Solved: PPC Strategy for Pre-Seed Insurance CRM in London

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on how you might put together a solid PPC strategy to impress those investors, even with the product not quite live yet. It’s not about having thousands of customers right now, it’s about proving there's real demand and you have a clear path to get 'em. This'll involve focusing on capturing serious interest early on.

We'll need to look at defining your target customer's real nightmare...

First off, forget that sterile, demographic-based profile your last marketing hire might’ve put together. "Insurance agencies in London" tells you next to nothing that’s actually useful. You’re building a CRM for them, right? So, what’s their real pain? What keeps the owner of that insurance agency in London awake at night?

Your ideal customer isn't just a job title; they're a business owner terrified of missing renewals, losing track of leads, or getting swamped by compliance paperwork. Their nightmare isn’t "needing a CRM"; it’s the thought of a compliance audit going sideways because their records are a mess, or losing a big corporate client because a renewal fell through the cracks. It’s the fear of their best agents jumping ship because your current clunky system is slowing them down. Your ICP isn't a person, it's a problem state, a really expensive, urgent, career-threatening one.

Once you’ve nailed that down, you start finding out where those people hang out online. Are there specific insurance industry forums or professional groups they frequent? Which trade publications do they read? Are there any niche podcasts for insurance brokers? This isn't just about data; it’s the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. You need to do this ground work first. If you don't, you’re just gonna be burning money on ads with no real direction.

Here’s a rough example of how you might think about your ICP, beyond just "London insurance agencies":

Understanding this depth of pain lets you craft messages that they genuinely can't ignore, which is going to be crucial for getting those pre-launch sign-ups.

I'd say you need to focus on a "Waitlist Offer" and not a "Demo"...

Since your product isn't live, you can't offer a demo, can you? And honestly, the "Request a Demo" button is pretty much the most arrogant call to action going, especially in B2B. It assumes your prospect, probably a busy agency owner, has nothing better to do than book a meeting to be sold to. It's high-friction and low-value. We always tell our clients to scrap it if they can.

For you, the aim isn't to get them to buy something yet. It's to get them to raise their hand and say, "Yes, I have that problem, and I'm interested in your solution." This is where a pre-launch waitlist comes in. Your offer’s only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value – an "aha!" moment that makes them want to know more, and ultimately, sell themselves on your solution when it’s ready.

You need to bottle your expertise into an offer that provides instant value, even if it's just the promise of future relief. For your CRM, this could be signing up for early access, perhaps with a promise of a special founding member discount, or exclusive insights into how to streamline insurance agency operations. It’s about building excitement and validating demand, which is exactly what investors wanna see.

So, you’d make a landing page, show off all the features you plan, get people really excited with the copy. Collect emails for a waitlist. Maybe even tie it with a special offer like free access for the first six months once the app launches, or a significant lifetime discount. You'll need to email that list with updates, ask for feedback, and let the first batch of users get access when you need beta testers. You’ve gotta keep them engaged until the launch.

I wouldn't promote the waitlist too early. Only when it’s an MVP to gauge demand, when you're accepting beta testers soon, or when your actual launch is coming up. Too early and you’ll lose peoples interest.

You probably should focus your budget on channels where demand exists or can be precisely targeted...

For B2B software, especially when you're trying to prove demand, you've got two main players for paid ads: Google Search and LinkedIn Ads. They let you reach people either actively searching for a solution or those who fit a very specific professional profile.

Google Search Ads: Capturing Intent

If your target audience is actively searching for a solution, Google Search ads are your best bet. You can target keywords that express specific user intent, rather than broad informational queries. For an insurance agency CRM, you'd focus on terms that suggest they're looking to solve a problem that your CRM addresses, or specifically looking for CRM software.

This way, your ads are shown to people who are “prequalified” – they’re already searching for the kind of solution you offer. Your ad copy would then lead them to your waitlist landing page, highlighting the pain your product will solve and the benefit of signing up early.

Here’s an idea of the kind of keywords and ad copy you might use for Google Search:

You'll want to enable call extensions and site link extensions to maximise real estate and give people more reasons to click, perhaps linking to an "About Us" or "Features" section on your waitlist page if relevant.

LinkedIn Ads: Precision B2B Targeting

LinkedIn is definately your main go-to for B2B. You can target decision-makers in insurance agencies with pretty precise options. Think about who makes the buying decisions for a CRM in an insurance agency. Is it the owner, the CEO, a senior manager?

You can target by job title, industry (Insurance), company size, seniority, even specific skills. You could also try making a list of target companies (larger, well-known insurance agencies in London) you'd like to see your ads and then target decision makers at those companies. LinkedIn usually works best with a narrow audience that targets your specific ideal customer profile.

For objective, you’d probably want to test Lead Generation forms (which open a pop-up and autofill details) with Sponsored Content ads. Or point them to your waitlist landing page. Lead Gen Forms often get lower cost-per-lead, but the leads might need a bit more nurturing as they're a lower-friction conversion.

Here’s how you might target on LinkedIn for your CRM:

This precise targeting is critical because you want to show investors that you understand your market and can reach the right people efficiently, even if it's just for a waitlist signup at this stage.

You'll need a message they can't ignore, even for a waitlist...

Your ad copy needs to speak directly to the problems of your ideal customers. For a high-touch service or B2B software, you deploy something like Problem-Agitate-Solve, or Before-After-Bridge. You’re not selling a "CRM with features"; you're selling relief from their pain.

