There’s a big demand for top-notch B2B SaaS marketing agencies that are skilled at creating marketing plans that fit the special needs and meet the unique challenges of SaaS businesses. The right B2B SaaS marketing agency can make all the difference when it comes to advertising cloud-based solutions and successful, scalable growth.

In this article, you’ll find a detailed list of the top 32 B2B SaaS marketing agencies for 2024. Each agency has its own unique strengths and abilities; From SEO and CRO to PPC and email marketing, these agencies offer a wide range of services to help SaaS companies achieve their marketing goals.

27 Top B2B SaaS Marketing Agencies in 2025:

1. NoGood
2. Roketto
3. Single Grain
4. BAMF Media
5. Deviate Labs
6. Directive
7. Bay Leaf Digital
8. Metric Theory
9. Ladder
10. Inturact
11. SimpleTiger
12. Digital Current
13. From The Future
14. HeyDigital
15. Cobloom
16. Wallaroo Media
17. Earnest
18. NinjaPromo
19. SmartBug Media
20. Refine Labs
21. New North
22. Heinz
23. Ironpaper
24. Kalungi
25. Skale
26. Accelerate Agency
27. 310 Creative

1. NoGood

NoGood takes a full-funnel approach to drive our growth marketing initiatives. With rapid experimentation practices and a data-driven philosophy, we’ve helped many SaaS companies grow significantly and scale successfully. With experience with companies at various stages of growth, from startups to enterprise, we’ve built relationships with brands like Amazon, Microsoft, and Nike.

Our team brings together growth leads, data scientists, and creative minds to craft a holistic strategy for our clients, driving growth from all perspectives. We’ve won awards from the Shorty Awards, Webby Awards, and the Drum Awards, and we’re continuously striving toward excellence by redefining what it really looks like to succeed online with your digital marketing campaigns.

Office Location: New York, NY

Year Founded: 2017

Team Size: 50-100 employees

Key Services: SEO, CRO, SEM, PPC, Display, Programmatic, Email Marketing, Ad Creative, Attribution Reporting, Social Media Marketing, Push Notification Marketing, App Marketing

Industries Served: Retail, Consumer Tech, Gaming, Healthcare, B2B, SaaS, DTC

Case Studies: Intuit, Invisibly, Bytedance, Merlin

2. Roketto

Roketto is a top inbound marketing and web design agency that specializes in bringing steady growth to B2B SaaS companies through a full-funnel approach. Focusing on scaling reach, profits, and overall net work, Roketto has helped many software businesses achieve success. They’re also a certified partner agency of HubSpot, bringing the world’s top inbound marketing automation platform to help support their initiatives and maximize your investment.

Office Location: Kelowna, BC

Year Founded: 2009

Team Size: 11-50 employees

Key Services: SEO, CRO, Email Marketing, Web Design, Paid Ads, Content Marketing

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS, Education, Real Estate, DTC

Case Studies: Speedy Search, Keats School, The Garage Sale

3. Single Grain

Single Grain is a results-driven digital marketing agency that brings energy and passion to every campaign. Their skilled marketers assist brands in figuring out the best ways to invest their money, reach their goals, and drive results – whether it’s through social advertising, targeted search marketing, or yet another strategy. Some notable companies they’ve worked with include Airbnb, Crunchbase, and Alexa.

Office Location: Los Angeles, CA

Year Founded: 2005

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: SEO, PPC, CRO, SEM, Content Marketing

Industries Served: SaaS, B2B, eCommerce, Education, Crypto & Blockchain

Case Studies: Nextiva, Twenty20, Intuit

4. BAMF Media

BAMF stands for Badass Marketers and Founders. They specialize in helping sales-focused companies turn cold leads into real prospects by having genuine conversations with their ideal customers, investors, or business partners. They use a special method that blends human research, their own technology, and data-driven writing to speed up business growth through email and LinkedIn prospecting.

Office Location: Venice, CA

Year Founded: 2017

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: SEM, PPC, Email Marketing, LinkedIn/Social

Industries Served: SaaS, B2B, Sales, Agencies, Content Creators

Case Studies: Florian Hagenbuch, Nick Black

5. Deviate Labs

Deviate Labs is a growth marketing consulting agency founded by a rocket scientist and a Silicon Valley investment banker. They’ve collaborated with companies across all industries, ranging from small startups to huge, billion-dollar corporations. Their clients include venture-backed startups like Dollar Shave Club, a half-dozen companies featured on the reality show ABC TV Shark Tank, a multi-billion dollar Korean conglomerate, and a host of others. Meeting their clients where they’re at, they develop and construct bespoke go-to-market strategies to meet their clients’ specific needs.

Office Location: Los Angeles, CA

Year Founded: 2014

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: SaaS SEO, CRO, Programmatic, Email Marketing, Consulting

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: Tapfiliate

6. Directive

Directive relies on a deep understanding of their customers to drive sales and maximize marketing dollars. This next-generation performance marketing agency works as an extension of your internal marketing department to ensure that each campaign they launch is a real success. With expertise across multiple disciplines and a wide array of companies, you can be confident in what Directive brings to the table.

Office Location: Irvine, CA

Year Founded: 2014

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: SEO, PPC, Programmatic, Content Marketing, CRO, Video, Go-to-Market

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: Matillion, Sumo Logic, Xactly, Vyond

7. Bay Leaf Digital

Bay Leaf Digital is a holistic SaaS Marketing Agency with over 30 years of combined experience. They take a customized approach to create and implement strategies that drive revenue with a focus on increasing brand awareness and generating qualified leads with your target audience. With a focus on data and high-quality insights, Bay Leaf Digital has driven success for companies like Travelocity, Angie’s List, and Citigroup.

Office Location: Bedford, TX

Year Founded: 2013

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: SEO, PPC, Content Marketing, Marketing Automation, Social Media Marketing, Analytics, Web Maintenance

Industries Served: SaaS, Retail, B2B

Case Studies: MeazureUp, Acctivate, TEXT2DRIVE, Sapience Analytics

8. Metric Theory

Metric Theory is a digital marketing agency focused on performance. They work with a wide range of companies – including consumer app companies, major eCommerce sites, and fast-growing startups – and they’ve handled millions of dollars in ad spending for more than 500 clients. You’ll work with a specialized strategy team experienced in your specific industry so they can deliver the best results that are tailored directly to your goals.

Office Location: San Francisco, CA

Year Founded: 2012

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: Programmatic, Ad Creative, Paid Search, Paid Social, Google Shopping, Video Marketing

Industries Served: Retail, B2B, SaaS, DTC

Case Studies: View all case studies.

9. Ladder

Ladder is an award-winning marketing agency that emphasizes data to fuel your growth and inform their creative testing initiatives. Their growth experts work alongside your in-house team to ensure you can stay on track and reach your goals efficiently and effectively. With their own proprietary technology, they’ve worked with fast-growing teams across industries, from startups to big enterprise names, and they always focus on performance and a full-service strategy.

Office Location: New York City, NY

Year Founded: 2014

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: Conversion Optimization, PPC, Email Marketing, Creative

Industries Served: B2B

Case Studies: Inne, Qmee

10. Inturact

Inturact is a full-service growth-marketing agency for SaaS companies and products. To align their digital marketing strategies with your sales goals, they leverage the latest technology solutions to increase your reach, engage more customers, and drive revenue. They emphasize building a process to market your product and bring it to your target audience, relying on their experience with hundreds of B2B businesses. They also offer a guarantee of 5 times your ROI, and if they don’t hit that goal in the original time frame, they’ll work at no additional cost until they’ve achieved it.

Office Location: Houston, TX

Year Founded: 2006

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Strategy and Production, Link Building, Paid Advertising, Sales Outreach, Product Roadmap Consulting, Web Design and Development

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: StealthSeminar, Keen

11. SimpleTiger

SimpleTiger works with companies of all sizes to target customers at every stage of the buying journey through a variety of services and marketing strategies. They focus on building reliable and consistent growth engines for B2B and B2C SaaS products. Driving B2B leads has been their specialty for over 15 years, and they have a tried and true process that they bring to working with each of their clients.

Office Location: Sarasota, FL

Year Founded: 2006

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Marketing, Link Building, Paid Search, Paid Social, Web Design and Development

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: JotForm, Segment, Bidsketch, ContractWorks

12. Digital Current

Digital Current has worked with thousands of clients over nearly twenty years. They focus their efforts on SEO strategies, and their expertise includes technical, on-page, and off-site strategies, ensuring a competitive foundation and better results for clients. They start with a comprehensive analysis of your target audience so they can understand your business just like you do and perfect their SEO strategy for your goals.

Office Location: Mesa, AZ

Year Founded: 2003

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: SEO, CRO, PPC, Content Marketing, Link Building

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: SaaS PPC Strategy, Link Building for SaaS, SpotSee, Syniverse,

13. From The Future

From the Future (FTF) is on a mission to rescue clients from dull, outdated, and ineffective digital marketing strategies that typical agencies offer. As a customer-centric agency, they focus on building engaging customer experiences that connect your users to your brand and drive them to take action with your products and services – all while using data to support their process. By integrating AI, FTF helps enable their clients to have a competitive edge in the marketplace.

