Solved: Will Facebook Lead Ad Results Improve After Learning Phase?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out and asking for my thoughts on your situation. I'm happy to give you some initial guidance based on my experience with similar paid advertising campaigns. I’ve worked with B2B businesses, so hopefully I can point you in the right direction. I'll try and keep it as straightforward as possible.

We'll need to look at your website first...

Just had a quick look at your website. Firstly, honestly, I can see why your ads aren't performing as you’d like them too. There's always room for improvement, and it's often the small changes that can make a big difference. First impressions count, especially online.

You're in the B2B space, which automatically makes advertising a bit trickier and potentially more expensive. Unlike B2C, where you might see an immediate return, B2B sales cycles can be much longer. It's all about building relationships and trust over time.

Given that you are in B2B I feel that a quick turn around on results would not be appropriate or to be expected, these things can take time. In order to get the best results it is often necessary to get your target audience and objective in mind. Then you need to know whether these users are actively searching for a solution and what to do from there.

I'd say you need to offer a free trial...

I noticed that you're selling an accounting system, and let's be honest, convincing businesses to switch their entire accounting setup is a massive undertaking. They'll only do it if they absolutely have to, and it's never a snap decision. It's a bit like asking someone to move house – nobody does it for fun!

And here's a big one: you're not offering a free trial. In today's market, who's going to shell out for a brand-new accounting system without even kicking the tyres first? Your competitors are practically throwing months of free trials and discounts at potential customers just to get them in the door. I see you have a demo, but that's just not the same as getting your hands dirty with the actual product. You need a trial.

We've had some SaaS clients see ROI within a few days, but many take longer to optimise. A lot will depend on your offer, a completely free trial usually works best to get people in the door, then you can onboard them, nurture them, and upsell them to a plan later. To get people interested, you need a landing page with persuasive copy.

You probably should reconsider your value proposition...

I'm also not entirely convinced by your current value proposition: "Where business meets privacy." I'm not sure that businesses are losing sleep over the privacy aspects of their accounting software. What they really care about is reliability and having all the features they need. Plenty of your competitors already have privacy baked in as standard, so it's not much of a selling point, tbh.

You’re in a tough space with lots of competition, so its necessary to establish whether or not that feature is something that is going to set you apart from everyone else. I’m not too sure.

You'll need to find the right ad platform...

Then you need to decide on the right ad platform: for B2B it's usually either LinkedIn or Google Search ads. Social media ads with conversion optimisation can work but you'll need to get the targeting right. I can’t imagine other platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, or even X (Twitter) being suitable here – the users are not as business focused as other platforms such as LinkedIn.

Probably only search ads will be viable in your case as you need people to be actively searching for a new accounting software. Google Search ads will likely be your best option to get traffic from people searching for help.

You'd want to think about your ideal customer persona and which ad platform they can be reached on. You'd usually run ads to a landing page where people can sign up or start a trial for free. If your target audience is actively searching for your solution - > Google Search ads. You'd pick different keywords related to what people might be searching for.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Look at your performance metrics. Where do people drop off? Do you have really low CTRs and high CPCs? -> Your ad copy/product images likely need work. - Do you get visitors to your start page but only a small percentage of product page views? -> You're either getting the wrong type of traffic (look at your ad targeting/keywords) or maybe the products features aren't a good fit. - Do you get lots of product page views but no adds to cart? -> Likely your product photos, product descriptions, or pricing needs work. Maybe a special offer could help. Maybe people aren't ready to buy now and need long-term retargeting.

Overall, my impression is that your store doesn't look all that trustworthy yet which means I probably wouldn't feel comfortable ordering from you. Some trust badges could help: reviews and testimonials from customers, links to Etsy, Amazon, and other places where you sell your products, social profiles, publications you've been featured in, your address and maybe more ways to contact you.

You can target keywords like: "Accounting system", "Accounting software", "Business accounting software".

If you have maximised your campaigns...

This is quite normal for software campaigns. Your spend will plateau at some point where you can't scale further without lower ROAS/higher CPA - because you are only selling one product and can't easily branch out and there will be a limited number of people likely to convert for this product. So as you scale, costs increase.

You can get around this by

Improving your funnel:

- improving your website/funnel conversion rates. Any increase there will help you convert more traffic and so lower your CPA.

- increasing your customer lifetime value. If your users bring in more money, you can spend more to acquire a user and still be profitable.

Improving your ads:

- Proper split testing and campaign structure will go a long way.

- The most important factor is usually targeting. There are usually lots more audiences you could test out. Keep on testing until you find new winners.

- Creative testing: more creative formats, different messaging, mix things up to increase your chances of finding new winning creatives. We've had several SaaS clients see really good results with UGC videos - lots of angles to test there as well.

- Retargeting can help activate more users, reduce abandoned registrations, and convert more of your website visitors. Which all works to lower your acquisition costs.

- If your campaigns are eligible (once you have enough data), you can switch to ROAS optimisation. The system will then try to keep your ROAS stable while you increase ad spend.

Expanding to other ad platforms:

- There is a limited number of people that are most likely to convert within each audience. So if you've maxed out the pool of people likely to convert with your budget on Meta ads, you could try a new ad platform and tap into a different audience this way. Usually this won't make sense though until you've scaled to a higher ad spend.

Hope this helps!

While I'm happy to give you these initial thoughts and guidance, scaling B2B campaigns can be challenging, and you might find that working with an experienced team would be beneficial to make sure things are running efficiently and meeting your objectives. For example, I recall one campaign we ran for a B2B software company on LinkedIn Ads, and we were able to achieve a cost per lead of $22. Feel free to book in a free consultation, and we can discuss your specific needs in more detail.

Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh