Paid Ads: Founder's Framework For New Product Launch

Most product launches fail. Not because the product is bad, but because the go-to-market strategy is based on hope instead of evidence. Founders spend months, sometimes years, building in a vacuum, only to launch to the sound of crickets. They then burn through their remaining cash on generic "brand awareness" campaigns, praying that shouting into the void will somehow attract customers. This is a recipe for disaster.

The truth is, paid advertising isn't just a tool for scaling a successful product; it's the most powerful tool you have for de-risking your launch from the very beginning. It's a system for finding your first customers, validating your offer, and building a predictable engine for growth. Forget the vanity metrics and the launch-day fireworks. This is a founder's framework for using paid ads to find out what works, fast, and then doubling down on it.

Before You Spend a Pound on Ads, Answer This: Who is in Pain?

Let's get one thing straight. The ideal customer profile (ICP) your last marketing hire put together is probably useless. "Companies in the finance sector with 50-200 employees" is not a target audience; it's a lazy guess. It tells you nothing about their motivations, their fears, or the problems that keep them up at night. And because of that, it leads to generic ads that speak to absolutely no one.

To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer not by their demographics, but by their nightmare. What is the specific, urgent, and expensive problem they are facing right now? Your job is to become an expert in that pain.

For example, if you're selling a legal tech SaaS, the nightmare isn't 'needing better document management'. It's the Senior Partner terrified of a junior associate missing a critical filing deadline, exposing the entire firm to a multi-million-pound malpractice suit. The emotion is fear, the cost is catastrophic, and the urgency is immediate.

If you're selling a tool for software developers, the nightmare isn't 'inefficient workflows'. It's the Head of Engineering watching her best developers quit out of sheer frustration with a broken, clunky development cycle. She's not just losing productivity; she's losing her most valuable assets, her top talent, to competitors.

Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state. Once you've isolated that nightmare, everything else falls into place. You can stop guessing and start targeting with precision. Where do these people go to talk about their problems?

-> Do they listen to niche podcasts on their commute, like 'Acquired' or 'This Week in Startups'?
-> What industry newsletters do they actually open and read, like 'Stratechery' or 'Fintech Brain Food'?
-> What other SaaS tools are they already paying for? Are they in HubSpot or Salesforce user groups?
-> Are they members of the 'SaaS Growth Hacks' group on Facebook? Do they follow people like Jason Lemkin or Shaan Puri on Twitter/X?

This intelligence is the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. It transforms your ad campaigns from a hopeful shot in the dark to a calculated strike at the heart of your customer's biggest problem. Many founders skip this step because it's hard work. But doing this work first is the difference between a successful launch and a failed one. In fact, we believe so strongly in this that we've built an entire guide around using paid ads to validate your offer before you even write a line of code.

Your Product isn't Your Offer. So What Is?

Now that you know who you're talking to and what their pain is, you need to craft an offer. And no, your product is not the offer. This is the second most common failure point in all of B2B advertising: the offer itself.

The "Request a Demo" button is perhaps the most arrogant and ineffective Call to Action ever conceived. It presumes your prospect, who is likely a busy decision-maker, has nothing better to do than schedule a 30-minute meeting to be sold to. It's high-friction, low-value, and immediately positions you as just another commodity vendor clamouring for their attention. You must delete it.

The only job of your offer is to deliver an "aha!" moment—a moment of undeniable value that makes the prospect sell themselves on your full solution. You must solve a small, real problem for them, for free, to earn the right to solve the bigger problem for money.

For SaaS founders, this is your superpower. The gold standard is a free trial (no credit card required) or a freemium plan. Let them actually use the product. Let them feel the transformation for themselves. When the product proves its own value, the sale becomes a formality. You're not generating Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) for a sales team to chase; you're creating Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) who are already convinced. For instance, one campaign we worked on for a B2B SaaS client generated 1,535 trials, showing just how powerful a frictionless free trial offer can be.

If you're a service business, you are not exempt. You must bottle your expertise into a tangible asset. For a markering agency, this could be a free, automated website audit that uncovers their top 3 SEO opportunities. For a data analytics consultancy, it could be a 'Data Health Check' that flags the biggest issues in their database. For us, as a B2B advertising consultancy, it's a free 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad campaigns and provide actionable advice. It's a taste of the expertise they'll get if they work with us.

For high-ticket physical products, like scientific equipment, you attack the feature-obsession head-on. Don't just list a spec; state its consequence. Your offer isn't the machine; it's the result. For example: "Get a free sample analysis with a guaranteed 0.001% margin of error, so you can see the quality of data that will help you publish with unshakeable confidence, secure more grant funding, and attract top talent."

