Paid Ads for Product Launches: A Founder's Go-To-Market Framework

If you're a founder about to launch a product, you've probably been told to "build it and they will come." Tbh, that's terrible advice and the fastest way to burn through your funding. The market doesn't care about your brilliant idea or your elegant code. It only cares about whether you can solve a painful problem for them. The biggest mistake I see founders make with paid ads is treating them like a megaphone to shout about their product launch. That doesn't work.

Instead, you need to think of paid ads as a precision tool for validation. It's a way to test your assumptions, find your real customers, and prove there's genuine demand for your offer *before* you've wasted months or years building something nobody wants. This isn't about getting a few vanity clicks; it's about building a go-to-market framework that actually works. We're going to break down how to do that, step-by-step.

So, who are you actually selling to?

Forget the generic customer profiles you've seen. "Companies in the finance sector with 50-200 employees" is a useless starting point. It tells you nothing about their motivations, their fears, or their day-to-day struggles. This kind of demographic targeting leads to bland, generic ads that get ignored because they speak to absolutely no one. If you want to stop burning cash, you have to define your customer not by who they are, but by the nightmare they're living in.

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, and career-threatening problem. A Head of Sales isn't just a job title; she's a leader staring at a missed quarterly target, terrified of explaining to the board why her team's pipeline has dried up. For a legal tech SaaS, the nightmare isn't a vague 'need for document management'; it's the paralegal who just realised a partner missed a critical filing deadline, exposing the entire firm to a malpractice suit. That's the pain you're selling a solution to.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, you can start building a real targeting strategy. Where do these people hang out online? Find the niche podcasts they listen to on their commute, like 'Acquired' or 'This Week in Startups'. Find the industry newsletters they actually open, like 'Stratechery'. Figure out the SaaS tools they already pay for, like HubSpot, Salesforce, or Intercom. Are they members of the 'SaaS Growth Hacks' Facebook group? Do they follow people like Jason Lemkin or SaaStr on Twitter/X? This intelligence isn't just data; it's the blueprint that tells you exactly where to place your ads. If you haven't done this work first, you have no business spending a single pound on ads. For many founders, this is the first step in creating a playbook to properly validate their offer with paid ads.

Is your offer good enough?

Once you know who you're targeting and what keeps them up at night, you need an offer that grabs their attention. Your ad's job isn't to sell your product; it's to sell the next click. And that click needs to lead to an offer that delivers immediate value. Most founders get this completely wrong.

For a high-touch service business, you need to use the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework. You don't sell "fractional CFO services"; you sell peace of mind. Your ad should sound something like this: "Are your cash flow projections just a shot in the dark? Worried that you're one bad month away from a payroll crisis while your competitors are confidently raising their next round? Get an expert financial strategy for a fraction of a full-time hire. We build dashboards that turn uncertainty into predictable growth."

For a B2B SaaS product, the Before-After-Bridge framework is powerful. You don't sell a "FinOps platform"; you sell the feeling of relief. Your ad might say: "Your AWS bill just arrived. It’s 30% higher than last month, and your engineers have no idea why. Another fire to put out. Imagine opening your cloud bill and smiling. You see where every dollar is going, and waste is automatically eliminated. Our platform is the bridge that gets you there. Start a free trial and find your first £1,000 in savings today." Notice how we've moved from features to feelings.

This brings us to the single biggest failure point in B2B advertising: the offer itself. The "Request a Demo" button is probably the most arrogant Call to Action ever created. It assumes your prospect, a busy C-level executive, has nothing better to do than book a 30-minute slot in their calendar to be sold to. It's high-friction, low-value, and immediately positions you as just another commodity vendor begging for their time. You have to delete it.

Your offer’s only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. This is where a proper SaaS paid ad playbook separates the winners from the losers. For SaaS founders, you have an incredible advantage here. The gold standard is a free trial (no credit card required) or a freemium plan. Let them use the actual product. Let them feel the transformation from their 'before' state to their 'after' state. When the product itself proves its value, the sale becomes a simple formality. You're no longer generating Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) for a sales team to chase; you're creating Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) who are already convinced.

If you're not a SaaS company, you're not off the hook. You have to bottle your expertise into a tool, some content, or an asset that provides instant value. A marketing agency could offer a free, automated SEO audit that shows a prospect their top 3 keyword opportunities. A data analytics platform could offer a free 'Data Health Check' that flags the biggest issues in their database. For us, as a B2B advertising consultancy, it's a 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad campaigns completely free of charge. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve their entire problem for a price.

What if I haven't even built the product yet?

This is where most founders get scared. They think they need a finished product before they can start marketing. That's backwards. The smartest thing you can do is market your product *before* you build it to see if anyone actually cares. This is the core idea of validation.

Here's the playbook: create a simple landing page. On that page, show off the features you're planning to build. Use persuasive copy that speaks directly to the 'nightmare' ICP you identified earlier. Get people excited about the 'after' state you're promising. Then, instead of a "Buy Now" button, have a "Join the Waitlist" button. Collect their email addresses, and maybe offer an early-bird discount or free access for the first month once you launch.

