Solved: Finding B2B agency for SaaS in London

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

I understand you're looking for a B2B agency to help with your SaaS business in London. It's a crowded market out there, and finding the right partner can feel like a massive task. I've run campaigns for a fair few SaaS companies over the years, so I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on what you should be looking for in an agency. Hopefully this'll give you a framework to help you make the right choice.

Honestly, choosing an agency is less about their fancy office or their sales pitch, and more about their actual, provable experience and how they think about growing a business like yours.

We'll need to look at what makes a good agency partnership...

First off, the most important thing is to find someone who actually knows what they're doing with B2B SaaS. It's a completely different beast to eCommerce or local services. The sales cycles are longer, the decision-making process is more complex, and the audience is much harder to pin down. So when you're talking to agencies, you need to cut through the noise and find out if they have genuine, relevant experience.

The best way to do this is to take a really good look at their case studies. Don't just glance at the headlines. See if they have experience in SaaS, or at least in B2B with similar challenges. Are they talking about results that matter to a SaaS business? Things like Cost Per Trial, Cost Per Demo, Customer Acquisition Cost (CPA), and ultimately, Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). For instance, I remember one campaign where the main goal was generating software trials. We managed to get over 5,000 trials at around $7 each. I also recall working with another B2B software company, where we brought in over 4,600 registrations at just $2.38 each. These are the kind of specific, meaningful metrics you want to see. If an agency's case studies are all about "brand awareness" or "engagement", they might not be the right fit for a business that needs to see a return.

You gotta be realistic results wise, of course. Every business is different and your niche might be more competitive. But if they've got solid case studies for similar companies, and it sounds like they truly understand the journey of a SaaS customer, that's a brilliant sign. Also look for reviews from past clients. What are people saying about them? Do the reviews feel genuine and do they back up the claims made in the case studies?

Tbh, after you've done your research, the next step is to get on a call with them. Book in an intro meeting or a consultation. This is where you can really test their expertise. A good agency should be able to offer you some initial advice right there on the call. They should be asking you smart questions about your business, your customers, your offer, and your goals. We offer a free initial consultation where we actually review a potential client's strategy and ad account with them. It’s super helpful for them because they walk away with actionable advice, wether they decide to work with us or not. And it gives them a taste of the expertise they'd be getting.

What you're listening for on this call isn't a promise of "guaranteed results". Anyone who promises you that in paid advertising is lying. It's impossible to predict exactly how ads will perform. What you're listening for is a clear, logical plan of attack. They should be talking about testing, optimisation, and a structured approach. If it feels like they know teh ropes and aren't just giving you a generic sales pitch, you're on the right track. If they sound vague or just promise you the world, I'd be very cautious.

I'd say you need a solid strategy before you even spend a penny...

A good agency won't just talk about ads. They'll talk about your entire funnel, starting with your offer and your website. Because if those things aren't right, you can pour all the money in the world into ads and it just won't work. I've seen this happen so many times.

I recall recently looking at a SaaS client's website before they came on board. They were selling an accounting system and their ads were failing miserably. It was pretty obvious why. First, they weren't offering a free trial. Think about it. Who is going to switch their entire company's accounting system—a massive, painful job—without even trying the new software first? Their competition was offering free trials, big discounts, the lot. You have to be competitive. For B2B SaaS, a free trial or a freemium model is often the best way to get people in the door. You let them experience the value first, then you can work on converting them to a paid plan.

Second, their main value proposition was about privacy. "Where business meets privacy." Now, privacy is nice, but is it the #1 thing a finance director cares about when choosing accounting software? Probably not. They care about reliability, features, integrations, and saving time or money. The messaging was completely misaligned with the customer's core needs. A good agency will help you challenge these things and get your offer and messaging right before they even think about building a campaign.

This is where professional sales copy comes in. It can make a huge difference. Your website, and especially your landing pages, need to be incredibly persuasive. They need to clearly articulate the problem you solve, why your solution is the best, and what the user should do next (e.g., 'Start Your Free Trial'). The page should be clean, professional, and build trust. We often bring in a specialist copywriter for our SaaS clients because getting that messaging spot-on is that important.

The whole sales process for B2B is different. For many high-ticket SaaS products, a simple funnel with a fixed offer just doesn't work that well. You're not selling a £20 t-shirt. You might see much better results by using ads to generate qualified leads—people who request a demo or book a consultation. Then you have a proper sales call with them, understand their specific needs, and offer a custom solution or the right tier of your product. An agency that understands this will structure your campaigns around generating these high-quality conversations, not just cheap clicks or signups.

You probably should focus on the right advertising channels...

Once your offer and website are in a good place, the next question is where to actually run the ads. A good agency won't just push their favorite platform; they'll choose the channels where your ideal customers are most likely to be found and, crucially, where they can be targeted effectively.

For B2B SaaS, it generally boils down to two main options, with a third possibility.

A) Google Search Ads
This is often the best place to start. Why? Because you're reaching people with intent. These are people who are actively searching for a solution to a problem they already have. They are 'problem aware' and 'solution aware'. They're typing things like "best crm for small business", "saas accounting software", or "project management tool for agencies" into Google. Your ad shows up at the exact moment they're looking for help. It's difficult to get more targeted than that.