The offer is the core of your entire go-to-market framework for a product launch. Get it wrong, and even the best ads in the world won't save you.

Is Your "Waitlist" Just an Email Graveyard?

The idea of a pre-launch waitlist is sound, but the execution is almost always flawed. Most founders slap up a simple landing page, collect emails for six months, and then wonder why their big launch announcement gets a 5% open rate and zero conversions. The list is dead because there was no relationship, no engagement, and no value provided.

A successful pre-launch isn't about building a list; it's about building an engaged cohort of early believers who feel like they are part of the journey. The waitlist is just the entry point to that process.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

I wouldn't start promoting this waitlist until you are close to launch or have an MVP to show. Your best bet is to promote it on platforms where early adopters hang out, like Betalist, Product Hunt, or in niche subreddits and Facebook groups. If you have a budget, running small-scale conversion ads to the waitlist landing page can also work, but save the big spend for the actual launch.

Where Do Your Customers Live Online? (Hint: It's Not "Everywhere")

With a validated pain point and a compelling offer, it's time to choose your advertising platform. This choice isn't about which platform is "best" in a vacuum; it's about matching the platform's capabilities to your customer's intent and behaviour. Broadly, your potential customers fall into two camps.

Camp 1: They Are Actively Searching for a Solution (High Intent)
These are the easiest people to sell to because they already know they have a problem and are looking for a fix. The only place to find them at scale is Google Search Ads. Your job is to show up when they search for keywords that signal buying intent.

For an accounting software, this isn't just "accounting software." It's "Xero alternative for small businesses," "best accounting software for privacy," or "how to switch accounting systems." These long-tail keywords have lower volume but much higher conversion rates because the intent is so specific. For example, we worked with a medical job matching SaaS and reduced their cost per user acquisition from £100 down to just £7. A key part of this success was capturing high-intent traffic on Google Ads from people actively searching for specific roles.

Camp 2: They Are NOT Actively Searching, But They Have The Problem (Lower Intent)
This is a much larger group of people. They feel the pain you solve every day but might not be actively looking for a solution yet. Your job is to interrupt them, educate them, and show them a better way. The best platforms for this are LinkedIn Ads and Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram).

-> LinkedIn Ads is your weapon of choice for precise B2B targeting. If you need to reach 'Chief Technology Officers' at 'Fintech companies with 50-200 employees' in 'London', no other platform comes close. The traffic is expensive, but the quality can be exceptional. For one B2B software client, we used LinkedIn to target specific decision-makers and achieved a stable $22 Cost Per Lead, which was highly profitable for them. The trick is to use Lead Gen Forms to reduce friction, combined with compelling image or video ads that speak directly to their professional pain points.

-> Meta Ads is brilliant for B2C and for reaching small business owners or audiences defined by interests rather than job titles. The targeting isn't as precise as LinkedIn for B2B, but the scale and creative possibilities are huge. For instance, you can target people who are 'Admins of a Facebook Business Page' and also interested in 'Shopify' or 'WooCommerce'. For another B2B software client targeting SMBs, we used Meta to generate 4,622 registrations at an incredible $2.38 each, something that would have been impossible on LinkedIn.

To help you decide, here is a simple decision-making tool:

If you're still unsure, our detailed comparison of Google, Meta, and LinkedIn provides even more data to help you decide.

Why "Brand Awareness" Campaigns are a Waste of Your Launch Budget

Here is an uncomfortable but essential truth. When you log into Facebook or Instagram and set your campaign objective to "Reach" or "Brand Awareness," you are giving the algorithm a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people inside my targeting for the lowest possible price."

The algorithm, being the ruthlessly efficient machine that it is, does exactly what you asked. It seeks out the users who are least likely to click, least likely to engage, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever pull out a credit card and buy something. Why? Because those users are not in demand. Nobody else is bidding for their attention, so their eyeballs are cheap. You are actively paying the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you the worst possible audience for your new product.

For a product launch, every single pound in your budget must serve two purposes: learning and acquisition. An impression that doesn't lead to a click, a signup, or a sale teaches you nothing and gets you no closer to product-market fit. The best form of brand awareness for a startup is a customer switching from a competitor and raving about your product online. That only happens through conversion.

That is why, from day one, every single campaign you run must be optimised for a hard conversion event. This could be 'Leads', 'Sales', 'Complete Registration', or 'Start Trial'. This tells the algorithm to go and find people who have a history of taking these valuable actions. Yes, your cost per impression (CPM) will be higher. But your cost per actual customer will be infinitely lower. Awareness is a byproduct of effective conversion advertising, not a prerequisite for it. If this is your first time setting up a campaign, we have a complete framework for your first ad campaign to guide you through the process.