You can then email this list with updates, ask for feedback on feature prioritisation, and give the first batch of users access when you're ready for beta testers. The key is to keep them engaged until the launch. I wouldn't start promoting a waitlist unless you're either a) genuinely gauging demand for an MVP before building, b) will be accepting beta testers soon, or c) your actual launch is imminent. A lot of founders get stuck on how to market a waitlist for an unvalidated idea, but the principles are the same.

To get people to sign up, you can promote it on platforms like Betalist, Product Hunt, or in relevant Facebook and LinkedIn groups. But if you have a bit of budget, this is the perfect time to use paid ads. And this is where another huge mistake is often made. Founders run "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" campaigns on Meta, thinking they need to "get their name out there."

Here is the uncomfortable truth: when you set your campaign objective to "Reach," you're telling the algorithm to "find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price." The algorithm does exactly that. It finds the users inside your targeting who are least likely to click, least likely to engage, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever sign up for anything. Why? Because their attention is cheap. You are actively paying Facebook to find you the worst possible audience for your product. Awareness is a byproduct of solving a problem, not a prerequisite for it.

Instead, you must run a conversion-optimised campaign with the objective set to 'Leads' or 'Conversions', tracking the waitlist sign-up as your goal. This tells the algorithm to find people within your target audience who are statistically most likely to perform that specific action. Yes, your cost per impression will be higher, but your cost per actual waitlist sign-up will be far, far lower. This is how you validate demand with real data, not just vanity metrics.

How much should I actually spend on this?

This is the question every founder asks, and most get the answer wrong. They focus on minimizing the Cost Per Lead (CPL), trying to get it as low as possible. But the real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" It's "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer lies in a metric that most early-stage founders ignore: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

Calculating your LTV is the key to unlocking an intelligent, aggressive growth strategy. It moves you from guessing about your ad budget to making data-driven decisions. Here's how you work it out:

Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make per customer, per month? Let's say it's £500.
Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after accounting for cost of goods sold? Let's say it's 80%.
Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? Let's say it's 4% (meaning the average customer sticks around for 25 months).

The calculation is simple:

LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
LTV = (£500 * 0.80) / 0.04
LTV = £400 / 0.04 = £10,000

In this example, each customer is worth £10,000 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. Now you have the truth. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is typically 3:1. This means for a £10,000 LTV, you can afford to spend up to £3,333 to acquire a single customer and still run a very profitable business. If your sales process converts 1 in 10 qualified leads into a paying customer, you can afford to pay up to £333 per 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 frees you from the tyranny of 'cheap leads' and allows you to scale aggressively. It's the core of any ad budgeting guide that actually stops you from wasting money.

Where should I run my ads?

Once you know your numbers, the next step is picking the right ad platform. Founders often overcomplicate this, chasing the newest, trendiest platform. The reality is much simpler and it all comes down to a single question: is your ideal customer actively searching for a solution to their problem right now, or not?

A) If they are actively searching: Use Google Search Ads.
This is the lowest hanging fruit. These people have already identified their problem and are actively looking for someone to help them solve it. You just need to be there when they search. You'd do some keyword research to find what your ICP might be searching for. For example, a B2B SaaS that helps with code reviews could target keywords like "automated code review tool" or "github code quality checker". A local electrician would target "emergency electrician near me" or "electrical repair services". For these campaigns, it's all about capturing existing demand, not creating it. We have one B2B SaaS client in the recruitment space who reduced their CPA from £100 to just £7 by refining their Google Ads strategy alongside their Meta ads.

B) If they are not actively searching: Use Social Media Ads.
This is for when your potential customer has the problem you solve, but they might not be aware a solution like yours exists, or they aren't looking for it today. Here, your job is to interrupt them with a compelling message that makes them problem-aware.

• -> For B2B: Your best bet is almost always LinkedIn Ads. The targeting is unmatched. You can get incredibly specific, targeting people by job title, company size, industry, seniority, and even specific company names. This is how you get your ad in front of the exact decision-makers you need to reach. I remember one campaign we ran for an environmental controls company where we used highly-targeted LinkedIn Ads as part of a strategy that reduced their CPL by 84%.
• -> For B2C or selling to SMBs: Meta (Facebook & Instagram) is usually the place to start. While its B2B targeting is more limited ("small business owners," "business page admins"), its interest and behavioural targeting is incredibly powerful for reaching consumers or prosumers. We've seen massive success here for eCommerce brands, like one subscription box client that achieved a 1000% Return On Ad Spend.

Choosing the right channel based on user intent is the foundation of a solid channel selection framework that prevents you from pouring money down the drain.

How do I set up my first campaign properly?

Setting up a campaign isn't just about pushing buttons in the ads manager. You need a structure and a testing methodology. For new accounts, I always recommend starting with a simple funnel structure: Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu).

ToFu (Top of Funnel): This is your cold audience. These are people who have never heard of you before. This is where you'll spend most of your budget initially.
For a new account, you should start by testing detailed targeting (interests, behaviours). Think about the tools, publications, and influencers your ICP follows. For instance, if you're targeting eCommerce store owners, targeting a broad interest like "Amazon" is a bad idea. It's full of consumers. Instead, target interests like "Shopify," "WooCommerce," or followers of pages related to eCommerce software. You need to be specific. Once you have enough data (at least 100 conversions, but ideally more), you can start testing Lookalike audiences based on your best customers or leads.

MoFu (Middle of Funnel): People who've shown some interest.
This is your retargeting audience for people who have engaged but not converted. This could be people who visited your website, watched 50% of your video ad, or engaged with your Instagram page. You'll show them different ads, maybe a case study or a customer testimonial, to build more trust and bring them closer to converting.

BoFu (Bottom of Funnel): People who are close to converting.
This is for retargeting people who have taken a high-intent action, like adding a product to their cart or initiating checkout but not completing it. The message here is much more direct, perhaps with an offer of free shipping or a small discount to get them over the line.

The most important thing is to test. Always be split testing. Have one campaign for each stage of the funnel, and within that campaign, have multiple ad sets testing different audiences. Inside each ad set, test at least 2-3 different ad creatives (e.g., an image vs. a video, different headlines). Let them run for a few days. If an audience has spent 2-3x your target CPA and hasn't converted, it's probably not a winner. Turn it off and move the budget to the ones that are working. This initial period is all about gathering data and figuring out how to warm up your ads before committing your full budget.

Help! My ads are running but nothing is happening!

This is a common and frustrating problem. You're spending money, you might even be getting clicks, but no one is signing up or buying. To fix this, you need to diagnose where in the process people are dropping off. It's almost always one of three things:

1. Low Click-Through Rate (CTR) and High Cost Per Click (CPC)? Your Ads Are the Problem.
If people aren't clicking on your ads, it means your ad creative (the image or video) and your ad copy (the text) aren't resonating with the audience you're targeting. Your message is either boring, confusing, or irrelevant to their 'nightmare'. Go back to the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework. Are you calling out their specific pain point in the first sentence? Is your image eye-catching enough to stop their scroll? Test completely different angles and creatives.

2. High CTR but Low Landing Page Views or High Bounce Rate? Your Targeting or Ad Scent is Wrong.
If people click your ad but leave your website almost immediately, there's a disconnect. Either you're targeting the wrong people (they clicked out of curiosity but have no real interest) or the 'ad scent' is off. Ad scent means the message and visual style of your ad should match your landing page. If your ad promises a "free trial" and the landing page headline says "Schedule a Demo," you've broken their trust and they will leave.

3. Lots of Landing Page Visitors but No Conversions? Your Offer or Landing Page is the Problem.
This is the most common issue. You've successfully got the right person to the right page, but they aren't taking the final step. This points to a problem with your offer, your pricing, or the landing page itself.

• -> The Offer: Are you asking for too much too soon? Like I said, a "Request a Demo" for a new, unknown product is a huge ask. Do they need a free trial to believe your claims? Is the value proposition not clear enough? I remember looking at one B2B SaaS website; they were selling a complex accounting system with no free trial. Their ads were never going to work because the offer was fundamentally broken.
• -> The Landing Page: Does your page look trustworthy? Do you have social proof like customer testimonials, reviews, or logos of companies you've worked with? Is the copy persuasive and focused on benefits, not just features? Is the call-to-action button clear and easy to find? Sometimes, a few simple tweaks to a landing page can make a massive difference. Many founders find themselves in this exact spot, getting plenty of traffic but few results, which is a key reason why they look for ways to avoid wasting money on ads when they launch.

Your Go-To-Market Framework

Launching a product with paid ads isn't about guesswork. It's about following a methodical framework that de-risks your launch and gives you the best possible chance of success. It's about using ad spend as a tool for learning, not just for shouting. If you follow these steps, you'll be ahead of 90% of other founders.

This is the main advice I have for you:

It's not just about setting up an ad and hoping for the best. It's about understanding your audience, creating a compelling offer, knowing your numbers, and running methodical tests. This can be a lot for a founder who also needs to focus on building the product, talking to users, and hiring a team.

That's where professional help can make a huge difference. With years of experience and a deep understanding of the advertising landscape, an expert can help you navigate this process far more efficiently, avoiding costly mistakes and identifying winning strategies much faster. We can provide insights you might not have thought of and take over the entire implementation and optimisation process for you, ensuring that every pound you spend is working to grow your business.

If you're a founder looking to de-risk your product launch and build a scalable customer acquisition engine, we offer a free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy consultation. We'll take a look at your offer and your current plan, and give you some actionable advice you can implement right away. Feel free to book a call if you think that would be helpful.