Office Location: Philadelphia, PA

Year Founded: 2014

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: Social & Influencer UGC, Audience Development & Targeting, Analytics, CRO, SEO, Content

Industries Served: Sports & Entertainment, Real Estate, Retail & eCommerce, B2B SaaS & Tech

Case Studies: Sandals Resorts, UFC, NBA

14. HeyDigital

HeyDigital offers specialized marketing services tailored specifically for SaaS companies. The team has extensive experience helping B2B businesses, and they’ll work closely with you to ramp up new acquisition channels, launch free trials and demos, and boost your revenue with better-targeted growth strategies.

Office Location: Tallin, Estonia

Year Founded: 2018

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: PPC, Ad Creative, Landing Page Design, Video Advertising
Industries Served: SaaS, B2B

Case Studies: View all case studies.

15. Cobloom

Cobloom leverages its experience, expertise, and insights to help SaaS companies take the guesswork out of growth. They first work to understand your ideal customer, so you can put energy and resources into the strategies that’ll work best to target them. Then, they implement a scientific approach to build your marketing plan and work closely with you to align key functions that contribute to your growth.

Office Location: London, UK

Year Founded: 2016

Team Size: 2-10

Key Services: SEO, PPC, Pricing Services and Consultation, Marketing Automation Software

Industries Served: SaaS

Case Studies: Scale, Security SAAS

16. Wallaroo Media

Wallaroo Media has built a team dedicated to scaling your brand. They strategically pair members of their marketing teams with their clients to ensure an effective partnership and propel growth. With a wide range of services and platform expertise, Wallaroo strives to increase your ROI and become the best agency you’ve ever worked with.

Office Location: Provo, UT

Year Founded: 2012

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: Design, Content Production, Analytics, SEO, Paid Advertising, Email Marketing

Industries Served: B2b, SaaS, DTC

Case Studies: Niche Investing Platform, Called to Surf, Acorns, Women’s E-Commerce Boutique

17. Earnest

This award-winning marketing agency has offices in both London and the US, and they seek to solve the big questions for B2B companies when it comes to digital marketing. From day one, they take a creative and innovative approach that strives to avoid anything “obvious” in your campaign – they want your brand to be a trendsetter, garnering remarkable results with remarkable work. Earnest figures out exactly what makes each of their clients – and the people behind them – special and uses those insights to build powerful campaigns.

Office Location: London, UK

Year Founded: 2009

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: Branding, Content and Thought Leadership, Email Marketing, Paid and Social Campaigns, Website Development, CRO, SEO, Social Media Marketing

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: View all case studies.

18. NinjaPromo

NinjaPromo is a global agency that offers a subscription-based marketing service that gives you access to top experts, when you need them – for one monthly fee. The subscription-based model can help B2B companies get everything they need in one place and truly hit the ground running with their marketing efforts. Additionally, they offer a wealth of other services that help brands connect with their customers around the world by building personal connections wherever possible. With NinjaPromo, you’re guaranteed freedom of imagination, teamwork, and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Office Location: New York, NY

Year Founded: 2017

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: Social Media, Paid Social, SEO, Influencer Marketing, PR & Outreach, Video Marketing, Website & App Development, Lead Generation

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS, Fintech, Healthcare, eCommerce

Case Studies: View all case studies.

19. SmartBug Media

SmartBug Media is a leading inbound marketing agency helping businesses increase revenue through detailed marketing strategies and a partnership with HubSpot. The experts at SmartBug work to ensure that they’re always working with the best technology to build sound strategies and deliver value that promotes success at every stage. With SmartBug, you can look forward to predictable, resilient growth.

Office Location: Newport Beach, CA

Year Founded: 2007

Team Size: 201-500

Key Services: Demand Generation, Paid Media, Web Services, Customer Success

Industries Served: SaaS, Healthcare, Retail, B2B, Finance, Education

Case Studies: View all case studies.

20. Refine Labs

Refine Labs operates a fractional demand generation and creative team to help you optimize your advertisements, launch campaigns, and transform your data analysis and reporting. After assessing your current strategy, Refine Labs identifies the best levers to pull for growth and constructs an integrated strategy to build a marketing funnel you can be confident in.

Office Location: Boston, MA

Year Founded: 2018

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: Demand Generation, Content Marketing, Ad Creative

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: View all case studies.

21. New North

A digital marketing agency that focuses on B2B technology brands, New North offers proven strategies, industry-leading tactics, and top-tier tools for their clients to reach the next level of growth. Understanding that selling high-price-point offerings to niche audiences is a difficult task, the agency develops clear strategic plans for measurable results. New North will help their clients hit their growth goals, enter new markets, and get acquired.

Office Location: Frederick, MD

Year Founded: 2008

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: Branding, Content Creation, Paid Media, Marketing Operations, Sales Enablement

Industries Served: B2B

Case Studies: View all case studies.

22. Heinz 

In the area of B2B sales and marketing, Heinz Marketing offers a brand-new experience. Their Predictable Pipeline Method helps their clients establish immersive customer experiences, increase revenue, and create a predictable, lucrative pipeline to grow and expand. With a team of strategic planners, data-driven marketers, and creative problem solvers, Heinz takes a holistic approach to ensure you reach your goals.

Office Location: Redmond, WA

Year Founded: 2008

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: SEO, Email Marketing, Paid Campaigns, Content Production

Industries Served: B2B

Case Studies: View all case studies.

23. Ironpaper

Ironpaper, based in New York, highly specializes in B2B markets. By putting a strong emphasis on important marketing metrics rather than wasting time with superfluous marketing fluff, this agency is able to create brilliant marketing and rapid growth strategies, produce qualified leads, boost sales, improve search engine optimization techniques, improve content marketing strategies, and more.

Office Location: New York, NY

Year Founded: 2002

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: SEO, CRO, PPC, Email Marketing, Demand Generation, Content Marketing, Lead Generation, Social Media Marketing

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: View all case studies.

24. Kalungi

Kalungi combines their proprietary, proven go-to-market playbook with a team of full-service digital marketing experts. With a wealth of resources, the team at Kalungi designs strategies to power marketing engines that take early-stage software companies to the next level. Kalungi not only performs a full audit of your marketing function, but they also work closely with you to coach your team members and effectively put their strategies into action.

Office Location: Seattle, WA

Year Founded: 2018

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: CMO Coaching & Fractional CMO, Content Marketing, Branding, Design & Creative, SEO

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: View all case studies.

25. Skale

Skale is dedicated to SEO and driving revenue through organic growth for B2B and SaaS companies. They rely on bespoke SEO growth services for each of their clients to help multiply revenue and paint a clear picture of expected results in the future. Looking beyond the superficial organic growth metrics, Skale moves your whole business closer to your real, North Star goals.

Office Location: London, UK

Year Founded: 2020

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: SEO, Content Production, Linking Building, Digital PR & Outreach, Website Migrations

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: View all case studies.

26. Accelerate Agency

Accelerate Agency specializes in a 360 search approach, relying on the expertise of their marketing team in combination with data learnings and AI efficiency. They produce ambitious strategies and have the skills and experience to implement them quickly and well. With all aspects of a well-rounded SEO strategy in mind, they consider both on-page and off-page SEO to ensure your site – and your business – are set up for long-term success.

Office Location: Bristol, UK

Year Founded: 2017

Team Size: 51-200

Key Services: SEO, Link Building, Outreach, Content Production

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS

Case Studies: View all case studies.

27. 310 Creative

310 Creative is an agency that focuses primarily on inbound marketing strategies for B2B and SaaS companies. They strive to create more predictable and reliable leads pipelines to grow revenue. Working across the buyer’s journey, their marketing plans help effectively grow your brand and audience, contributing to meeting your overall business goals.

Office Location: Santa Monica, CA

Year Founded: 2003

Team Size: 11-50

Key Services: Content Marketing, SEO, Paid Media, Web Development, Outbound Lead Generation, Sales Enablement

Industries Served: B2B, SaaS, Retail, Media & Entertainment, Manufacturing

Case Studies: View all client reviews.

How to Evaluate Your Next B2B Marketing Partner

How to Define a SaaS Marketing Agency

A SaaS marketing agency is an agency that specializes in providing marketing services for companies that have a SaaS product or service. These agencies have extensive experience in creating marketing strategies that help SaaS companies attract and retain customers, improve their product marketing, and increase overall revenue. SaaS marketing agencies often offer a range of services, including content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, paid search, and email marketing.

Why You Need a B2B Marketing Agency

If you’re considering working with an agency over building an internal marketing team, it’s critical to consider that working with an agency can often be more cost-effective when all expenses are taken into account. A full-time, internal team requires salaries, benefits, and overhead costs, while an agency only requires your monthly fee.

Additionally, you’re getting an entire team of experts with specialities across different marketing channels with an agency. You’ll likely be able to scale and flex more easily with an agency than with an internal team.

