Choosing between LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads for your B2B SaaS isn't about picking a winner. It's about understanding what job you need to hire an ad platform for. They do fundamentally different things. Most founders get this wrong, they treat them like they're interchangeable, throw money at both, and then wonder why nothing works. The truth is, one is a spear, and the other is a net. You need to know when to throw and when to cast.
Your entire strategy hinges on one question: Is your ideal customer actively looking for a solution to their problem right now, or are they completely unaware they even have a problem you can solve? Get this wrong, and you're just shouting into the void. Get it right, and you start printing money. It's really that simple.
So, where should my first pound be spent? Google or LinkedIn?
This comes down to intent vs interruption. It's the most important distinction in all of paid advertising, and it's what separates successful campaigns from cash bonfires.
Google Ads is for capturing intent. This is your net. People go to Google with a problem they are actively trying to solve. They are typing in phrases like "best accounting software for startups", "how to reduce developer churn", or "crm for small law firms". They have a need, they are problem-aware, and they are looking for a solution to buy. If your SaaS solves a known, searchable problem, you absolutely must be on Google Ads. Ignoring it is like owning a shop but keeping the doors locked. The customers are literally knocking.
The challenge here is that for many innovative SaaS products, people don't know a solution like yours exists. They aren't searching for "AI-powered workflow automation for creative agencies" if they've never heard of such a thing. They're probably just searching for "how to make my agency more efficient," which is far too broad. So for Google to work, you need to target the searches that signal real commercial intent.
LinkedIn Ads is for creating demand. This is your spear. Nobody logs onto LinkedIn to go shopping. They're there to network, check industry news, or look for a new job. Your ad is an interruption to that experience. Therefore, you can't just show them a product and expect a click. Your job on LinkedIn is to make them aware of a problem they didn't even know they had, or to show them a better way of solving a problem they thought was unavoidable. You're not capturing existing demand; you are manufacturing it from scratch. It's much harder, and usually more expensive on a per-click basis, but it's how you reach decision-makers for groundbreaking products they'd never think to search for.
Think about it. The Head of Engineering at a 100-person tech company isn't Googling for your new CI/CD pipeline tool. But if you can get an ad in front of her on LinkedIn that speaks directly to her nightmare—her best developers threatening to quit because of slow build times—you've suddenly got her attention. You've created the demand.
How do I actually make Google Ads work for SaaS?
Look, the biggest mistake I see with Google Ads for SaaS is targeting the wrong keywords. Founders get excited and bid on broad, informational terms like "business finance" or "project management". This is a complete waste of money. You'll get tons of clicks from students writing essays and people with zero intention of buying software. Your budget will be gone by 10am and you'll have zero trials to show for it.
You need to be ruthless. Focus only on keywords that scream "I am ready to buy something". These are called commercial intent keywords. They often contain words like 'software', 'platform', 'tool', 'alternative', 'pricing', 'comparison', or your competitors' brand names.
A good keyword strategy is the foundation of any sucessful Google Ads campaign. You've got to think like your customer when they are in pain and actively seeking a cure.
| Keyword Type | Example (for an accounting SaaS) | Why it Works |
|---|---|---|
| Problem/Solution Keywords | "small business accounting software" | The user has identified their problem (accounting) and is actively looking for the solution type (software). This is high-intent. |
| Competitor Keywords | "xero alternative" or "quickbooks pricing" | These users are already in the market and using a competitor. They are either unhappy or price-shopping. A perfect time to present your alternative. This is a classic tactic. |
| "Jobs to be Done" Keywords | "how to automate invoicing" | A bit broader, but still shows they have a specific pain point your software solves. You can capture them earlier in their journey. Be careful with these though, you'll need a very specific landing page. |
| Long-Tail Keywords | "best accounting software for UK freelancers" | Highly specific, lower search volume, but the conversion rate can be massive. The user has already qualified themselves as being in your exact target market. These are often cheaper to bid on too. |
Once you've got the keywords sorted, the work isn't done. You need a landing page that continues the conversation. If they clicked on an ad for a "Xero alternative", your headline better say something like "Tired of Xero? Here's a Simpler, More Powerful Alternative." And for god's sake, offer a free trial. No card details. Let them get their hands on the product. We've seen this time and again, a compelling free trial offer is the single biggest lever you can pull to get signups. I remember one campaign for a medical job matching SaaS where we managed to reduce their Cost Per User Acquisition from a painful £100 down to just £7, and a big part of that was optimising the offer and the landing page to be completely frictionless.
And what about LinkedIn? Isn't it just ridiculously expensive?
Yes, the Cost Per Click (CPC) on LinkedIn can make your eyes water. It's not uncommon to see CPCs of £5, £10, or even £20+. So why would anyone bother?
Because you're not paying for a click. You're paying for precision. You are paying for the ability to put your message in front of the exact Head of Sales at a 50-200 employee software company in Manchester that you want as a client. You can't get that level of B2B targeting anywhere else. On Facebook, you're guessing. On Google, you're waiting for them to come to you. On LinkedIn, you're going straight to them.
The key to making LinkedIn work is to accept that you're paying for quality, not quantity. You can't afford to get this wrong. Your targeting must be incredibly tight, and you're message has to be perfect. Forget broad targeting. You need to build your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) based on their job title, seniority, company size, industry, and even specific company names. You can upload lists of target companies from tools like Apollo.io and target the decision makers there directly. That's powerful stuff.
With a narrow audience, your ad copy can't be generic. It needs to speak directly to their deepest professional pain. Forget features. Nobody on LinkedIn cares that your software uses a proprietary AI algorithm. They care about not getting fired. They care about hitting their targets. They care about looking good in front of their boss. Your ad has to connect your product to that outcome.
A framework we use a lot for this is Problem-Agitate-Solve.
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For a FinOps SaaS product: Problem: Your AWS bill just arrived. It’s 30% higher than last month, and your engineers have no idea why. Agitate: Another fire to put out. Another awkward conversation with the CFO. How can you plan a budget when your costs are a complete black box? Solve: Our platform gives you a real-time view of your cloud spend, pinpoints waste, and provides actionable alerts before your bill gets out of control. Turn uncertainty into predictable savings. See how in a 2-minute video. |
See? It's not about the tech. It's about the relief from the nightmare. When you get this right, the high CPC doesn't matter as much. We ran a campaign for a B2B software client targeting very specific decision-makers and managed to get a Cost Per Lead of just $22. Those weren't just any leads; they were the exact people our client wanted to talk to. That's an absolute bargain.
My offer is a demo. Is that good enough?
Tbh, no. It's probably the single biggest reason your B2B ads are failing.
The "Request a Demo" button is the most arrogant, high-friction Call to Action in markering. It presumes your prospect, a busy, important person, has nothing better to do than schedule a 45-minute meeting to be sold to by a junior sales rep. It screams "I am a commodity vendor, and I'm about to waste your time." It puts all the risk on the prospect and offers them zero immediate value.
Your offer's only job is to provide an "aha!" moment. It needs to deliver undeniable value, right there and then, that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You have to solve a small, real problem for them for free to earn the right to ask for their money to solve the big one.
If you're a SaaS company, this is your superpower. The gold standard is a free trial or a freemium plan. No credit card. No hoops to jump through. Let them use the actual product. Let them experience the transformation firsthand. When they see for themselves how your tool saves them time or solves their problem, the sale becomes a formality. You're not generating Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) for your sales team to chase; you're creating Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) who are already convinced.
I looked at one SaaS client's website that was struggling badly. They were selling a complex accounting system and only offered a demo. Their competition? They were offering 30-day or even 60-day free trials. Who do you think was winning? A demo is not a trial. It's a sales pitch. Nobody wants a sales pitch.
How much should I even be paying for a lead?
This is where most founders get lost. They obsess over getting the lowest possible Cost Per Lead (CPL) without any context. A £10 lead isn't "cheap" if they never convert. A £250 lead isn't "expensive" if it turns into a £10,000 customer. The real question isn't "how low can my CPL go?" but "how high a CPL can I afford to acquire a great customer?"
To answer that, you need to know you're numbers. Specifically, your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
Let's do some simple maths. You need three bits of information:
-> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's a customer worth to you each month? Let's say it's £500.
-> Gross Margin %: What's your profit on that? Let's say it's 80%.
-> Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? Let's say it's 4%.
The calculation is straightforward:
LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
So, for our example:
LTV = (£500 * 0.80) / 0.04
LTV = £400 / 0.04
LTV = £10,000
In this scenario, each customer you sign is worth £10,000 in gross margin over their lifetime. Now you have the truth. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is at least 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to £3,333 to acquire a single £10,000 customer. If your sales team converts 1 in 10 qualified leads into a paying customer, you can afford to pay up to £333 for that qualified lead.
Suddenly that £250 lead from a CTO on LinkedIn doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth.
What about Meta? You haven't mentioned it.
It's a common misconception that Meta (Facebook & Instagram) is only for B2C. Don't write it off. For certain types of B2B SaaS, it can be an absolute goldmine, and often much cheaper than LinkedIn.
When does it work? It works well if your customer base includes small business owners, freelancers, or people in roles that have strong interest-based communities. For example, you can target 'Facebook business page admins' or 'small business owners'. You can target people interested in specific software (like 'Shopify' or 'WooCommerce' if you sell an e-commerce tool), or people who follow industry publications or influencers.
The targeting isn't as precise as LinkedIn for job titles, but the algorithm is incredibly good at finding people who will convert if you feed it the right data. The trick is to optimise for conversions, not awareness. A huge mistake is running "Brand Awareness" campaigns. You're just paying Meta to find the people least likely to ever buy anything. You have to set your campaign objective to Leads or Sales. You must tell the algorithm what you want, and it will find it for you.
We've had massive success with Meta for B2B SaaS. I'm talking about getting 1535 trials for one B2B SaaS client, and generating 4,622 registrations at just $2.38 each for another. These are numbers you'd struggle to get close to on LinkedIn. It is absolutely worth testing, especially if your product has a relatively low price point or a broad potential user base.
So how do I put this all together?
It’s not a case of Google vs LinkedIn vs Meta. A truly scaled-up B2B SaaS company will use all of them, but for different jobs at different stages of the funnel. You start with the lowest hanging fruit and build from there. You have to be strategic and methodical.
This is the main advice I have for you. It's a roadmap, not a menu. Follow it in order.
| Stage | Platform & Strategy | Why You Do This First |
|---|---|---|
| Stage 1: The Foundation | Google Search Ads (High-Intent Keywords) -> Target competitor names, "alternative to X" keywords, and specific "software for Y" terms. -> Send traffic to a landing page with a frictionless free trial offer (no card details). |
This captures the 'lowest-hanging fruit'. These people are already looking to buy. It's the easiest and fastest way to get your first paying customers from ads and prove there's a market for what you do. |
| Stage 2: Building Momentum | Meta Ads (Retargeting & Lookalikes) -> Retarget all your website visitors from Google Ads. -> Create lookalike audiences based on your new trial signups and paying customers. Test these with a conversion campaign. |
It's cheap, effective, and it scales. You're using the high-quality traffic from Google to 'teach' Meta's algorithm who your ideal customer is. This is how you find more customers like you're best ones. |
| Stage 3: Proactive Hunting | LinkedIn Ads (Spear-fishing) -> Target a hyper-specific list of dream clients by job title, company, and industry. -> Use ad copy that hits on a major pain point and offers a high-value piece of content (a report, a tool, a webinar) instead of a demo. |
Now you're not waiting for them to find you, you're going to them. This is for when you've exhausted the search demand and need to create new demand. It's expensive but essential for reaching up-market or niche enterprise clients. |
| Stage 4: Full-Funnel Dominance | All Platforms Running in Sync -> Use LinkedIn for top-of-funnel awareness to your ICP. -> Retarget those people on Meta with case studies and trial offers. -> Capture anyone who leaks out and starts searching on Google. |
This is the end game. Each platform is doing a specific job—creating, nurturing, and capturing demand. They work together to make sure you're everywhere your ideal customer looks. |
Navigating this is complex. It takes experience to know which levers to pull, how to structure the campaigns, how to write the copy that converts, and how to analyse the data without getting lost. It's a full-time job, and as a founder, your time is better spent building your product and talking to customers.
This is where getting some expert help can make a huge difference. A specialist can help you build this entire engine, avoid the costly mistakes most people make, and get you to profitability with your ads much faster. If you've read this far and feel a bit overwhelmed but also see the potential, you're in the right place. We offer a free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session where we can look at your specific situation and give you a clear plan of action. It might be the most valuable 20 minutes you spend on your markering all year.
