Solved: Need LinkedIn Ads Agency for B2B SaaS in London

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch. I understand you're looking for a LinkedIn agency in London that gets how to run ads for B2B SaaS, and you're struggling to find the right fit. Tbh, it’s a common problem. A lot of agencies are great at running ads for ecommerce or local services, but B2B SaaS on a platform like LinkedIn is a completely different beast. It needs a different mindset, a different strategy, and a real understanding of the longer sales cycles involved.

I’m happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance based on my experiance running these types of campaigns. It might help you figure out what to look for in a partner, or even give you a few ideas to try yourself. There's no one-size-fits-all answer, but there are definitely some core principles that hold true for most SaaS businesses we've worked with.

We'll need to look at your Ideal Customer and the sales journey...

Before you even think about creating an ad on LinkedIn, the absolute first thing to nail down is who you're actually trying to sell to. I know it sounds basic, but it's amazing how many campaigns we see that are just firing shots in the dark. For B2B SaaS, this is doubly important because you're not selling a £20 t-shirt; you're often selling a complex solution that requires buy-in from multiple people in a company.

So, who is your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)? I'm not just talking about "companies that need our software." I mean getting really granular.

-> Company specifics: What size of company gets the most value from your software? Is it startups with 10-50 employees, or more established SMEs with 50-200? What industry are they in? Is it tech, financial services, marketing, something else? You need to be really specifc here because LinkedIn's targeting lets you zero in on these exact firms.

-> Decision-makers: Who inside those companies actually makes the decision to buy? Is it the Head of Sales, the CTO, the Marketing Director, or the CEO? And who are the influencers? Maybe a junior manager is the one who feels the pain point your software solves, and they need to convince their boss. You need to understand this internal dynamic to tailor your message correctly.

Once you have this ICP defined, you can map out the customer's journey. For B2B SaaS, it's rarely "see ad, click, buy." It's a much longer, considered process. It usually looks something like this: Problem Awareness -> Solution Discovery -> Consideration & Comparison -> Demo/Trial -> Purchase Decision. Your ads need to meet them where they are in that journey. Someone who's just realised they have a problem needs a different message to someone who's actively comparing your software with a competitor's.

Most B2B offers, especially higher-ticket SaaS, don't do well with a hard sell straight away. A funnel that pushes for an immediate purchase just won't work. Instead, the goal of your LinkedIn ads should probably be to generate a qualified lead that you can then nurture. This could be getting them to:

-> Book an intro call or a demo.
-> Sign up for a free trial.
-> Download a valuable resource (like a whitepaper or case study) in exchange for their contact details.

This is all about starting a conversation, not closing a sale on the first click. I remember one case where we helped a medical job matching SaaS company reduce their cost per user acquisition from £100 to £7 by shifting the focus to offering a free strategy review for their hiring process, and their cost per *qualified* lead dropped dramatically once we refined the whole funnel. It shows that changing the offer to match the sales cycle makes a huge difference.

Here’s a quick example of how you might break down an ICP for a fictional SaaS product that helps with project management for creative agencies:

Getting this foundation right is probably 50% of the battle won.

I'd say you need a bulletproof LinkedIn targeting strategy...

Once you know exactly who you're targeting, LinkedIn becomes an incredibly powerful tool. Its strength is in its B2B targeting data, which is far more accurate than what you'd find on Meta or other platforms. But you have to use it correctly. Going too broad is a common mistake that wastes a lot of money.

Your goal is to build audiences that match the ICP you defined as closely as possible. For B2B SaaS, a narrow, highly-relevant audience almost always beats a massive, vaguely-interested one.

Here's how I'd approach building out those audiences:

1. Start with Profile-Based Targeting: This is your bread and butter on LinkedIn. You can layer different attributes to build a really specific audience. You'd use things like:
-> Job Title: Target the exact roles you identified as decision-makers (e.g., "Chief Marketing Officer", "Head of Sales").
-> Company Industry: Limit your ads to the industries that are a perfect fit for your software.
-> Company Size: As we discussed, focus on the sweet spot for your product (e.g., 51-200 employees).
-> Job Seniority: You can target "Directors", "VPs", "C-Level" to ensure you're reaching people with purchasing power.

You can combine these to get really focused. For example: (Job Title: "Head of IT" OR "CTO") AND (Company Size: 50-200 employees) AND (Industry: "Financial Services" OR "Software"). This ensures every single person who sees your ad is a potential high-quality lead.

2. Use Matched Audiences: This is where things get more advanced and where you can see some really great results. This involves using your own data.
-> Company Lists: If you have a list of, say, 500 dream companies you want to work with, you can upload that list to LinkedIn. The platform will then find those company pages and you can target ads to the employees who work there. You can then layer on job title or seniority targeting to reach only the decision-makers within those specific companies. This is a brilliant tactic for account-based marketing (ABM). Tools like Apollo.io or ZoomInfo can help you build these lists if you don't have one already.
-> Contact Lists: If you have an email list of leads or past contacts, you can upload that too. It's a great way to re-engage people who already know who you are.
-> Website Retargeting: You absolutly must have the LinkedIn Insight Tag installed on your website. This lets you build audiences of people who have visited specific pages. You can retarget everyone who visited your pricing page but didn't sign up for a demo, for instance. These are warm leads, and it's much easier to convert them.

The key is to test these different approaches. Don't just create one audience and hope for the best. Set up different ad sets to test different targeting combinations. I remember one campaign we worked on where we targeted B2B decision makers for a software company and achieved a CPL of around $22. This is a result you just couldn't acheive with broad targeting.