A good agency will do thorough keyword research to find what your ideal customers are searching for. Some examples for a hypothetical SaaS might be:

• -> "AI implementation service"
• -> "AI agency near me"
• -> "best software for [specific task]"
• -> "[your competitor] alternatives"

The goal here is to capture that existing demand and drive highly qualified traffic to your landing page to sign up for a trial or demo. We ran a campaign for a medical job matching SaaS where we used a mix of Google and Meta ads to reduce their Cost Per User Acquisition from a staggering £100 down to just £7. A huge part of that was capturing that high-intent search traffic on Google.

B) LinkedIn Ads
If your customers aren't actively searching, or if you want to be more proactive and go after specific companies or job titles, then LinkedIn is usually your best bet. Its B2B targeting options are unmatched. This is where you go when you know exactly who you want to reach. For example, you want to target 'Chief Marketing Officers' at 'Software companies' with '50-200 employees' in the 'United Kingdom'. You can do that on LinkedIn.

Here’s a rough idea of how we'd approach building a LinkedIn campaign. Think about your ideal customer profile (ICP):

You can even get more specific and upload a list of target companies (from a tool like Apollo.io or just a list you've built yourself) and target the decision-makers at only those firms. I remember for one of our B2B software clients, we used this kind of precise targeting on LinkedIn to get leads from key decision-makers at a cost of just $22 per lead, which for their high-ticket offer was fantastic.

Then you need to think about the ad format. For lead generation, we often test Sponsored Content ads (the normal image or video ads in the feed) that either go to a landing page or use LinkedIn's own Lead Gen Forms. Lead Gen Forms can get you a lower cost per lead because they're so easy for the user to fill out (LinkedIn pre-fills their details), but the leads can sometimes be lower quality. It's something that needs to be tested.

C) Meta (Facebook/Instagram) Ads
A lot of people dismiss Meta for B2B, but it can work surprisingly well, especially for SaaS products that appeal to small business owners or have a broader user base. The B2B targeting isn't as good as LinkedIn's, but you can target people with interests like "small business owners" or "business page admins". I recall generating over 1,500 trials for a B2B SaaS client using just Meta ads. The key is a really compelling offer (like a free tool or trial) and a great creative that stops the scroll and clearly communicates the value. It won't work for every B2B SaaS, but it's definately worth considering and testing.

You'll need a clear plan for testing and optimisation...

This is what separates the great agencies from the average ones. Setting up a campaign is one thing; managing and scaling it is another entirely. Paid advertising is not a "set it and forget it" activity. It's a constant process of testing, learning, and optimsation.

This is particularly true for SaaS. At some point, you'll likely hit a plateau. You'll find that as you try to increase your ad spend, your Customer Acquisition Cost starts to creep up, and your ROAS goes down. This is normal. It happens because you've started to saturate the core pool of people in your target audience who are most likely to convert. The job of a good agency is to find ways to push past this plateau and continue scaling profitably.

How do they do that? A few ways:

• Improving your funnel: This goes back to the website and offer. Even a small increase in your landing page conversion rate can have a massive impact on your CPA. If you can increase the lifetime value (LTV) of your customers, you can afford to spend more to acquire them, which gives you more room to scale.
• Rigorous Creative Testing: You can't just run the same one or two ads forever. An agency should have a structured process for constantly testing new ad copy, new images, and new videos. We've seen great results for SaaS clients using User-Generated Content (UGC) style videos, for example. There are loads of different angles and messages to test to find new winning creatives that can unlock growth.
• Expanding Audiences: There are always more audiences to test. On Meta, this means testing dozens of different interest-based audiences, and as you get more data, building lookalike audiences from your best customers. You start with lookalikes of website visitors, then move to lookalikes of trial signups, and eventually to lookalikes of paying customers. Each step gets you a higher quality audience.
• Smart Retargeting: Not everyone who clicks your ad will sign up right away. In fact, most won't. A solid retargeting strategy is needed to bring these people back. You can show them different ads—maybe a customer testimonial, a case study, or a special offer—to nudge them towards converting. This is vital for reducing abandoned registrations and getting the most out of your traffic.
• Expanding to new platforms: If you've truly maxed out Google and LinkedIn, it might be time to test a new channel like Meta, Reddit, or TikTok, depending on your audience. This allows you to tap into a completely new pool of potential customers.

An agency should be able to talk to you about all of this. They should have a clear methodology for how they test and scale campaigns. If they can't explain their process, they probably don't have one.

This is the main advice I have for you:

Okay, that was a lot of information. To make it a bit more digestible, here’s a summary of what I believe your initial focus should be when evaluating and planning with a new agency. This is the kind of roadmap a good partner would build with you.

Finding the right agency is about finding a partner who thinks about your business this way—holistically, strategically, and with a relentless focus on data and results. It's a lot more than just running ads.

This is the kind of thinking we bring to all our clients. We see ourselves as an extension of their growth team. It's a partnership, and it has to be built on trust and a shared understanding of the goals. Finding an agency in London gives you the advantage of being in the same timezone and maybe meeting in person, which can help build that relationship.

I hope this detailed breakdown gives you a much clearer picture of what to look for and what to expect. It's a complex area, but with the right approach and the right partner, paid advertising can be an incredibly powerful growth engine for a SaaS business.

If you'd like to discuss your specific situation in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can review your current setup and give you some more tailored advice. It's a good chance to see if we'd be a good fit.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh