What Does a B2B SaaS Digital Marketing Agency Actually Do?
Learn everything about what is a B2B SaaS digital marketing agency, what services are offered, and how to hire the right one for your startup software business.
Sadiq Toky
7/24/20266 min read
A b2b SaaS digital marketing agency focuses on drawing in business clients, employing strategies such as SEO, content promotion, paid ads and conversion optimization.
These specialists know SaaS metrics — MRR, Churn, and CAC — they create campaigns specifically to drive the recurring revenue in a way that general agencies cannot (sales instead of your one-off sales).
It is difficult to grow SaaS products. You put together something amazing, but your pipeline is sparse, trials signups are not converting, and all the competition you know is out there saturating the internet. Sound familiar?
And this is precisely what a B2B SaaS digital marketing agency aims to remedy.
These agencies do not simply run ads and write blog posts — they know the entire SaaS Customer Lifecycle, from first-click to lifetime customer.
This blog explains what they do, why they are different, and how to know if it is right for you before hiring one.
SaaS Digital Marketing Agency vs Regular Marketing Agency
The majority of digital agencies will measure clicks, impressions and site traffic.
While this shows well in reports, it might not always correlate with revenue.
Digital marketing agency focuses on the following metrics that actually matter for a software business:
MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue): How much predictable revenue your product brings each month
CAC: how much you have to spend, in order to get one new customer
LTV (Lifetime7252 : How much a customer is worth over the lifetime of3584 with you
Churn Rate (the % of customers who churn each month)
Trial-to-Paid conversion rate — Familiar with the number of free trial users that end up paying
If an agency understands these numbers, every campaign they run is structured in a way to move them in the right direction.
What Services Do B2B SaaS Digital Marketing Agencies Offer?
SEO and Content Marketing
SaaS SEO is one of the most important long-term channels for SaaS companies.
An agency worth its salt will have keywords that target what your potential customers are looking for, such as "best project management software for agencies" or "how to reduce customer churn," and create content.
This content does double duty. It brings in organic traffic and positions your brand as an authority on your topic.
A good content strategy eventually decreases your reliance on paid advertising.
Paid Advertising (PPC)
Though, since pay-per-click advertising on platforms such as Google Ads and LinkedIn can produce leads in no time.
LinkedIn is especially nice for B2B SaaS because it allows you to target job title, company size, and industry.
An agency that specializes in this already understands how to structure these ads so you aren t just attracting warm bodies who happen to be clicking.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Driving traffic to your site content is one thing. Converting trial signups from visitors is one.
Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO for short, is the systematic approach to testing and improving different parts of your site.
Headlines, CTAs, pricing pages, onboarding flows — anything that can affect the percentage of visitors who take action.
Email and Lifecycle Marketing
SaaS customers mostly do not make a purchase at one go. To do this well, an email strategy is needed to nurture leads through your funnel over time, to gently lead trial users towards "the moment" with your product and reengage customers who are at increased risk of churning.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
ABM is a highly focused approach where you create a list of target high-value companies and execute targeted campaigns directly aimed at the decision makers in those companies.
It's especially great for enterprise B2B SaaS or high-ACV prospects.
When Should a SaaS Company Hire a Digital Marketing Agency?
How do you know when it is time for your SaaS company to make the jump and hire a digital marketing agency?
And not every SaaS company needs an agency immediately. A simple way to think about that is as following:
If you are product/market fit, have a functioning sales motion (not selling identical readily available products), and wish to expand your pipe faster than your onboard employees can manage, select a B2B SaaS agency.
If you are still in early validation mode, take a pause. Pumping money into marketing before you've validated your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) can burn through budget fast.
If you have some internal marketing resources, but require specialists on channels such as SEO or paid media, consider a hybrid content team.
Usually, when you can clearly express who your customer is and what is the problem that you solve for him, if either of those are defined as a good lead? is the perfect time. Backgrounding first allows an agency to supercharge what is already flying.
What Should You Look for in a B2B SaaS Digital Marketing Agency?
Here are some pertinent questions to consider prior to signing a contract:
Are there any SaaS specific case study examples? Seek agencies that have experience working with companies of a similar size or in a similar industry as your own.
Do they understand your metrics? An alarm bell should ring, if they discuss clicks and impressions and retaining customers through marketing tactics my friend then says MRR or CAC.
How do they report results? The best agencies relate their work directly to pipeline and revenue, not traffic, need help understanding that.
How do they onboard clients? An effective onboarding process demonstrates that they understand how to build proficiency with your product, your audience, and your competitive landscape.
Are they upfront about what they are unable to do? Smart agencies know their limitations and will frankly tell you if a channel is inappropriate for your phase.
Should You Hire a B2B SaaS Marketing Agency?
The answer for most growth-stage SaaS companies is yes with the right hire. A specialist agency provides domain expertise, tried and tested frameworks and a whole professional team of channel experts in a given region that would take years to create in-house. It is worth doing well: you get better-qualified leads, lower CAC, and a content engine that continues to churn long after the campaign ends.
You can also check our blog about Digital Marketing For B2B.
FAQs
What does a B2B SaaS digital marketing agency do?
A B2B SaaS digital marketing agency takes care of growing software companies selling to other businesses (software as a service). You have noticed a few tactics here and there, like SEO, paid ads, content marketing, email campaigns—most suited to how SaaS is sold and retained.
What is the price of a B2B SaaS marketing agency?
Pricing varies widely. Retainer expenses for boutique agencies are roughly around $3,000 to $10,000 a month. Full-service agencies with more resources could set fees even higher, perhaps $15K and above. Further, certain agencies charge on a project basis for specific deliverables such as a content audit or a PPC campaign.
How long does it take to see results from a SaaS marketing agency?
Paid ad campaigns can convert leads in just weeks of running. SEO and content marketing usually produce tangible results in three to six months, but the returns are cumulative over time. Many agencies suggest making a six month commitment at least before you start assessing how the engagement is going.
How is a B2B and B2C SaaS marketing agency different?
B2B SaaS agencies deal with long sales cycles, multiple stakeholders and high-value contracts. B2C SaaS agencies play with high-volume and low-friction acquisition—apps that build giant free user bases. Strategies, channels and metrics are entirely different for both of them.
Should I hire an agency to the specific SaaS industry, or can a regular agency do the work?
A general agency can do some basic marketing, but most will not be familiar with the intricacies of SaaS metrics, free trial optimization and how to correctly position software as a service in the B2B sales process. In the case of SaaS, it will almost always be better to work with a specialist.
What to track as a B2B SaaS based agency?
Some of the most common metrics to keep a track of are MRR growth, CAC, LTV, trial-to-paid conversion rate, lead-to-customer rate and churn. A properly structured agency should report on these metrics monthly and link their campaigns directly with pipeline impact.
Can a SaaS marketing agency support being product-led growth (PLG)?
Yes—for many B2B SaaS agencies who now do PLG initiatives as onboarding, in-app messaging and self-serve driven content amongst their offering. Of course if PLG is the growth model you are pursuing make sure to ask them about experience in that area as well.