Here's a sample of how you might structure your initial audience tests:

By running seperate ad sets for these audiences, you can quickly see which pocket of the market is most responsive and double down on what's working.

You probably should test different ad formats and campaign goals...

Okay, so you know who you're targeting and what you want them to do. Now you need to actually build the ads. On LinkedIn, you have a few choices for both the campaign objective and the ad format, and the combination you choose depends entirely on your goal.

Let's look at the objectives first:

-> Lead Generation: This is a very common choice for B2B. When someone clicks your ad, a pre-filled form (a "Lead Gen Form") pops up right within LinkedIn. It pulls their name, email, company, job title etc. from their profile. Because it's so easy for the user, conversion rates can be high. The downside? The lead quality can be lower. It's so frictionless that you might get people clicking who aren't that serious. You'll need a solid follow-up process to qualify these leads.

-> Website Conversions: This objective sends people to a dedicated landing page on your website where they can fill out a form to book a demo or start a trial. This is more effort for the user, so your cost per lead will almost certainly be higher than with Lead Gen Forms. However, the quality of the lead is usually much, much better. Someone who takes the time to go to your site and fill out a form is showing much stronger intent. For most of our SaaS clients, this is the objective we optimise for in the long run.

-> Conversation Ads: These are a bit different. They land directly in a user's LinkedIn inbox, like a sponsored InMail. You can create a sort of "choose your own adventure" flow with multiple call-to-action buttons. These can be great for starting a direct dialogue with high-value prospects, but they can also be expensive and feel a bit intrusive if not done well.

I usually recommend testing Lead Gen Forms against a dedicated Landing Page to see what gives you the best balance of lead volume and lead quality. We've seen that a $22 CPL can be achieved from a Website Conversions campaign pointing to a very persuasive landing page.

Next, the ad format itself. What the user actually sees in their feed.

-> Single Image Ads: The classic. A strong image, a headline, and some copy. These are great for getting a clear, concise message across quickly. You need an image that stops the scroll and copy that speaks directly to your ICP's pain points.

-> Video Ads: Video can be brilliant for SaaS. You can do a quick 30-60 second demo of your software in action, or have a founder or customer talk to the camera. It helps build trust and can deliver a more complex message than a static image. Leads from video ads are often more qualified because they've taken the time to watch and understand what you do before they click.

-> Carousel Ads: These let you use multiple images or videos in one ad, which the user can swipe through. They're perfect for showcasing different features of your software, highlighting a few key benefits, or telling a step-by-step story.

You should absolutly be split-testing these formats against each other. For a given audience, run an image ad and a video ad and see which performs better. Don't assume anything. What works for one SaaS company might not work for another.

A quick note on ad copy: don't talk about yourself. Talk about the customer and their problems. Instead of "Our software has AI-driven analytics," try "Stop guessing. Get the data you need to make profitable decisions." It's all about them, not you. A good copywriter who understands B2B SaaS is worth their weight in gold.

You'll need a way to measure what's actually working...

Finally, none of this matters if you can't track your results and make smart decisions based on the data. Paid advertising isn't a "set it and forget it" channel, especially not for B2B SaaS. It's a process of constant testing, learning, and optimisaton.

The biggest mistake I see is companies focusing only on vanity metrics like impressions or clicks. They don't tell you anything about whether you're making money. The metrics that matter are further down the funnel:

-> Cost Per Lead (CPL): How much does it cost to get one person to fill out your form? This is your top-level metric to see if your ads are efficient.

-> Cost Per Demo Booked / Trial Started: This is even better. How many of those leads actually take the next step? This tells you about your lead quality.

-> Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): The holy grail. How much does it cost in ad spend to get one new paying customer? This is the ultimate measure of success.

To track this properly, you need your conversion tracking set up perfectly. That means the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website, and conversion events set up for every important action (form submission, demo booked page, etc.).

You also need a logical campaign structure to make testing easy. A simple, effective structure could be:

1 Campaign (e.g., UK - Lead Generation - Website Conversions)
   -> Ad Set 1: Targeting UK Marketing Directors
      -> Ad 1: Single Image Ad
      -> Ad 2: Video Ad
   -> Ad Set 2: Targeting Target Account List - Execs
      -> Ad 1: Single Image Ad
      -> Ad 2: Video Ad
   -> Ad Set 3: Retargeting Pricing Page Visitors
      -> Ad 1: Carousel Ad (showing case study)
      -> Ad 2: Video Ad (customer testimonial)

This structure lets you compare the performance of each audience (Ad Set 1 vs Ad Set 2) and each creative (Ad 1 vs Ad 2) cleanly. After a week or so, you can see which audiences and ads are driving results and which ones are wasting money. Then you turn off the losers and put more budget behind the winners. And then you start a new test. It's a continous cycle.

It's this process of rigorous testing that separates successful campaigns from failures. It's how you take a campain from just getting by to generating a real, scalable pipeline of customers for your business.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know that's a lot to take in. To make it a bit clearer, here's a summary of the main recommendations I'd suggest focusing on.

As you can probably tell, getting this right is complex. It's not just about knowing how to click the buttons in the LinkedIn Ads manager; it's about having a deep strategic understanding of the B2B SaaS market and how to connect with buyers within it. This comes from experience – from running dozens of these campaigns, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and learning from those results.

An expert partner can help you bypass a lot of the costly trial and error and get to a profitable result much faster. They can bring the strategic insight, the copywriting skills, and the rigorous testing methodology needed to build a scalable customer acquisition engine on LinkedIn.

I hope these initial thoughts have been helpful. If you’d like to have a more detailed chat about your specific business and how we might be able to help you navigate these challenges, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can take a look at your situation together and give you some more tailored advice.