Do You Know How Much You Can *Really* Afford to Pay for a Customer?

Most founders are obsessed with the wrong metric. They focus on minimising their Cost Per Lead (CPL) or Cost Per Click (CPC), trying to drive it as low as possible. This leads to a race to the bottom, optimising for cheap, low-quality traffic that never converts. The real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to pay to acquire a truly great customer?"

The answer lies in understanding your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This is the total profit you will make from a customer over the entire time they are with you. Once you know this number, you can advertise with confidence.

Here’s the simple math:

Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): How much revenue does a typical customer bring in per month?
Gross Margin %: What is your profit margin on that revenue after accounting for costs of goods sold?
Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of your customers do you lose each month?

The calculation is: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Let's take an example. A SaaS business charges £200 per month (ARPA), has an 80% gross margin, and a 5% monthly churn rate.
LTV = (£200 * 0.80) / 0.05
LTV = £160 / 0.05 = £3,200

Each customer is worth £3,200 in gross margin to the business. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is typically 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to £1,066 (£3,200 / 3) to acquire a single customer and still have a very profitable business. If your sales process converts 1 in 10 qualified trials into a paying customer, you can afford to pay up to £106 per trial.

Suddenly, that £50 lead from LinkedIn doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the math that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth. Use the calculator below to find your own numbers.

You've Launched. Now What?

A successful launch isn't the finish line; it's the starting gun. Your initial campaigns, if successful, will prove you have a viable offer and can reach your target market. But this initial success will almost certainly plateau. The audiences that worked at £1,000/month in ad spend won't necessarily scale to £10,000/month. This is normal. Scaling isn't about just increasing the budget; it's about systematic optimisation.

The path from your first customers to predictable growth involves three key levers:

1. Funnel Optimisation: Your ads are only one part of the equation. What happens after the click? A 1% increase in your landing page conversion rate doubles the efficiency of your ad spend. Work with a copywriter to improve your messaging. A/B test your headlines and calls to action. Simplify your signup flow. A small improvement here has a massive downstream impact. Many businesses get good traffic that simply doesn't convert, and this often requires a deep look at your ad creative and landing page alignment.

2. Ad Optimisation: Never stop testing. Your winning ad creative from launch will eventually fatigue.
-> Creative Testing: Systematically test new ad formats, messaging angles, and visuals. We've had several SaaS clients see fantastic results with low-fi, user-generated content (UGC) style videos. They feel more authentic and cut through the noise.
-> Audience Expansion: As you gather data, build lookalike audiences from your best customers. Start with a 1% lookalike of your purchasers, then expand to 2%, 3%, and so on. Test new interest groups based on what you've learned about your initial customers.
-> Retargeting: Not everyone converts on the first visit. Build a robust retargeting strategy to bring back website visitors, cart abandoners, or trial users who haven't converted. Show them testimonials, case studies, or a special offer to get them over the line.

3. Platform Expansion: Once you have truly maximised your primary platform and can't scale further without your CPA skyrocketing, it's time to expand. If you started on Google Ads, move to Meta or LinkedIn to generate new demand. If you started on Meta, use Google Search to capture the demand you've created. This is a methodical process, not a random scramble.

This is a System, Not a Gamble

Launching a product with paid ads shouldn't feel like buying a lottery ticket. It's not about "getting the word out" and hoping for the best. It's a systematic process of de-risking your business by grounding your strategy in real-world data.

The framework is simple but powerful:
1. Identify the deep, urgent pain your customer is experiencing.
2. Craft a low-friction, high-value offer that solves a small piece of that pain for free.
3. Choose the ad platform where your customers are most likely to be receptive to that offer.
4. Run conversion-focused campaigns to acquire your first customers and learn what resonates.
5. Understand your LTV to know what you can truly afford to spend on growth.
6. Systematically optimise your funnel, ads, and platform mix to scale predictably.

Executing this system requires deep expertise, constant attention, and a disciplined approach to testing and optimisation. It’s not something you can set and forget. It requires a specialist who lives and breathes this stuff every day. If you've launched a product and are struggling to find traction, or if you're planning a launch and want to do it right from the start, it might be time to get an expert pair of eyes on your strategy.

This is the main advice I have for you:

If you'd like a team of specialists to implement this framework for your product launch and build a predictable growth engine for your business, we offer a free, no-obligation strategy consultation. We can review your current plans, audit existing campaigns, and show you exactly where your biggest opportunities lie.