Overall, the most important benefits of working with a SaaS marketing agency include:

• Saving time and money on marketing initiatives
• Aligning brand messaging and positioning across channels
• Gaining access to marketing experts and potential proprietary technology/software
• Centralized tracking and reporting on relevant metrics

Critical Factors to Keep in Mind When Choosing a B2B SaaS Marketing Agency

• Industry Expertise: Look for an agency with a proven track record of success in the SaaS space. They should deeply understand the unique challenges and opportunities facing SaaS companies.
• Comprehensive Services: The agency should offer a full suite of marketing services tailored to SaaS, including content strategy, SEO, paid search, social media, email marketing, and more. This allows for a cohesive, integrated approach.
• Data-Driven Approach: Choose an agency that leverages data and analytics to inform their strategies and continually optimizes campaigns for maximum ROI. They should provide regular, transparent reporting.
• Scalability: As your SaaS company grows, your marketing needs will evolve. Select an agency with the resources and flexibility to scale their services alongside your business.
• Cultural Fit: Don’t underestimate the importance of finding an agency that aligns with your company’s values, communication style, and work ethic. The right cultural fit fosters a productive, long-term partnership.

How to Pick the Perfect B2B SaaS Marketing Agency

• Define your marketing goals, requirements, and any specific deliverables you expect from your agency partner.
• Research how the agency runs its business and understand how they structure communication and partnerships with clients.
• Ask for references and testimonials so you can see how they’ve helped other businesses similar to yours.
• Ask a lot of questions and choose an agency that aligns with your values, meets your requirements, and drives results you feel confident in.

Top B2B SaaS Marketing Agencies: Final Thoughts

Choosing a marketing agency is a little bit like shopping for clothes – everything needs to be the right fit for your product, services, goals, and company culture. Each agency highlighted in this article is making a name for themselves for different reasons, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Whatever your needs and requirements are, picking the right agency can make all the difference in meeting your marketing goals.

If you’re looking for an agency that has mastered the balance of artistic creativity and the science of performance – two critical pieces of SaaS marketing – NoGood could be the choice for you. Our commitment to sustainable growth and proven track record of successful outcomes make us an excellent partner for B2B businesses looking to thrive in today’s competitive digital world.

Ready to discover how our expertise can drive your brand’s growth and success?

The post Top 27 B2B SaaS Marketing Agencies for 2025 appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

However, retaining users is becoming increasingly difficult as individuals can compare your product with many competitors. With so many options, people can easily switch between products if they don’t feel a strong connection to one. That’s why it’s important to make sure those who choose your product stick with it and don’t feel the need to look elsewhere.

User retention is more than just a metric; it’s a strategy to gain and maintain happy customers. The metric is simply the data you use to determine if your product is providing users with the tools they need, but it doesn’t stop there. What keeps users coming back is the experience they can only get with your product.

That’s where your strategy comes in. You want to leverage your features to create that one-of-a-kind experience that hooks the user, evoking a sense of connection and loyalty to your product.   

Here’s what we’ll cover in our comprehensive article:

1. What is user retention? 
2. The 3 stages of user retention 
3. What drives user retention? 
4. How do you measure retention, churn rates, and repeat purchases?
5. What is a good user retention rate? 
6. 9 Strategies to improve retention rates

What is User Retention?

User retention is the number of people who interact with a product or service over a period of time. Measuring user retention helps brands understand how much value they are providing to users.

Retention rates can be measured monthly, quarterly, or annually, allowing brands to choose the most suitable time frame. User retention can encompass all product usage or focus on specific features.

What Is Meant by Customer Retention?

Customer retention refers to the number of people who continue to buy your products and services over a set period. It can be used to track the percentage of individuals who renew their subscriptions to your digital service or to measure the amount of customers who regularly re-order your products from your website. A high customer retention rate signifies customer satisfaction and loyalty to your products.

Customer Retention vs User Retention

User retention measures the number of individuals who regularly login and interact with your product, while customer retention specifically refers to individuals who have paid to use your product.

Customer and user retention rates are key metrics in determining how your product is performing. Measuring them can help you understand which features deliver the most value, and thus, are worth paying for. This is especially important if you offer a “freemium” subscription service, as it allows you to track the percentage of users who upgrade or downgrade their plans.

User Retention vs Churn

User retention refers to the percentage of users who continue to use your product over a set period. Inversely, churn rates refer to the percentage of users who have discontinued the use of your product.

For example, if you start with 100 users and 40 users delete their accounts, you are left with 60 remaining users. Your retention rate is 60% and your churn rate is 40%.

Retention and churn rates are inverses of each other, so it’s not always necessary to calculate both as they ultimately tell you the same information. The rate you decide to measure will depend on your specific goals.

The 3 Stages of User Retention

The stages of user retention are user onboarding, activation, and habitual use. Each phase of the user journey is equally important in maintaining high retention rates. 

1. Onboarding

The onboarding process is when the user obtains your product and makes an account. During this stage, the user will learn the basic features of your product and customize it based on personal preferences. 

2. Activation 

Activation is the “AHA” moment when the user begins to see value in your product and identifies how the product can be used to improve daily life. It is crucial to deliver value as quickly as possible to ensure the user continues to use your product. 

3. Habitual Use

Habitual use is the final stage of retention when the user forms a habit with your product and integrates it into their routine. At this stage, the user understands your product’s key features and how to use them to improve their daily life.

What Drives User Retention?

User retention is built on the strategies used to create a unique user experience. It is driven by many factors, such as quality, brand loyalty, value for money, simplicity, personalization, usefulness of the product, and ease of use.   

Quality

A great product starts with high-quality features displayed with responsive design. To create a user experience that stands out, you need tools that deliver impeccable results.

Brand Loyalty

A strong brand creates an authentic experience for the user that they can’t get anywhere else. Foster connection by creating unique features that appeal to your target user’s persona and behavior.

Value for money

Users want to feel like they are getting what they pay for. Products should be priced according to the results the user can gain from using them. A product with a high price tag needs to offer specialized tools that can’t be accessed for a lower price somewhere else. If you’re questioning the pricing of your product, check in with users to understand how they feel about the value of your features.

Simplicity

A simple layout, free of unnecessary visual clutter, allows your product’s key features to stand out. Users will be able to access your tools more easily, leading to a positive overall experience.

Usefulness of product

The usefulness your product offers is a determining factor for whether or not users will be retained. Show the value of your product early on by highlighting the results users will obtain by using your tools.

Personalization

If users can customize their product to suit their individual needs and preferences, they will find using your product to be an enjoyable experience. Allow users to explore what works best for them.

Ease of use

A product that is easy to use is accessible to more people. If the tools your product offers are more straightforward than your competitors, users will not feel the need to try out other products.

How Do You Measure Retention, Churn Rates, and Repeat Purchases?

To start, you should determine a set time frame to measure; 30-days is a good guideline as it is the time frame used in many of the benchmarks for different industries. 

During this period, you will track all user activity, including user gains and losses. After the period ends, you will be able to calculate your retention rates and determine how your product performed.

Measuring Retention Rate

To calculate the retention rate, you will need the following data: 

• The total number of users at the end of the period
• The number of users who signed up during the period 
• The number of users at the start of the period

Here’s an example: 

An app starts with 100 users after its release. It loses 40 of them but gains 20 new users during the same period:

Retention = ((80 – 20) ➗ 100) X 100) = 60%

Calculating Churn Rate

To calculate the churn rate, you will need the following data: 

• The number of users lost throughout the period
• The total number of users at the start of the period

Example: 

Your app starts with 100 users and loses 40 by the end of the period:

Churn = (40 ➗100) X 100 = 40%

Calculating Repeat Purchases

To Calculate the Repeat Purchase Rate, you will need the following data:

• The total number of customers in the period
• The number of customers who have made a purchase previously

Example: 

100 customers purchased products from your website this month, and 7 of them also purchased a product from you last month:

Repeat Purchase Rate = (7 ➗ 100) X 100 = 7%

What Is a Good User Retention Rate?

It is difficult to determine what a “good” user retention rate is because it varies significantly by industry, type of product, and company age.

Mobile apps have a general average of 5.6% retention, with News and Magazine apps being the highest at 9.1%. 

For a new product, retention rates should be compared to similar products or services within the same industry. Existing products can be compared with previous retention rates for that product and similar products from competitors.

9 Strategies to Improve Retention Rates 

1. Simplify the Onboarding Process 

The onboarding process should be as simple as possible to encourage the user to continue using your product. If it takes too long to set up an account or to understand basic features, the user is much less likely to return. A quick and easy sign-up process allows the user to see the value of your product early on, value in your product early on which keeps them coming back. 

2. Create a Customizable Experience with UX Design

Working with a developer to create a personalized experience will allow the user to integrate your product into their routine more seamlessly.

• Empathize with your users and create features that solve a problem for them.
• Conduct usability testing to identify features that can be improved for an overall more positive user experience.
• Tailor your product to the personas of your target audience
• Enable responsive design features to mesh with the user’s unique behavior

3. Show Value Early On to Encourage Habitual Use

The more quickly users see value in your product, the higher your retention rates will be. If the user can easily identify key features they can use to improve their life, they are likely to integrate your product into their daily routine.

• Give users a tutorial on how to use your product’s unique features.
• Let them know they can personalize their product and make it easy to do so.
• Offer 24-hour support to answer any questions the user may have as they learn how to use your product.
• Add gamification features to make the experience of using your app entertaining

4. Obtain User Feedback to Improve Key Features

Surveys and reviews can help you identify what is going well and what needs improvement. They allow you to understand the user better so you can update your product to better suit their needs. If a user deletes their account or cancels their subscription, follow up to find out why they left. 

5. Analyze Retention and Churn Rates

Retention and churn rates are key indicators of how your product is performing; analyze them to understand which features are working and which aren’t. If you notice a drop in user retention after releasing a new update, then you’ll know you need to conduct user testing to figure out what users didn’t like. By tracking retention and churn, you’ll know if and when users decide to change their usage habits.

6. Send Notifications to Prompt Users to Interact with the Product

Sending push notifications is an effective way to remind users of your product, announce new features or product releases, and prompt users to interact with your product. An intuitive notification based on the user’s behavior can catch their attention and persuade them to interact with your product. By gently reminding the user of your product, you create new engagement at times when the user isn’t planning to interact.

7. Use Product Analytics to Identify Areas for Improvement

Conducting product analytics allows you to identify pain points and minimize or eliminate them to make the user’s experience as seamless as possible. If the user can’t find what they are looking for, they will leave your product and look for it somewhere else.  

8. Maximize User Engagement by Creating a Sticky Product

Leverage user engagement strategies to maximize user interaction with your product. A sticky product hooks the user and becomes an essential part of their daily routine. Once users pick up your product, they won’t be able to put it down. There is no need to look elsewhere because your product already provides everything they need, all in one place. 

A sticky product will:

• Implement gamification of key features to hook users and encourage them to return.
• Encourage users to connect with their friends by adding social sharing features. This will increase interaction with current users and promote your product to new audiences.
• Allow users to personalize their product to their unique preferences.
• Send push notifications to reel users back in after they have been inactive.
• Recommend tailored content to maintain habitual use.

9. Source a Helpful Customer Support Team

Problems are inevitable, even if you’ve created a top-notch product. That’s why it’s important to have an immediate response to the user’s inquiries. Customer support is the primary force keeping the user happy after they have encountered a problem with your product. Ensuring your customer support team is patient, helpful, and efficient shows the user they can rely on your team to solve any problems that may arise in the future. This builds trust in your services and loyalty to your brand.

Ultimately, retaining users comes down to whether or not people are happy with your product. These strategies can help you create an experience that will attract users and keep them hooked. By understanding how to measure retention and leverage strategies to improve it, you can create a profitable business with a loyal user base.

The post What is User Retention? A Guide to Measuring and Improving it in 2024 appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

What is email marketing for SaaS?

Email marketing for SaaS is the practice of using email as a channel to promote SaaS (software-as-a-service) products to potential and existing customers. For potential customers, email marketing for SaaS serves to highlight the benefits of the product, educate the user, and hopefully convert them into paying customers through a sign-up flow. For existing customers, email marketing for SaaS aims to foster retention and loyalty through regular product updates, limited-time offers, educational content, and more. 

What makes email marketing for SaaS so different?

Email marketing is a channel commonly used across a wide variety of industries, including but not limited to eCommerce, healthcare, financial services, and more. That being said, email marketing for SaaS is unique in its heavy reliance on user data, entire customer journey, and ever-evolving product, making it a more challenging — but also more impactful — channel for SaaS companies to focus on. 

As an example, let’s compare email marketing for SaaS to email marketing for eCommerce. Most e-commerce companies have a list of leads to whom they send targeted communications, whether it be in the form of discounts, product drops, or recommendations, in order to drive them to make a purchase. As soon as the lead purchases a product, the job is (mostly) done. Granted, email marketing for eCommerce still includes initiatives like post-purchase follow-ups, feedback collection, and loyalty programs to encourage additional future purchases, but in the most simple sense, the end goal is always to drive a purchase. 

Email marketing for SaaS, on the other hand, has less of a clear end goal. In fact, there is never truly an end goal that is reached, because the SaaS business model requires constant subscription renewals in order to maintain a consistent revenue stream. The task then becomes much more than just converting a lead to a user — it’s also about educating the user on how to use the product, helping them continuously derive value from the software, and nurture the relationship throughout their entire product journey.

In an ideal world, a successful SaaS product will be one that is constantly improving its functionalities based on user feedback and behavioral data, and will utilize user data to personalize the product experience to optimize the amount of value it can provide to the paying user. This standard of success poses an additional expectation for SaaS companies to send highly personalized and constantly up-to-date product information based on every user’s place in their individual product journey.

Types of SaaS models

There are 2 main types of SaaS models, and knowing the difference between each of them is crucial to determining the type of strategy or email that would be effective in converting and nurturing qualified customers. The two types of SaaS models are the free trial model and the freemium model.

The free trial model

The free trial model allows each potential customer to have full access to the SaaS product for a limited period of time (typically 30 days). As their free trial is starting to expire, users are typically urged to create a paying account in order to maintain their service with no interruptions. Common email marketing touchpoints for the free trial model include trial expiration notifications, upgrade reminders, and post-trial feedback collection. 

The freemium model

The freemium model allows users to have free access to a limited number of basic features within the SaaS product. In order to unlock greater functionality or more advanced features, users can choose to upgrade to a paying subscription. In some cases, paying subscriptions are separated into multiple tiers of different price and access levels, to allow users to choose the option that best suits their needs. Common email marketing touchpoints for the free trial model include upgrade recommendations, feature highlights, and feedback collection.

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Types of SaaS emails (with examples)

There are many different types of SaaS emails, each of which serves a different purpose at a different point in a user’s journey. In order to determine which emails you should send at which touchpoint, start by mapping out the entire user journey from awareness to conversion to retention, then understand the key actions that may happen at each stage of the journey. Note that these key actions include negative or undesirable actions too, such as unsubscriptions, expirations or cancellations, which are still useful touchpoints for follow-up or feedback collection emails.

Here is an example of a free trial user journey map with the potential emails that can be sent. Notice that the goal of each email is simply to move the user to the next step in their journey so that they can continue down the path of gradually realizing the value of the product. Pushing an upgrade or a conversion at the wrong stage can easily backfire and aggravate leads who aren’t ready to make that leap so early in their journey. 

No two user journeys are completely the same (which is why mapping out the user journey is key), but as a starting point, let’s go over 4 of the most common email flow types across both the free trial and freemium SaaS models. 

1. The onboarding flow

First impressions matter, particularly in a highly competitive SaaS market. The onboarding email is the company’s first touchpoint with a new lead, representing an opportunity to make a good impression and set up a solid foundation for continued engagement. An onboarding email should welcome the user to the product and the brand, provide easy steps to help them get started, and facilitate a basic understanding of how to use the product. The goal of the onboarding flow is not to immediately convert them to a paid user, but rather provide them with opportunities to engage with the product, so that they can realize the value that the product can provide through experiencing it first-hand. 

In Grammarly’s onboarding flow, they gave a simple introduction to the product and brand, gave a bulleted overview of what the product can do, and provided suggestions for desktop and Chrome integrations. Introducing potential integrations as part of an onboarding flow is an excellent strategy because it increases the number of potential ways in which a user can interact with the product. Since the goal of the onboarding flow is to drive engagement, the more opportunities the user has to use the product, the better. 

2. The trial expiring flow

The duration of a free trial or a limited freemium period is essentially the user’s evaluation period, during which the user makes a decision, based on their experiences with the product, on whether or not the value it provides is worth its price. On one hand, the trial expiring flow creates a sense of urgency by reminding the user that they have a limited amount of time or actions before they would have to make a decision. On the other hand, the trial expiring flow is also a valuable way for the brand to quell any lingering doubts that the user may have about the product. Building this user trust can be done through onboarding tools, product walkthroughs, tutorials, or even 1-on-1 expert help. 

Squarespace’s trial expiring flow strikes the perfect balance between urgency and patience. The beginning and end of the email feature a clear primary CTA that pushes the user to sign up for a paid subscription, while the main body of the email offers different ways for the user to find out more about the product. Knowing that users at this stage of their journey are still in the process of making a decision, Squarespace strategically provides marketing tools, help guides, third-party extensions, and expert help to guide the user to their next step. 

3. The upgrade flow 

The upgrade flow is what most people immediately think of when it comes to email marketing for SaaS. Assuming that the user has already gone through their discovery, engagement, and evaluation phases through earlier flows, the upgrade flow becomes the point at which the user makes the decision to either upgrade or cancel their subscription. 

Like Gympass’ upgrade email, the upgrade flow should ideally be concise, straightforward, action-oriented. At this point in the journey, if done correctly, the user should have sufficient information about the product to make an informed decision on whether or not they want to upgrade their plan. Upgrade emails should include large, clear CTAs above the fold, and provide immediate information on what the user can expect to get out of the upgrade. 

4. Product education emails 

When it comes to email marketing for SaaS, the work doesn’t end once the user signs up for a paid subscription — in fact, that is often where the real challenge begins. The average monthly churn rate for SaaS products is 3-8%, meaning that companies need to develop robust retention strategies to maintain and grow their user base over time. Product education flows are a good way for SaaS companies to maintain consistent communication with their user base, making sure that they are regularly engaging with the product and are deriving real value from their subscription. 

Product education emails are a great way to make sure that your user base is in the know about all the latest product updates and how each feature can benefit them. For example, Calendly sends monthly product newsletters about all the latest features that users may find helpful. These emails can range from tutorials, to webinars, to events and more — the key is to get the user to engage with the product on a regular basis. 

9 Email marketing for Saas Strategies

Now that we’ve covered the foundation of email marketing for SaaS, here are 9 of the most impactful strategies for increasing high-value, qualified product sign-ups.

1. Segmented behavioral triggers 

One size doesn’t fit all, so why should email flows be one-to-all? Aside from the initial welcome or onboarding flow, successful SaaS companies often use behavioral triggers to send different promotional emails to different segments of users, based on which parts of the product they’ve interacted (or have yet to interact) with. For example, Clickup sends separate emails for specific product features such as @amentions, Clickup Inbox, or Conditional Logic in Forms. Since Clickup has access to user data on which parts of the product they’ve interacted with, they can send segmented emails to push users to explore parts of the product they haven’t yet seen the value of.

Sample behavioral triggers might look like “send an email to users who have been active in the last 7 days but have not clicked on the Clickup Inbox”. This essentially ensures that you are delivering product recommendations that are actually relevant to the user and are not redundant with actions they’ve already taken. 

2. User data story

Aside from segmented behavioral triggers, another way to leverage SaaS user data for email marketing is through telling user data stories. Oftentimes it is difficult for users to quantify how much value they are getting out of a SaaS product, so visualizing and communicating that value to them through their user data can help clarify that value.

For example, Grammarly does this by grading users on their productivity, mastery, and vocabulary compared to other Grammarly users and shows users the top 7 tones detected in their writing over the course of the past week. This type of user data story gives users insight into their writing that they wouldn’t otherwise have without Grammarly, incentivizing them to stick with the product to continue improving their writing skills and tone.

3. Micro-conversions  

Micro-conversions are small, easy, tangible actions that users can take before making the decision to upgrade to a paid subscription. Micro-conversions can include actions like watching a product demo, downloading a guide, or filling out a survey. For example, Honeybook encourages micro-conversions by offering free ChatGPT prompts or templates for users to use. By leveraging email campaigns that strategically target these micro-conversions, SaaS companies can nurture a more engaged and informed user base.

These incremental actions indicate user interest and present opportunities to tailor subsequent communications. Crafting personalized, relevant content addressing specific user behaviors or preferences showcased through these micro-conversions enables SaaS companies to guide prospects and users toward fuller engagement, paving the way for eventual macro-conversions and heightened customer retention. 

4. Zero-party data collection

Unlike third-party data, which can be limited and sometimes unreliable, zero-party data is willingly shared by customers themselves, offering a goldmine of valuable information. For SaaS businesses, this data is usually directly provided by users through surveys, quizzes, preference centers, and feedback forms. Utilizing zero-party data in email marketing for SaaS enables tailored, hyper-personalized communication. Understanding customers’ preferences, pain points, and specific needs and tying those data points to specific email addresses allows for highly targeted email campaigns, leading to increased relevance, engagement, and, ultimately, higher conversion rates.

For example, business management software Bonsai starts their user sign-up process with a question asking what kind of work the user does. Based on their answer, whether it be acting, animation or architecture, Bonsai can then send personalized emails that highlight the specific use cases that would be relevant to that user. 

5. Onboarding checklists

Implementing an onboarding checklist within an email flow stands out as an invaluable strategy for SaaS businesses aiming to streamline user experience and maximize engagement. This dynamic approach not only guides users through the initial stages but also adapts to their progress. By incorporating a comprehensive checklist directly into email sequences, SaaS companies can offer a structured pathway for users to navigate through different features or steps in their journey. The brilliance lies in its adaptability – the email flow can intelligently update the checklist based on the user’s actions or inactions.

This personalized approach ensures that users receive tailored guidance, nudges, or reminders, keeping them on track toward achieving their goals within the platform. As users complete tasks or milestones, the checklist dynamically adjusts, presenting a sense of accomplishment while encouraging further exploration. Ultimately, this interactive and responsive onboarding checklist embedded within email campaigns enhances user engagement, minimizes drop-offs, and fosters a positive onboarding experience, which is crucial for SaaS businesses aiming for long-term user retention and customer satisfaction.

7. A/B Testing

A/B testing allows these companies to experiment with variations in email content, subject lines, visuals, calls-to-action, or sending times to determine what resonates best with their audience. By splitting the email list into distinct segments and sending different versions, SaaS marketers can gather invaluable insights into user preferences, behaviors, and conversion rates.

This data-driven approach helps refine and tailor future email campaigns (promotional and transactional emails) based on concrete evidence rather than assumptions. Whether it’s testing the efficacy of a persuasive subject line or evaluating the impact of different layouts, A/B testing empowers SaaS businesses to make informed decisions, improve open and click-through rates, and ultimately drive conversions.

8. UGC and use cases

Incorporating user-generated content (UGC) and real-life user stories within email marketing campaigns stands as an impactful strategy for SaaS businesses to showcase the tangible value and practical applications of their products. By featuring authentic experiences and success stories from actual users, these emails humanize the SaaS product, instilling trust and credibility in potential customers.

For example, Notion sends an email to new users demonstrating “4 most popular ways Notion is used, and the difference it’s made for 4 real humans”. By tying each use case to a real, user-created setup, the email provides social proof, allowing prospects to visualize themselves experiencing similar benefits. Moreover, integrating UGC and user stories into email campaigns creates a relatable narrative that speaks directly to the pain points and aspirations of the target audience.

9. Customer feedback collection

Soliciting feedback via email enables SaaS companies to gain firsthand insights into user experiences, pain points, and desires, fostering a customer-centric approach to product development and refinement. It’s essential to request feedback from a diverse pool of users, including loyal users, recently inactive users, active new users, and even churned customers. Each cohort provides unique perspectives that contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the product’s strengths and areas for improvement.

Engaging with these different user segments through tailored feedback requests via email ensures a well-rounded view of the SaaS product’s performance across various stages of the user journey. By actively seeking and attentively listening to user feedback, SaaS businesses can identify patterns, prioritize feature enhancements, and pivot strategies to align more closely with user expectations. 

These 9 strategies should set you up for success to start seeing measurable sign-up growth for your SaaS product. If you’re ready to level up your email marketing strategy for your SaaS business, we’re always here to help.

The post Maximizing User Sign-Ups: 9 Email Marketing for SaaS Strategies appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

SaaS companies face numerous obstacles when attempting to enter a crowded industry. It is crucial to carve out a distinct niche and successfully express your value offer in the face of intense competition. These companies have to be very clear about what makes their solutions unique, which can be difficult because SaaS offerings are so specialized. Maintaining SEO relevance is further complicated by the quickly changing user base and the continually changing technological scene.

Looking for an SEO agency to help your SaaS company thrive organically?

The bright side of these challenges is that SEO has enormous potential for SaaS enterprises. With the right SEO work, a SaaS company can achieve organic reach they had only dreamed of, propelling them into the public eye without having to pay for costly sponsored search advertising. One of the most effective ways to attract new users, guide them from the top of the funnel, and keep them as devoted, long-term users is still through organic search.

Understanding the Buyer’s Journey in SaaS and SEO’s Role

It takes skill to walk a prospective client through the buyer’s journey with ease, especially in the SaaS industry where choices are frequently made after thorough and thoughtful consideration of all available options. From the moment a potential client experiences a pain point to making the final decision and beyond into customer loyalty and advocacy, SEO is crucial at every stage of this journey. However, precisely how does SEO affect these phases?

Stages of the SaaS buyer’s journey

The journey generally commences with the Awareness stage, where a prospective user first acknowledges a problem or a need. Next, they enter into the Consideration stage, comparing available solutions to find the best fit. The Decision stage follows, with the prospect ready to make a purchase. Finally, the critical Post-purchase stage, which, if navigated successfully, transforms customers into long-term advocates for the SaaS product.

SEO impact on each journey stage

1. Attracting prospects with keyword-targeted content: Potential buyers are looking for knowledge, not things, at the awareness stage. They look for instructional whitepapers, e-books, and blog content using search engines. Your blog posts appear as a lighthouse of help, guiding prospects toward your solution by focusing on pertinent keywords that match the searchers’ queries.

2. Engaging prospects with comparison and case study content: Prospects are aware of their needs as they enter the contemplation stage and are comparing providers to see who can provide the best fit. With the use of SEO, your SaaS company may display the advantages of your product over rivals by bringing up comparison articles, in-depth case studies, and professional testimonials that correspond with mid-funnel search inquiries.

3. Converting prospects with high-intent content: Prospects are probably looking with high intent when they’re ready to buy. By optimizing for terms that clearly convey a transactional message (such as “buy,” “demo,” “trial,” or “pricing”), you may drive traffic to sign-up pages or product demos, which provide information that can ultimately seal the deal.

4. Retaining customers with helpful resources: After a purchase, the adventure continues. After a consumer makes a purchase, valuable SEO-driven content such as support articles, FAQs, webinars, and community forums help them get the most out of the SaaS product and increase customer happiness and loyalty.

Proven SEO Strategies for SaaS Market Differentiation

It is no longer enough to merely practice SEO fundamentals if you want to stand out in the crowded SaaS market. To stand out from the competition, your business needs to use innovative and proactive tactics. Let’s examine a few of these tried-and-true strategies that have worked well for SaaS companies looking to stand out in the organic search market.

Crucial SEO strategies for SaaS

1. Content diversification: A wide range of content formats, including podcasts, webinars, infographics, and blog entries, are supported to satisfy different customer preferences. This expands the number of touchpoints with your target audience and strengthens your SEO efforts by communicating the value of your SaaS product in a variety of formats and across a wider audience.

2. Long-tail keyword targeting: Astute SaaS companies concentrate on long-tail keywords that encapsulate the particulars of their solution rather than battling for highly competitive phrases. This approach frequently results in higher-quality traffic conversions and establishes the business as a provider of solutions for specific client pain areas.

3. Backlink acquisition: Getting high-quality backlinks from relevant and trustworthy websites continues to be essential to SEO. This could entail joint ventures, guest posting, or turning into a thought-leadership resource that other participants in the market wish to link to and credit.

4. User-generated content: In addition to enhancing trust, encouraging reviews, testimonials, and customer stories also has a major positive impact on SEO. Such material can greatly increase search engine exposure by providing a consistent flow of new, keyword-rich content.

Case Study: Buffer’s diverse SEO strategy

Buffer, a social networking platform, is a prime example of this approach in action. They’ve put in place a strong, varied SEO plan with a strong emphasis on openness and participation.

1. Transparency through case studies and reporting: By creating thorough case studies and disseminating performance reports, Buffer leads with integrity. This degree of openness draws backlinks and strengthens the domain authority of the brand by appealing to a readership that looks for reliable information.

2. Active engagement across media platforms: A significant amount of blogging, podcasting, and social media involvement are all part of Buffer’s content strategy. This makes it possible for businesses to tackle a wide range of SEO initiatives that, when taken as a whole, boost their platform’s organic traffic and overall online visibility.

You may position your business to lead in organic search rather than just compete by implementing comparable tactics that are specific to the features of your SaaS service. Recall that these are not one-time strategies; rather, they call for steady work and quick adjustments to the always changing SEO environment.

The Power of Content Marketing and Thought Leadership in SaaS SEO

The power of content marketing in conjunction with thought leadership can be the decisive factor in making sure that your brand doesn’t just enter the race, but leads it in the very competitive world of SaaS markets. These are essential components of any progressive SaaS-focused SEO strategy, not just catchphrases. However, how do these essential components transfer into SEO effectiveness, and what does it actually look like to genuinely include them into your content strategy?

Role in SEO performance

1. Attracting, retaining, and converting users: Thought leadership and creative content marketing work together to draw in and hold the interest of potential leads. Users are more likely to become devoted clients when they perceive the value in the material you offer. This concoction of authoritative and educational material has the power to change consumers’ perceptions of SaaS companies, converting inactive readers into ardent supporters.

2. Establishing credibility through expertise sharing: Not only does sharing knowledge via in-depth blog entries, perceptive assessments, and forward-looking whitepapers highlight your brand’s expertise in the field, but it also establishes credibility. A crucial component of improving your SEO efforts and organic search exposure is content creation. Search engines like high-quality, reputable material and reward it with higher ranks.

Incorporating thought leadership into a content strategy

1. In-depth industry guides: Your Software as a Service (SaaS) company can demonstrate its breadth of knowledge and increase search volume and ranks by creating in-depth guides that address certain industry problems, trends, or breakthroughs. This will also allow your content to naturally contain relevant keywords.

2. Expert insights and whitepapers: These are essential tools for integrating a SaaS product into broader industry discussions, not only for displaying expertise. A positive feedback loop of improved page SEO and higher organic exposure is often created by this kind of material, which also encourages other experts to share, cite, and interact with your work.

Case Study: Moz’s ‘Whiteboard Friday’ series

One example of the synergy between content marketing, thought leadership, and SEO is Moz’s ‘Whiteboard Friday’ series. The video segments, often hosted by industry luminaries, break down intricate SEO topics into digestible chunks.

1. Video content and expert hosting: This not only simplifies difficult content but also shows Moz’s dedication to empowering the target market for their SaaS business. By doing these workshops, they produce material that organically incorporates numerous semantic variants and pertinent keywords into a structure that encourages high levels of interaction.

2. Integration of keywords and engagement: With the help of important ranking factors and pertinent internal linking, Moz skillfully makes sure that every video description, transcript, and related post are search engine optimized. This benefits search engines as well as people by enabling the series to rank for a range of relevant keywords and bolstering Moz’s robust organic search presence.

Through the integration of thought leadership and content marketing, your SaaS company may establish a strong online presence that promotes natural growth. This strategy goes beyond creating content to establish a dependable channel for user acquisition and retention through the development of an authoritative brand voice that connects with your SaaS audience and attracts search engines.

Technical SEO Essentials and Pitfalls for SaaS Companies

Technical SEO cannot be an afterthought if you want to compete naturally in a market full of SaaS solutions. It’s a crucial component of SEO for software as a service (SaaS) businesses, supporting their whole online presence and having a direct impact on user experience and search engine rankings. Let’s examine the essential elements and typical mistakes made in the context of technical SEO in more detail.

The Foundation of Effective Technical SEO

Technical SEO sets the stage for all your online interactions. Without it, even the most compelling content may falter …

1. Website Responsiveness and Optimization: In a world where mobile devices are prioritized over other devices, a responsive website guarantees a smooth user experience across all platforms. Google’s preference for mobile-first indexing emphasizes how crucial responsiveness is for SaaS businesses looking to compete naturally.

2. Importance of Site Speed and Structured Data: Not only is site speed important for user convenience, but it also plays a big role in rankings. They both work in tandem with structured data to assist search engines comprehend the context of your content and are essential for improving SERP rankings.

3. Mobile-Friendly Interface: It is imperative to have a mobile-friendly UI because mobile searches are so common. It is another important component in Google’s ranking algorithm and improves user engagement.

Common Technical SEO Pitfalls to Avoid

For SaaS websites eager to climb the SERPs, steering clear of certain technical pitfalls is crucial.

1. Site Structure Negligence: Search engines can more easily crawl and index your website when it has a well-organized site layout. Ignoring this can result in material going ignored, squandering time and resources spent on content creation and on-page SEO optimization.

2. Overlooking Regular Technical Audits: Regular audits are necessary to catch and rectify SEO issues like broken links or duplicate content. Ignoring these audits can leave your SaaS company’s website vulnerable to slips in rankings.

3. Redirects and Indexation Errors: Poorly managed redirects can lead to the loss of valuable link equity and indexation errors that prevent pages from appearing in search results. Both have detrimental effects on the visibility and authority of a SaaS website.

Case Study: Ahrefs’ Display of Technical SEO Excellence

Ahrefs, an industry leader in SEO tools, embodies best practices for technical SEO.

1. Site Speed and Mobile Responsiveness: Acknowledged for their lightning-fast user interface, Ahrefs ensures that users and search engines can access their content without delays. This emphasis on speed and mobile responsiveness directly contributes to their high organic ranking.

2. Regular Site Audits to Address Issues: The Ahrefs platform itself is a tool for SEO auditing, and they practice what they preach, conducting regular audits to identify and address any SEO shortcomings. This proactive approach keeps their site at maximum health.

3. Extensive Knowledge Base Implementation: Ahrefs capitalizes on their vast knowledge base to create an educational hub that not only adheres to technical SEO best practices but also enhances the user experience by providing valuable, easily accessible information.

By mirroring Ahrefs’ commitment to technical SEO, other SaaS companies can lay a solid foundation for organic search success. Mitigating common technical pitfalls and optimizing the technical structure of a website is not only conducive to better rankings but also ensures a frictionless experience that can significantly boost conversions and customer satisfaction.

When you take care of the technical foundation of your SaaS company’s website, you are essentially strengthening the base of your SEO fortress, making it stronger enough to withstand the demands of a crowded market and continue to serve your target audience—people who rely on your software to solve their particular problems—reliably.

Measuring the Impact: KPIs for SaaS SEO Campaign Success

The brilliance of an SEO campaign is truly understood when its results are measured against concrete metrics. SaaS companies, in their pursuit of organic ascendancy, must keep close tabs on key performance indicators (KPIs) that reveal the health and success of their SEO efforts. In this section, we will scrutinize the KPIs that spell triumph and how they align with the overarching business goals.

Essential KPIs for assessing SEO success in SaaS

1. Organic Traffic and Conversion Rates: The flow of organic traffic is crucial to determining how effective your SEO is for SaaS companies. It’s a sign of improved visibility and more commercial opportunity. Conversion rates provide a window into how well traffic converts into targeted activities, such sign-ups, trials, or purchases, in tandem with traffic.

2. Keyword Ranking Progression: Your SaaS company’s SEO strategy’s effect can be seen in the current state and future direction of your keyword rankings. You may assess the level of competition and improve your strategy for acquiring your target audience by monitoring your content’s position in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for pertinent keywords.

3. Backlink Quality and Quantity: Backlinks from reputable sites are the cornerstone of off-page SEO since they convey relevance and trust to search engines. A strong backlink profile boosts your domain authority and possibilities for organic ranking because it shows that people appreciate your content.

4. Engagement Metrics and Revenue Impact: Engagement metrics such as average session duration, pages per session, and bounce rate provide insight into how compelling and relevant your SaaS product’s content is. Moreover, connecting these metrics to revenue growth helps in quantifying the direct financial impact of your SEO campaigns.

Aligning KPIs with Business Goals

1. Importance of Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): When you compare SEO’s return on investment to the price of bringing in a new client, it becomes even more relevant. SaaS companies may be able to reduce their CAC by optimizing for organic search, which would increase their marketing effectiveness and profitability.

2. Understanding Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): It’s crucial to take the CLV into account as a gauge of long-term customer value and profitability in order to assess SEO’s contribution in its entirety. Increased CLV as a result of organic growth fueled by SEO suggests a viable and successful company strategy.

Case Study: Slack’s comprehensive approach to SEO metrics

Slack, the celebrated collaboration tool, exemplifies a comprehensive and nuanced approach to SEO KPI analysis.

1. Tracking a mix of engagement and performance KPIs: Slack meticulously monitors organic traffic growth, engagement metrics, and keyword rankings. They emphasize understanding user behavior on their site, seeking insights that refine their SEO strategy for long-term improvement.

2. Connecting SEO metrics to CAC and CLV for ROI evaluation. By measuring SEO performance against critical financial KPIs like CAC and CLV, Slack gains a deep understanding of their SEO investment’s ROI. Continuous evaluation helps them adapt and maintain an edge in the competitive SaaS market, proving that sustained SEO efforts can play a pivotal role in propelling a SaaS company’s growth trajectory.

The Bottom Line

Sensitive to the dynamic currents of the SaaS sector, SEO for SaaS companies is a science of adaptation, where the ultimate goal is to leverage a well-oiled SEO machine that drives organic growth and complements the financial aspirations of the business.

With an intelligent approach to measuring KPIs, SaaS businesses can glean actionable insights from their data, charting a course for SEO strategies that are not just traffic generators but also revenue boosters. By stitching engagement with economics, SaaS SEO becomes an indispensable lever in the machinery of a successful, forward-moving industry player.

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What you may not know is that while many companies grow through paid marketing, Duolingo actually acquired ~80% of their users organically. More specifically, Duolingo did this by leveraging Product-led Growth as a lever to expand its consumer base — providing an interactive and gamified approach to language learning, making it accessible to a broad range of users, from beginners to more advanced learners.

Product-led growth is a go-to-market strategy that relies on the company to create and iterate on a product that turns customers into loyal fans who will then introduce the product to their friends, creating a viral growth loop. This approach prioritizes creating a great product that solves a real need for customers; relying on the product to drive word-of-mouth referrals and organic growth. It is an incredibly powerful strategy as current advocates for the product help generate a growth loop of new users that distinctly reduces customer acquisition costs, especially for startups.

Duolingo’s product-led growth was based on 3 main tenets:

• Gamification
• Community-based learning
• A learning-driven team obsessed with A/B testing

Gamification

One of the biggest and most important PLG levers for Duolingo is gamification. With learning anything, the teacher-student bond and internal motivation to reach a better understanding of the subject are key factors in a student’s learning journey. In order to replicate this, Duolingo heavily depends on gamification to not only make the language-learning experience enjoyable for users but also create a sense of achievement and motivation that keeps users coming back regularly, in turn increasing user engagement and retention.

As part of their growth, the team at Duolingo very quickly and smartly saw parallels between the entertainment that gaming apps provided and the consistent learning required for languages. Top digital games, in general, had much higher retention rates across industries. Seeking early inspiration from games like Angry Birds and Clash Royale, Duolingo incorporated key gamification elements, such as points, streaks, and rewards, to make the learning process fun and addictive. 

To start off, Duolingo rewards users with XP (Experience Points) and gems, the game’s in-app currency for completing lessons, exercises, and daily challenges. Earning experience points is a physical representation of a user’s progress, giving learners a more concrete sense of accomplishment which in turn motivates them to continue learning to increase their scores. Gems, on the other hand, gamify the learning experience even further since it acts as a virtual currency used to repair lost streaks, refill hearts, and unlock bonus lessons or content. 

An important piece of PLG that Duolingo tapped into within their product was the idea of instant gratification. Duolingo learners can correct courses in real time, building a robust foundation for their language skills. Not only is a user’s learning instantaneously reinforced through immediate feedback on exercises, which is a proven tactic in habit formation and learning; but their commitment to learning immediately sees reward via these points and gems. Layering this on with additional product features such as levels, progress bars, and leagues, these features provided learners with visual feedback and a visceral representation of their learning journey as they completed lessons and exercises.

Additionally, Duolingo offers a variety of mini-challenges and badges for completing specific tasks or milestones, such as mastering a skill or reaching a certain level. These virtual rewards transformed mastering a language from a daunting task with benefits that can only be reaped long term into a simple, fun rewarding game that provided users with an immediate boost of serotonin as they feel a sense of accomplishment. Seeking inspiration from how gamification was able to boost their engagement and retention rates beyond what they had imagined, the Duolingo team was now inspired to build a growth engine with gamification at its core. 

While Duolingo had its “leveling up” model figured out, it now had to integrate gamification into every nook and cranny of its app. Enter Streaks. As part of the company’s growth, retention was a key metric that Duolingo was hyperfocused on. It was crucial for Duolingo’s business model, since it was based on ads and subscriptions, that users keep coming back to their application and use it as much as possible. Duolingo encouraged daily practice by implementing streaks. Users are rewarded for consecutive days of learning, and breaking a streak can serve as a disincentive for missing a day.

This keeps learners engaged and committed to regular practice. As part of the gamification of streaks, Duolingo used lifecycle marketing to implement a key growth tool in the form of streak-saver notification— a notification at the end of every day that alerted users if they were about to lose their streak. This late-night notification proved to have considerable upside. Students who were having trouble committing a language to practice in their everyday lives saw their commitment to learning reignited with this simple feature alone. With this, Duolingo shortly doubled down on several improvements around streaks, including calendar views of the number of days in a streak achieved, animations, streak freezes, and rewards. Each generated substantial improvements in user engagement and retention. 

Community-Driven Learning 

Duolingo may offer courses in over 40 languages, but the app itself has to speak in a universal tongue with an experience that transcends any cultural or linguistic barriers. One of the first challenges of PLG that Duolingo faced was rebuilding the crucial classroom-teacher-student rigor and community that helps students stay motivated to learn, as it would have a direct impact on retention within the app. While most language courses are top-down curriculums, Duolingo had to completely rethink language learning from the bottom up, with PLG at the core of the curriculum product features that they rolled out. 

The first thing that Duolingo did was to focus their users on bite-sized mastery. Duolingo ingeniously distills language learning into digestible chunks, eliminating the intimidation often associated with mastering a new language. Instead of being just another dry task that a user had to cross off their checklist each day, each lesson is a mini-adventure, a game of linguistic discovery that keeps users engrossed. Beyond leveling up and competing against themselves, Duolingo, more importantly, realized the effect of community and how current advocates of the app could influence and encourage new users to continue learning on the app.

Duolingo started to opt users into leagues where users were able to compete with other learners. Users could progress to the top of the first league by merely engaging consistently in their regular language study. They also had the opportunity to move through a series of league levels (Bronze, Silver, and Gold league) that let them compete against varying segments of engaged users, which granted them a greater sense of progress and reward – another integral element that the Duolingo team borrowed from game design.

By employing leaderboards, Duolingo not only fostered a greater sense of a learning community but also fueled a friendly rivalry among learners. The sense of community within the app served the function of recreating the classroom-teacher-student emotional bond, but the competitive edge added another layer of engagement to the user experience. 

To take community engagement further, Duolingo continued fostering a sense of community among users through discussion forums and language clubs, allowing learners to connect with others who share their language-learning goals. Throughout the app, Duolingo also makes sure to embed push notifications and prompts encouraging users to share their language-learning achievements and progress on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. This word-of-mouth marketing through social sharing helps attract new users and promotes the platform’s positive reputation.

Duolingo created a machine that fed learners with serotonin and reinforced the positive impact of users continuously coming back to the app as engaged users moved up to more competitive leagues week after week. The realization that Duolingo could borrow from gaming instead of simply benchmarking itself against other edtech companies enabled the team to experiment with new approaches to learning.

A learning-driven team obsessed with A/B testing

The ideal PLG loop is led by product, powered by data, and assisted by channels. From the get-go, the Duolingo team knew that users do not know what they want — rather, well-thought-out hypotheses backed by data were the key foundations in order to achieve the growth they needed. Testing is a game of instinct, and the Duolingo team knew that they had to constantly iterate and use quick AB testing to drive growth.

