Facebook Ads for B2B SaaS -8 Reasons Why They're Great

Our market is predominantly B2B, which means that we mainly serve companies that sell to other companies. Our role is in helping them get more traffic, leads, and customers.  

Paid media is a big part of what we do,   which usually consists of Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn Ads.

However, a conversation that we have with almost all of our clients is whether or not Facebook should play a part in the paid media playbook.  

The general pushback that we see is that LinkedIn should be for B2B and Facebook is for B2C.

But, we take the contrary view and see fantastic results in lead generation for B2B SaaS companies.  

Here are 8 reasons why Facebook is great for B2B SaaS marketing:

1. Your audience is on Facebook
2. People are engaging
3. Costs are low
4. It’s easy to identify your target market
5. Facebook knows a lot about you
6. Advertising on Facebook doesn’t just mean advertising on Facebook
7. You’re not waiting for people to search you out
8. You can reach people earlier in the buyer’s journey

Let’s have a look at each of these in further detail.

1. Your audience is on Facebook

Do you have a Facebook account? How often are you on Facebook? How many times have you clicked an industry-related ad that actually interested you? Now, you may be one of the few people that don’t have a Facebook account –but you’d be in the minority. According to Statista.com there are currently 41.04m Facebook users in the UK alone, and this is predicted to rise to 42.27m by 2022. The Facebook Audience Insights tool reveals that there are 35-40m UK residents active on Facebook – that’s nearly 75% of the entire adult population of the UK that has an account.

Go to Facebook and do a search for your target market; I can almost guarantee that there’ll be active groups around that niche, showing you that your audience is using the platform. Here are some examples:

2. People are engaging

Take a look at this graph which shows the engagement of an average user over the last 30 days. They’ve clicked on 20 ads, liked 15 posts and commented 8 times. If you’ve got interesting content (including paid), then your audience will engage with it.

*Facebook audience insights tool

3. Cost are low

The Facebook platform isn’t as mature as Google and, as such, competition isn’t as high – especially at the moment; with the current Coronavirus measures, more people are online, and more businesses are cutting advertising (which is the wrong thing to do). This means that cost-per-lead can be incredibly competitive compared to other platforms. 

4. It's easy to identify target markets

Facebook’s targeting is especially powerful, and it’s targeting algorithm is extremely advanced. Facebook makes it easy to build a target audience and send highly relevant advertising to it. Its algorithm will do its own optimisation and further target your advertising based upon results.

5. Facebook knows a lot about you

...And I mean, a lot about you. It’s not just your activity on the Facebook platform that is monitored. Any website that has the Facebook pixel installed feeds information back to its algorithm, giving it considerable insight into your demographics and behaviours. Advertisers can then use this information to optimise their campaigns.

6. Advertising on Facebook doesn't just mean advertising on Facebook

When you set up an advertising campaign, you have the option to select different placements. Most people know that Facebook bought Instagram a few years ago and ads on Instagram are managed through the Facebook tool, but a lot of people don’t know that Facebook has its own audience network. This network of sites and apps hosts its ads, giving you massive ability to expand your reach outside of the social platform.

7. You're not waiting for people to search you out

Unlike Google Ads, where your ads won’t appear unless the user has actively searched out your targeted keywords, you can put your content in front of your audience. Now, this does mean that your advertising strategy needs to be different to Google Ads and you may need to take a longer-term approach, but it means that you can massively increase the reach and gain a lot more awareness of your business throughout your niche.

8. You can reach people earlier in the buyers journey

1. Unaware: They don’t know anything about your product, service, what it does or why it’s needed; they don’t care about you or your product.
2. Problem Aware: They know they have a problem, but don’t know how to fix it.
3. Solution Aware: They know what they want to do and what they need, but don’t know about your solution.
4. Product Aware: They are aware of you and your offering but haven’t chosen you yet.
5. Most aware:  These people know, like and trust you and your product/service.

With Facebook, you’re able to target people at all of these levels and amend your ad content to match them accordingly.

Hopefully, this article has gone some way in showing you why you should not dismiss using Facebook as a marketing platform for your B2B SaaS business. If you’d like a chat about your specific target and whether you think it would be good for you, then book a call with one of our SaaS growth specialists.

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