Ad channels for B2B SaaS
B2B SaaS companies buy paid media on search, social, review sites and newer placements such as AI assistants. Each channel reaches buyers at a different moment and suits a different deal size. Pick a channel to see what it is for, what it costs and where its budget leaks.
Channel pages
Google Ads
Search ads that reach buyers while they look for the category. What it costs, where the budget leaks and how to judge it on pipeline.
Read the page →ChannelLinkedIn Ads
Ads aimed at chosen job titles and companies, searching or not. What a qualified lead costs, who the budget reaches and how to fix it.
Read the page →ChannelMicrosoft Ads
Search ads on Bing with bids shaped by company, industry and job function. When it is worth adding to Google Ads and how to track it.
Read the page →ChannelMeta Ads
Facebook and Instagram ads: wide reach, no search intent. Where Meta earns a place in a B2B SaaS plan and how to protect lead quality.
Read the page →ChannelChatGPT Ads
Sponsored placements below a ChatGPT answer, shown on the Free and Go plans. Who sees them, how they are bought and whether to test them.
Read the page →ChannelCapterra & G2
Review sites reach buyers who are already comparing software. What vendors can pay for, the order to do it in and when to stop a test.
Read the page →ChannelProgrammatic
Display, video and streaming TV bought across many publishers. What it can and cannot do for a narrow B2B audience, and how to measure it.
Read the page →Reddit, YouTube, TikTok
Pages for these channels are being written. Each one waits until its platform rules can be read at source.
Which channel to fund first
A channel-by-channel table of what each one is for and when it earns budget.
Budget and channel mix →Channels compared
| Channel | Best for | What it costs | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | Products that buyers already search for by category or by problem. | Median $8.50 to $14.00 per non-brand click and $800 to $2,500 per SQL. | Bidding trained on form fills. 78% of them never became an SQL in audited accounts. |
| LinkedIn Ads | Contracts of about $15K a year and up, sold to defined job titles at defined companies. | $8 to $25 per click by vertical and $800 to $8,000 per SQL by contract value. | Default targeting. Three audience errors caused 67% of waste in audited accounts. |
| Microsoft Ads | Companies whose Google Ads search already produces qualified leads and is limited by search volume. | No sourced B2B SaaS benchmark was found. Compare cost per SQL with Google Ads on the same campaigns. | Importing an unmeasured Google account. The same blind spots are copied across. |
| Meta Ads | Retargeting, lookalikes of a customer list, and self-serve products with a low price and a broad buyer. | No sourced B2B SaaS benchmark was found. Compare cost per SQL with search and LinkedIn. | Cheap leads that never qualify. Instant forms are easy to submit by people who did not mean it. |
| ChatGPT Ads | A small, capped test by companies whose buyers research on personal ChatGPT accounts. | No public prices or minimum spend. Bidding is CPM or CPC, with conversion optimization. | No B2B results with a stated sample yet, and users on company plans see no ads. |
| Capterra & G2 | Products in an established software category, with recent customer reviews to show. | No sourced B2B SaaS benchmark was found. Set the test budget from the cost per SQL to beat. | Paying for placement on a profile with few or old reviews, which visitors came to read. |
| Programmatic | Large contracts sold to a known list of accounts, once search and LinkedIn are working. | No sourced benchmark was found. Budget is people to reach, times frequency, times cost per thousand. | Impressions that land outside the target accounts. The open web knows little about job roles. |
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