion.
High-funnel will have low conv. Rates and low-funnel will have high conversion rates.
This number is based on all search campaigns that Search Click Boom manages.
Representing lead forms (longer than 2 fields), subscribers and free trials. We don’t track button cicks and page views.
To recap, each channel and conversion type will influence your SaaS conversion rate.
Because of the vast differences between campaigns, it’s best to focus on your ROI instead of conversion rate.
For the different PPC channels, your conversion rates will be somewhere around:
Breaking down SaaS PPC conversion rate by conversion type:
Regardless of SaaS PPC conversion benchmarks, your company’s PPC conversion rate averages are going to be unique to your situation.
Does knowing arbitrary averages help you at all? Not really.
A seasoned Google Ads expert would only worry about improving conversion rates.
So you’ve decided you need to raise your SaaS conversion rates.
Whether it’s just because it’s good practice or because you want your ads account to be more efficient with your money.
Note: sometimes you might sacrifice conversion rate to achieve more conv. volume with less relevant keywords.
Here are some key areas to look at if you feel like you want to get more conversions per 100 clicks.
Are you spending your SaaS advertising money on the right keywords?
Understanding your keyword intents is a critical part of knowing the value of your targeted search keywords before even running them.
Make sure you’re spending most of your ad money on terms with lower funnel intent.
This includes keywords like
If more than 30% of your ad spend is going towards terms like…
…then you are vulnerable to attracting search terms and intents that are not oriented around converting.
Inevitably, targeting SaaS-related terms that include things like tool & service will raise your conversion rates.
If your SaaS conversion rate is great but you don’t see any money pouring into your pockets, what do you do?
The first place to look is at the quality of your conversions.
If most of your conversions are just clicks on a button, it might be time to focus on conversions that are better quality.
It’s too easy for users to click a button on your site. Instead, track when they submit forms and start trials.
You can also add fields to forms to further qualify your leads.
A good google manager always blames themselves first and then will look externally.
If you can’t find the cause of low conversion rates within your SaaS PPC account, then try synching up with the sales team.
Whether your leads come from Facebook, LinkedIn, or Search ads will completely change the mindset of the ‘converter’ when they submit their information.
Help your sales team understand what materials and clicks led the user to convert.
After a click turns into a lead, how many times is your SaaS sales team trying to connect with that lead?
For your free trials, do you have automation teaching users how to get the most out of your SaaS apps? Towards the end of trials do you have meeting opportunities available?
You’d be surprised, but many sales teams will let leads fall flat after 2-3 touchpoints.
The leads coming from your SaaS PPC campaigns are likely warm leads! Especially if they had to fill out a detailed form or sign up to start a trial.
Increase conversion rates by increasing touches from your sales team. Also, get creative with ways to start conversations and materials provided.
You paid for these leads. Make the most of them.
Try adding a few more touch points to your
In SaaS PPC, the intent difference between a user who came to your site from Facebook or a Search Ad is vastly different.
If your conversion rate is too low, you can bring it up by meeting your potential SaaS users with the right conversion.
Facebook and LinkedIn clicks areconsidered distractions from the user’s intent.
If they were perusing one of those, they likely were not thinking about your product at the time.
Even when they click on your ad, you likely won’t have their attention for long.
Therefore, in most cases, you’ll convince more users to convert with a simple eBook offer or newsletter signup.
Better to have them in your pipeline than not at all.
With search ads, you answered a specific intent. They asked for something, and they clicked on your ad.
Make sure you are giving these users something close to what they asked for.
Some examples:
SaaS sales cycles can get really long in some cases. If your normal sales cycle is 6 months, don’t expect your PPC campaigns to be any different.
If your SaaS PPC campaign is converting free trials but not paying users?
It might be time to reassess the market you are targeting.
If you are a salon calendar scheduling tool targeting keywords for calendar scheduling tool you may be targeting too broad of a keyword. Time to dive into your niche.
If your social post scheduling software is more geared towards agencies then you may get a lot of trials from individuals but not many purchases.
In this case, you may try changing your SaaS conversion to a demo booking or try targeting white label social scheduling tool to avoid smaller users.
Now that you’ve diagnosed your SaaS PPC conversion woes. Let’s talk briefly about methods to bring up that average.
Here are some quick tips to increase your conversion rates on your software as a service pay-per-click campaigns.
Take a look at your PPC audiences and ad copy.
Assuming those are aligned, now look at your SaaS landing page.
Do you feel like the copy on that page is similar to the ad copy?
If not, try testing a new landing page.
This doesn’t have to be a total rework. Start with adjusting the headline.
Offering the user a familiar and predictable experience is key to keeping conversion rates high.
This is a classic mishap. As discussed earlier, even if your SaaS display or social PPC audiences are hyper-targeted, you can’t expect a ton of commitment from the user.
If you are having conversion rate issues on your SaaS social and display campaigns, try making it easier to convert.
Ways to make conversions easier on your SaaS landing page:
Low conversion rates can come from mistargeting. In social advertising, if your audience is too broad, you will have to spend a lot of money per conversion.
Take a look at your most valuable converters so far and pretend you are targeting just them. Make it specific.
You can’t worry about sacrificing volume in these campaigns. Specificity will always be better than volume when it comes to conv. rates.
Are your SaaS search ads getting clicks but no conversions?
Are you 100% confident in your keyword targeting? Or at least doing the best you can.
If yes, then you might want to create ad copy that is more specific to what kind of company you want to attract.
This strategy may seem counterintuitive for two reasons:
But would you rather pay for irrelevant clicks, or only ones that you think should convert?
Maybe you’re at a loss for what information to put on your landing pages.
Check out what your SaaS competitors are doing to raise their conversion rate averages.
Chances are, some of them have been doing this longer than you have and might have a few glimpses of insights for you.
You know your desired users are looking at competitors, so why not do so yourself?
Google the keywords you are targeting and click on your competitor ads to see what types of pages they are using as landing pages.
Notice what they have in their hero section.
What kind of conversions are they asking for? What kind of imagery do they use? What do they have in terms of information as you scroll?
Having respect for your competitors will help you be more critical of your strategy. Eventually, this will lead to higher conversion rates.
There’s a chance that you aren’t really going to reach your ideal SaaS user with this current PPC channel.
For example, you likely aren’t going to sell your manufacturing automation software on Facebook Ads.
The targeting available to you there isn’t meant to target that kind of audience.
Assess the targeting in each platform and be realistic about whether or not you can access your SaaS customers there.
I always suggest trying search ads because the intent is there and everyone is essentially shouting out to the world asking for help!
It’s easy to see why any PPC channel might bring value to your SaaS business.
But are your website and product ready for you to pay to bring leads in?
If your website isn’t tested for conversions, then paying people to come to your SaaS website is only going to further highlight your issues. Not fix them.
If your SaaS product is still at its MVP stage and has a few kinks, your trials are not going to convert to paying customers as well as you hope.
Is it worth it to you to pay for this kind of trial and error?
There are a lot of free strategies that can bring in leads that eventually get you to a point where you are ready to advertise.
Addressing your SaaS company’s PPC conversion rates is one of the more important activities in advertising. Comparing to industry averages will only give you a small bite of the pie.
Here is a brief recap of the important points from this SaaS PPC conversion article:
Hopefully, this article helped you understand many more of the components that go into creating a successful SaaS PPC campaign.
Thanks for reading!
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