Your ad for a waitlist shouldn't just say "Sign up for our CRM." It needs to hit hard on that "nightmare" we talked about. For example:

This approach gets their attention because it addresses their existing frustrations directly, even before they see the product. This kind of messaging validates that you understand their market and can articulate the value proposition, which will impress any savvy investor.

You probably should know what "cost per waitlist signup" to expect...

The real question for investors at this stage isn't "How low can our CPA go for actual customers?" but "How much does it cost to acquire a truly qualified prospect for our waitlist, and how does that validate demand?". The answer to that starts with understanding how to calculate Lifetime Value (LTV), even if it's a projected one for your future customers.

Let's say, theoretically, for an insurance agency CRM, you project your Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA) once they're a paying customer. Say, it's £300 per month. And your gross margin is 85%. You project a monthly churn rate of 3% for paying customers.

LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

LTV = (£300 * 0.85) / 0.03

LTV = £255 / 0.03 = £8,500

In this example, each customer could be worth £8,500 in gross margin over their lifetime. Now, even though you’re collecting waitlist signups, this LTV gives investors confidence that you're thinking about the long game. If you could say, convert 1 in 20 waitlist signups into a paying customer (once launched), then you know you could eventually afford to pay up to £425 for a waitlist signup (£8500 / 20). So a £5-£15 waitlist signup is suddenly a total bargain.

For waitlist sign-ups (which are a softer conversion than a trial or sale), you'd generally expect lower costs per conversion than a full product signup. For developed countries like the UK, where you're targeting London specifically, you're looking at a cost per click (CPC) usually in the £0.5 - £1.5 range. A landing page conversion rate for a waitlist (meaning people signing up) could be anywhere from 10% to 30% if your offer and copy are good.

So, your cost per waitlist signup (CPA) might be:

£0.5 / 30% = £1.67 (best case)

to

£1.5 / 10% = £15.00 (worst case, but still good for B2B)

This means if you're getting waitlist signups for, say, £5-£10 each, you can show investors that you're acquiring genuinely interested prospects at a very efficient rate, well within the profitable bounds of your projected customer LTV. This demonstrates a viable acquisition path even before product launch. One campaign we ran for a B2B SaaS got 4,622 Registrations at $2.38 Cost Per Registration on Meta Ads. So it is possible to get good numbers.

We'll need to look at how to reduce your cost per waitlist signup.

Even though you're just starting, demonstrating that you understand how to optimise for efficiency will go down well with investors. It’s not just about setting up an ad and hoping for the best. It’s about understanding your audience, optimising your targeting, creating compelling ads, and fine-tuning your landing page. You want to show them you have a plan.

Here’s where we usually focus our efforts to drive costs down:

1. Test Different Targeting: Even within "insurance agencies in London," there are always more audiences to test. Try different job titles, company sizes, or interests. Lookalikes of early signups (once you have enough data, like 100+ signups) can also be super effective. For example, once you have 100 signups, you could create a "lookalike audience" on LinkedIn or Meta of people similar to your current waitlist signups. This usually works really well for finding more prospects at a lower cost.

2. Focus on Quality Over Quantity: It might be tempting to broaden your targeting to get more signups, but that often leads to lower quality. For investors, it’s far better to have fewer, highly qualified signups who are genuinely interested in a CRM for insurance agencies than thousands of irrelevant leads. If you're seeing a lot of signups that don't seem to fit the bill, it might be worth refining your targeting, or adding a slightly more friction to the signup process, like an extra qualification question on the form.

3. Improve Your Ads: Professional, targeted ads can make a huge difference. If your CPCs are on the higher side of that £0.5-£1.5 range, better targeting and even more persuasive creatives (the images/videos and text) will get you closer to the lower end. Test different headlines, ad copy, and visuals. Do insurance agency owners respond better to a serious, problem-solution approach or something a bit more visionary? You won't know until you test.

4. Optimise Your Landing Page: This is crucial. Your waitlist landing page needs to be fast loading, mobile-friendly, and incredibly persuasive. Remove all distractions so visitors can only click the call-to-action button to sign up. Make the benefit of signing up early crystal clear. A professional copywriter and designer for this page can significantly increase your conversion rates. Even a few percent increase in conversion rate can have a massive impact on your cost per signup.

5. Don't Forget About Nurturing: While not strictly PPC, showing investors you have a plan to engage the waitlist is important. Email the list with updates, share insights into the problems you're solving, and build anticipation. This builds trust and keeps them warm until launch.

You'll need a way to show off your expertise and get investors excited.

Now, getting this right takes a bit of experience. It's not just about setting up an ad campaign and hoping for the best. It's about really understanding your audience, optimising your targeting, creating compelling ads, and fine-tuning that landing page. Investors will want to see you have a deep understanding of paid acquisition.

I’ve run quite a few campaigns for B2B SaaS clients, including helping them scale. For example, we reduced one medical job matching SaaS’s Cost Per User Acquisition from £100 to £7. Another software client saw 3,543 users at £0.96 cost per user through Google Ads. And we got 5082 Software Trials at $7 cost per trial using Meta Ads. This kinda experience means we know how to identify the best strategies, set up campaigns that work, and continually optimise to drive down costs.

Here’s a summary of the main recommendations I have for you:

Getting all this nailed down and showing it off with actual waitlist numbers is going to make a really strong case to your potential investors that you not only have a great product idea but also a solid plan to acquire customers efficiently once you launch.

If you'd like, we could jump on a quick 20-minute strategy session. We could audit some of your initial ideas or even just talk through how you might structure these campaigns in more detail. It’s completely free and usually helps folks get a bit clearer on their next steps.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh