Welcome 375 SaaS Founders, Tech Entrepreneurs, and Marketers to the 70th edition of Write your SaaS Growth Newsletter:
In this edition, we discuss:
Google Ads: Scale your SaaS with Google Ads
Copywriting: Why landing pages are important for your SaaS
Sales: 2 myths on sales that is stopping you sell your SaaS
SEO: How MailChimp s crushing SEO: A Case Study
Social Media Marketing: 4 steps to better hooks
Letās GO!
Btw, today before we begin today - Itās a festive season to shop and sell! š„³
I hope you all are having some great Black Friday deals going.
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Google Ads š
Scale your SaaS with Google Ads:
Collin says hereās how to Overcome B2B Lead Gen Scaling Challenges in Google Ads (Live Account Breakdown)
Background For You:
we have been scaling every 14-21 days for the last 2 months
up to $300/day in spend at our desired CPA (tCPA is $60, aCPA is $59 with conversion lag)
maintaining 40% Search IS so we knew we could scale
#2 in overall Search IS compared to 12+ competitors
What We Did
with BFCM being a big seasonality trend in search volume (products to be delivered by EOY), we wanted to test an aggressive market capture
so we raised budgets from $280/day to $400/day (we didn't touch anything else, just a budget change)
WHY
in the previous 5 days, Google was OVER spending at $300/day WHILE being under our goal, and we wanted to capitalize on this
What Happened (8 Days Post Change)
Primary Metrics Ad Spend: $1,153 (-36%)
$280/day to $144/day Leads: 22 (-27%) CPL: $58 (0%) CVR: 9% (-18%)
Secondary Metrics Clicks: 216 (-21%) Impressions: 1,635 (-23%) CTR: 13% (+3%) CPC: $5.34 (-19%)
Competitive Metrics Search IS: 25% (-28%)
Search Lost IS (Rank): 75% (+15%)
1st Position: 19% (-14%)
Top 4 Position: 81% (+1%)
Click Share: 20% (-28%)
So What Did We Do?
Optimization Idea #1 (4 Days Post Change)
we noticed the budget go lower and lower after day 1 of the change
we discussed 3 options and ended up deciding on the safest, just letting Google have more time to see if, naturally, Google spends more each day (using the Segment By Days option)
4 days later nothing happened in our favor. Google continued to spend less and less per day (now in the $70-$80 range, a massive drop in just over 8 days)
so why is this happening? it's pretty unusual...usually after an aggressive bidding change, we see tCPA/aCPAs be the thing we watch...not the actual spend the reason why it's not spending isn't due to the daily budget,
It's these 2 things:
Google, for some reason, doesn't believe it can achieve the tCPAs we have set (so it's slowly killing itself in spending because it's not confident in achieving the goal we set)
Because Google doesn't think it can be profitable, it's lowering the CPC bids, which then is hurting us even more DUE to the increase in competition/bids with BFCM basically here
So we have 3 optimization ideas we can now try:
Opening tCPA to $60-$70 to let it breathe (aCPA is still $59)
Remove bidding restriction (tCPA) and go to Maximize Conversions (+ lower budget from $400/day to $250-$300/day so not a huge jump)
Remove smart bidding completely and go with manual CPC, losing background info BUT can force higher bids since that's a huge reason why we are losing out on searches (Lost by Ad Rank)
With capitalizing on the search volume + want faster clicks, #2 or #3 is the way to go if you want to try and stay stable with CPL, #1 is the way to go (but it will be slower spending up).
Related: How to grow your SaaS with Google Ads?
Copywriting š
Why landing pages are important for your SaaS:
Jackson says landing pages are where good products go to die. I see it all the time... A killer product... Great Google Ads set-up, and then... A landing page that couldnāt sell water in a desert.
Let's talk about how to fix it.
Product. Forget everything you think you know. Your landing page needs to sell, not just look pretty. You need to be brutally honest with what your product does and who it does it for.
Pain points are your gold mine
Speak directly to them
Your headline shouldn't be vague
You need to drill right into what keeps your customers up at night.
And the solution? Your product.
Now, let's talk visuals. You can use them to stand out in the marketplace quickly. But only when they're done right. I see a lot of brands post their images directly from Alibaba. Or slightly edit stock images. Don't.
Show your product in action
Include before-and-after shots
Or user-generated contentāreal people with real results. This will help help you address objections and build trust.
Next up, trust. You want to build up trust fast. Especially if you're targeting a colder audience. Which you'll do in your prospecting and awareness ads.
Scan through your reviews
Find the ones that tell a story
Put them just under the hero or incorporate it
Even include the not-so-perfect ones with a response that shows you're listening and continuously improving
The faster you can build trust, the faster you sell.
Lastly, I want to talk about form-fields. Your checkouts. Your opt-ins. The fewer the fields, the better. Donāt build a maze between customers and the checkout. Simplify it. If you can, allow your customers to check out as guests.
This isnāt rocket science. But most brands forget that your landing pages are as important as your ads.
Related: 77+ Expert Checklist and Tips for SaaS Landing Page Conversions
Sales š
2 myth on Sales that can help you for your SaaS.
Jeremy says the world of sales is full of misinformation. Here are the 2 biggest myths youāve been told... (A thread).
hereās a lot of broke people trying to teach sales. You must be careful who you listen to. When I worked as a W-2 salesperson I made 7-figures a year in commissions for 10 straight years. And thereās two sales myths I want to debunk today.
Myth 1: Selling is a numbers game: I will tell you that selling can indeed be a numbers game for you. If all you know is traditional selling techniques. Lookā¦
This myth dates back to when the telephone was first invented. Salespeople would call all day and be rejected left and right. So the managers would come up with the excuse that: āSelling is just a numbers game.ā All to make their people feel better.
Think about it. If sales was a numbers gameā¦ I wouldnāt be broke at 21 selling door to door. I would be filthy rich with the amount of doors Iāve knocked on. You seeā¦ With the new way of selling Iāve been using for yearsā¦ I donāt need to be pushy, and I donāt make the call about me or my company. I make it all about my prospects and their problems.
The better I become at persuading, the more I sell. Itās not about numbers, itās about making the numbers count.Myth 2: Rejection is just a part of sales: Why do you accept rejection is just something you have to accept in selling, when it doesnāt have to be? What if the reason your prospects rejected you was because you were actually triggering that rejection?
Lookā¦ Youāve been taught by the āexpertsā that rejection is part of the process. But it doesnāt have to be. Iām not saying thereās a sale in every sales call. But what if you could stop triggering that rejection?
99% of the timeā¦ Itās the way you communicate that makes prospects reject you. Thatās why Iāve been teaching people how to avoid these triggers so they can eliminate them from their sales conversations.
Related: 9 steps to effortlessly close sales as a SaaS founder
š§° Marketing Tech Stack to Add this Week! š§°
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SEO š
Case Study: How MailChimp is crushing SEO.
The Boring Marketer says Mailchimp is crushing SEO. 584K keywords driving $9.9M in traffic each month. The secret? Leveraging the power of a few SEO strategies. Hereās how they do it:
Killer branding - 15% of their organic traffic is branded - 29.5% of their traffic (worth $1.6M) goes to their homepage. - Years of brand building, quirky branding elements, and focus on EEAT have got them here
Broad informational keywords - 30.4% of their organic traffic goes to their blog - almost 20% of organic traffic goes to informational keywords - Instead of only focusing on keywords related to āemail marketingā, they are using TOF keywords - Keywords such as āmake money onlineā, āwhat is competitor analysisā, and ācatchy slogan analysis.ā - Such keywords would work great for people in the āproblem unawareā or āproblem awareā stages.
User-centric content - Their organic traffic saw a significant boost after Googleās Helpful Content update in Dec 2022 - This, again, can be attributed to how authoritative and valuable their content is
Marketing Glossary - Mailchimpās content hub on marketing glossaries gets 11.9% of their organic traffic
Focus on international SEO - Only 31.8% of their traffic comes from the US - Their organic reach expand to 184 different countries!
50M backlinks - 12.9% of their backlinks have the anchor text āMailChimpā - 2% of their backlinks target their website homepage
Related: Why SEO is important for your SaaS?
Social Media Marketing š
How to write better hooks?
Erica says last week, a hook stopped me in my tracks. I became totally immersed without realizing it. And then I read the entire post even though I'm NOT the target audience. It was so good I have to share it and explain why it worked.
It hit all 4 'great hook' principles:
Pokes at the pain
Piques curiosity
Adds credibility
Leaves the reader wanting more
Let's break it down line by line:
LINE 1: āIf you gave your 10 year old kid nunchucksā It immediately opens a curiosity loop. I know this isnāt going to be about nunchucks. So I want to know where itās going. Also, "nunchucks" brings up a specific image. If she said "a toy" it wouldn't hit nearly as hard. ***Specificity***
LINE 2: āAnd they chased their little brother around the house with them relentlesslyā It keeps me invested. Weāre in the moment now. I canāt leave until I know where sheās taking this. More specificity working here, too: "little brother" "around the house". If she said "sibling" and didn't give me a setting, I wouldn't be able to picture it as easily.
LINE 3: āYouād take the nunchucks away.ā Iām nodding. āDuh.ā This is a brilliant way to get everyone agreeing with a common experience to frame what youāre about to compare it to.
LINE 4: āThatās pretty much what Google just did to Sales & Marketing teams who have been using cold email as a spam cannon.ā Boom. Like I said, Iām not the target audience. But itās so well constructed, I want to know more. It also builds her credibility. Sheās responding to a real time event.
THIS IS HOW YOU HOOK PEOPLE.
You make them feel something. You keep them invested. You center a common experience that annoys, delights, or confuses us. And donāt let your audience ever wonder āwhy should I care?ā
BUT MOST PEOPLE MESS THIS UP
Iāve edits thousands of hooks over the past 2 years. Most of them are a hot mess. Mostly because you assume the reader knows what you know, so you don't get specific enough, and you donāt tug on emotions. You struggle because itās a skill you havenāt yet learned.
YOU CAN LEARN IT
You simply need to understand, principally, what makes a great hook. And review 100s of examples of great hooks just like this, accompanied by breakdowns, so it sticks. And, practice writing your own with an AI trained assistant.
Related: 7 Copy Hooks for SaaS Customers to Drive Conversions
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Thanks for reading! SaaSwrites is a humble attempt to help SaaS founders and marketers grow their SaaS.
See you next Saturday.
Ricky,
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