One of the first things that Duolingo AB tested was its soft-walled signup page. Duolingo realized that while it could acquire users, it experienced a major leak at the very onset — the sign-up page. However, it was easy to retain users once they got into the learning experience. Instead, they experimented with the concept of soft-walled signup pages where users could begin learning instantly but encountered soft walls in the form of optional signup screens that could be skipped to continue learning.

With this experiment alone, the Duolingo team managed to increase DAUs by 20%. In addition, their freemium model, where users do not incur any upfront cost, enables users to access a significant portion of the platform’s features and content right away for free, which further encourages user acquisition and engagement. Product usage then becomes the primary lever for product education and user nurturing which is much more powerful and direct. This anchors the Duolingo team on pushing for quick activation and meaningful product usage, which are the key success factors for generating PQLs.

Another key area that Duolingo experimented heavily in was Push Notifications. Well known for its official mascot, an evergreen-colored owl Duo, Duolingo had the perfect excuse in the form of their mascot, which they positioned as their learner’s #1 fan and biggest cheerleader who isn’t shy about checking in or laying on a guilt trip. Openly addressed by Duolingo in their tone and voice documentation of Duo, Duo is a very persistent mascot whose “only thing he loves more than Duolingo is seeing our learners succeed.”

With that, Duolingo created the perfect facade to call users back. But its real power move was in its intentional goal setting at the heart of streaks, where learners were able to select their goal of how committed they were to learning each day. With learners giving Duolingo a reason to call them back, Duo was now able to double down on its notifications.

Duolingo didn’t just send notifications — they conducted a simple A/B test of adding a tiny red dot to the app icon when folks had been notified to practice, which went on to demonstrate a 1.5% increase in DAU.

Duolingo’s product-led growth strategy, which emphasizes gamification, community-based learning, and data-driven A/B testing, has been instrumental in helping the company acquire millions of users who are not only engaged but are firm advocates of the platform. By implementing Product Led Growth tactics that tapped directly into common human motivators of competitiveness and progression, Duolingo has not only made the language-learning experience enjoyable but also created a sense of achievement, competition, and motivation that keeps users engaged and returning to the platform regularly — truly creating the world’s best free,  fun, and effective way to learn a language! 

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Having settled into its role as the dominant player in its space, as creatives, our natural next step is to establish how we approach performance design to propel growth for these competitive SaaS brands.

What is Performance Design for SaaS?

The design process for performance design in SaaS involves improving the visual user interface (UI) or user experience (UX) of existing products.

The goal is to enhance user experiences, increase customer satisfaction within the target market and drive desired conversions and business success. It involves combining creativity and problem-solving but, above all, having the two meet at functionality.

Performance design for SaaS stresses the same core values as product design as a discipline; however, it does have a few nuanced differentiations that can make for better performing creative.

Product Design Foundations & Applications

Before diving into the specifics pertaining to SaaS, we have to first lay the groundwork for what defines good design practices from a digital product perspective.

Starting with UI, performance design should work to ensure the creation of user-friendly, visually appealing, and intuitive interfaces. Here are key UI design best practices followed by how they relate to SaaS:

• Consistency: Design elements such as colors, fonts, icons, and layout should be consistent throughout the interface.
  • For SaaS: Consistency makes the UI more predictable and easier to navigate, especially when guiding consumers along multi-step app flows through CTAs and conversion.
• Calls-to-Action (CTAs): CTAs should be designed with visual distinctions to guide users through the desired actions.
  • For SaaS: Often, with SaaS, there are multiple desired actions, addressing user demands for a free trial or subscription. Design CTAs as you would typography with a clear hierarchy. CTAs can be a filled shape, outlined shape, and/or just a regular hyperlink.
• Use Clear Space: Clear space should create a sense of balance and improve visual clarity.
  • For SaaS: Most consumers engage with their SaaS experience on a smaller device window. (E.g. their phone or tablet) Effectively clear space helps draw attention to important elements, reduces visual design clutter, and alleviates consumer anxieties around those elements when experiencing the product.
• Typography and Messaging: In the same breath, fonts, font sizes, and type hierarchy should work to be both legible and provide ease in the lift to consumers when asked to digest messaging around the what and hows of the product.
  • For SaaS: Content and subject matter can often be dense and jargon-heavy in SaaS. When designing for performance in this area, less is not always more here, as it’s ok to expend more character counts to effectively communicate in layman’s language what the product’s benefits are.
  • Utilize bullet points whenever possible to break up content blocks, making them scannable.
• Optimize for Intuitiveness: The elements showcasing the products themselves should be easy to understand.
  • For SaaS: Showcasing dashboards, interfaces, dropdown menus, etc., are common when it comes to SaaS. Simply here as much as possible. Rather than displaying the whole dashboard or entire menus, isolate and recreate just the elements in a discussion. Consumers should be able to tell exactly what they’re looking at and why.

Moving into SaaS UX, Performance design should aim to create seamless product experiences that align with business goals and provide a competitive edge by removing user-centered roadblocks. Here are hallmark UX design best practices and how they can be leveraged for SaaS:

• The Consumer’s Journey: Customer journeys and product flows should guide more than they direct. Designing from the potential customers’ point-of-view is crucial here.
  • For SaaS: Whether the design application is a landing page, emails, or app flows, the who, what, values, and benefits of the product should always be sectioned and presented in visually identifiable content blocks to best optimize the user attention and overall customer experience.
  • For landing pages and emails, more specifically, the AIDA framework is a great place to start.
• A/B Testing: Utilize A/B testing to experiment with different design variations and allow future design decisions to be informed by key performance indicators (KPIs).
  • For SaaS: Saas often casts a wide net for capturing consumers. Some are more savvy about the consumer pain point they are solving, while others may be newer or more casual about approaching it. A/B testing should be implemented to target the array of well-thought-out client personas. (E.g. headlines, benefits copy, light/dark mode, etc.) Winning design elements should be double-downed and iterated upon to expedite the process of developing the product’s niche and core demographic.
  • This helps SaaS brands more effectively utilize their marketing spend as well!
• Accessibility: This one’s pretty straightforward. Well-performing design should be in service to everyone.
  • For SaaS: As small screens are the primary purveyors of design, SaaS UX design for all instances of the product needs to be accessible and accommodate users with disabilities. Making image content, CTAs, and color contrast perceivable to consumers are just some of the many ways to ensure content is adequately accessible.
  • WebAIM is a great resource on this.
• Responsive Design: Along those same lines, ensure the product experience is designed to be responsive and function well across different devices and screen sizes. Conduct regular usability testing to validate effectiveness, minimizing the occurrence of error messages.
  • For SaaS: While design work remains largely created and previewed on desktop, mobile has become a primary way consumers experience our software applications. For starters, when translating design elements between the two devices, prioritize left and center alignment for all elements. Avoid horizontal scrolling to be mobile-friendly, and limit column layouts to no more than 2 50/50 columns.
• Optimize for Time: Slow load times on digital experiences are a leading point of frustration and deterrent for hopeful consumers.
  • For SaaS: SaaS products vary in complexity, often relying on more visual elements, images, or motion than others to communicate their ideas and various solutions. Performance design here takes a technical seat. (E.g. Wherever applicable, leverage the smaller file sizes of SVG and JPEG, compress videos into shorter GIFs, and make all text live and, thereby, readable as soon as the page is accessed.)

Let’s recap!

Simplify, Simply, and Simplify Again

• A major and prevailing specific for SaaS is to distill the presentation across the board. Following common practices, Copy should be straightforward, following essential design principles, and light on technical and/or industry-specific jargon. Imagery should be deliberate. Show only the menus, options, and UI elements within the product that are the point of focus. Lastly, streamline the experience with the collaboration of the design team. Landing pages should resemble emails, paid ads, etc., and dense information should be optimized for the specific viewing audience and devices.

Don’t Deviate (too much)

• SaaS attracts a wide range of audiences, some looking for a solution while others are merely curious. Contrary to our open experimentation philosophy on performance creative and design, SaaS appears to be one of the industries that benefit from leveraging these product design best practices, operating more of a slow-turning wheel. Lean into A/B testing results and social proof, iterating over time on messaging and creativity.

In this comprehensive guide to performance design for SaaS, we delved into the world of Software as a Service and its revolutionary impact on the software industry. As creatives, we explored the essential process of enhancing user experiences and customer satisfaction through performance design.

From UI design best practices to leveraging UX strategies, we learned how consistency, clear space, and intuitive interfaces contribute to seamless product experiences. A/B testing and accessibility played vital roles in refining our designs and aligning them with key performance indicators and business goals.

By optimizing for time and addressing performance issues, we gained a competitive edge, catering to the needs of our target audience and potential clients. Through this slow-turning wheel of design experimentation, we discovered the power of simplification and social proof in captivating our diverse user base.

As you embark on your journey of performance design for SaaS, remember to lean into these proven practices and iterate on your messaging and creativity. With the collaboration of your design team, create a user-centered experience that leaves a lasting positive impression.

Now equipped with these insights, go forth and craft exceptional SaaS products that stand out in the digital space, ensuring success in customer acquisition, retention, and growth. Embrace the potential of performance design, and let your SaaS brand soar to new heights!

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