The best SaaS Facebook ads highlight audience pain points and present your software as their solution. See this concept in action with our roundup of these high-converting Facebook ads for SaaS brands.
Here, you’ll find 28 of the best SaaS Facebook ads (and why they work):
- Sleeknote
- Drift
- Kissmetrics
- Github
- Proof
- Grow
- CoSchedule
- Autopilot
- Asana
- Heap
- Miro
- Dropbox
- Hootsuite
- Kinsta
- Flo
- Adobe
- InfluencerCandy
- Mindbody
- OpenTable
- Datadog
- Brightwheel
- Intuit Mailchimp
- Sera
- Upkeep
- Shopify
- Spotify
- Dubsado
- The Contract Shop
Bonus:
Modern SaaS marketers face high competition, slow audience trust, and vast feature highlights. These factors make it difficult to know how to advertise effectively with Facebook ads.
How do you create persuasive yet authoritative ad copy and send the right message?
Look no further than these 28 brilliant SaaS Facebook ads.
1. Sleeknote makes a bold promise
The best way to entice and convert a SaaS audience? Showcase your SaaS tool’s benefits and make them a promise they can’t refuse.
That’s what Sleeknote did in its Facebook Ad, which promises major gains (400-600% more email subscribers) when using its product:
And to sweeten the deal? Sleeknote highlights its simple five-minute setup to paint a picture of convenience.
Why it works: This ad tells you exactly what to expect if you sign up, and makes it simple to create your first pop-up within minutes. It eases any concerns a customer may have, especially thanks to its 7-day free trial.
2. Drift appeals to audiences with convenience and conversions
Drift boosts its industry cred with a snapshot of the latest industry stats, which speak to the audience’s pain point (high ad costs and low returns). Talk about building niche authority!
Naturally, the ad ends with persuasive ad copy that presents Drift’s chatbot tool as a solution (more conversions and traffic).
As a bonus? Drift assures its audience that no coding knowledge is necessary to install the tool, which appeals to most marketers without a tech background.
Why it works: The ad shows Drift’s industry knowledge, which promotes credibility to its audience. Additionally, Drift presents its product as an effective, seamless, and convenient solution.
3. Kissmetrics shares multiple new features for a single pain point with a carousel ad
Sometimes, multiple features work together to address one major challenge. Kissmetrics hones in on helping marketers gain more customers. It does this by offering powerful analytics tools (like A/B testing and multi-channel attribution) to better understand customer behaviors when using your site or product.
The ad shows an interactive carousel of features, including its funnel data, identifying drop-off points in the customer journey, along with behavioral insights to see which features power users engage with most.
Why it works: It gets straight to the (pain) point and offers options to overcome it.
4. GitHub inspires a niche audience with a conference’s thought leaders
Brand awareness is a serious pro for Facebook SaaS advertising. If you have a blog, webinar, podcast, or YouTube channel to promote, this PPC channel gives you the platform to promote your knowledge and acquaint people with your brand.
Prime example?
GitHub used Facebook ads to raise awareness of its live conference with expert developers:
Why it works: It shares an experience and value with its audience without pushing a sale. GitHub’s developer audience can use the event to learn from greats in their industry. And if your customers feel your value? They’ll increase it with a positive feedback loop of engagement and conversions on future projects.
5. Proof entices audiences with social proof
What’s more powerful than a solid PPC campaign? Social proof in the form of positive customer reviews and personal recommendations. BrightLocal found that almost all customers read reviews, while almost half of them trust them like a loved one’s recommendation.
Proof’s Facebook ad convinces its target audience with a winning combination of PPC prowess and social proof:
The ad shares its vast number of customers to build trust and invites its target audience to imagine the same benefits as those customers. It also includes an image of a customer’s dashboard with an impressive conversion rate.
Why it works: Potential customers can visualize the results they may get from using the tool. Plus, seeing that tens of thousands of others are using it builds trust.
6. Grow uses P.A.S. and a dashboard sneak-peek
Ever heard of the P.A.S. formula? It’s popularly used in copywriting to relate to your target audience, and stands for pain, agitate, solution.
Grow’s ad captures this by starting with a question (and pain point) many marketers ask themselves. Then, it agitates the pain point by saying it’s a problem that should be simple to figure out, yet scattered data makes it challenging.
Of course, the solution is its tool, which creates visually appealing dashboards with all the information marketers need to make tough decisions.
Why it works: We love the detailed, no-nonsense visual of what the audience will get with Grow’s tool.
7. CoSchedule highlights functionality with simplicity
Think you need to say a lot to convince audiences to convert? Think again. If you can communicate the same value in a sentence or two like CoSchedule? Your time-pressed audience will appreciate the quick read (and actually read it all):
Why it works: It clearly states what it helps (resharing social media content) with and how (automation).
8. Autopilot offers to teach you to overcome a major challenge
A common SaaS nightmare? The dreaded first trial with no second date (subscription). The solution? Creating valuable company assets that convert prospects into leads.
Autopilot completed a study to identify the formula for a common marketing problem: creating high-performing free trial experiences (so leads are more likely to convert into paying customers).
Why it works: A free guide to convert trial subscribers into paying customers? Count us (every brand) in! Autopilot also reaps the reward of endless email subscribers and leads to nurture further down the funnel with their email marketing efforts.
9. Asana soothes multiple audience pain points with one ad
What are some common obstacles to project management software? Expensive pricing, limited features, and high learning curves. Asana crushes all three pain points in this simple Facebook ad:
Why it works: Asana delivers on its promise to its target audience’s greatest desire: the ability to meet deadlines. No doubt, this project management SaaS brand did the work researching their target audience before creating this ad.
10. Heap compares itself to a known SaaS giant
How do you build brand authority as a brand-new SaaS brand? Take a trick from Heap’s playbook and compare your brand with another SaaS giant to help your prospects visualize while your solution reigns supreme.
That’s what Heap did in its SaaS Facebook ad:
Based on the ad, you know it’s an analytics tool for SaaS apps and can assume it’s more modern because of its statement: “if Google Analytics were built in 2017” (instead of decades ago).
Why it works: It shows what the tool’s capable of. Heap compares itself to Google Analytics, which helps newer audiences picture its benefits. Of course, the callout to big clients like Zendesk and its vast clientele helps build audience trust and credibility as well.
11. Miro highlights a familiar use case
Building a new SaaS product? Then you know you want prospects to visualize how it’ll help them in their everyday lives. A whiteboard is an office staple, but miro’s solution brings that familiarity into digital form.
Miro teases that feeling and presents a modern alternative with better accessibility, after all, you can take its digital whiteboard to work on the sandy beaches of Tahiti or on a train commute.
Why it works: It takes a common use case and shows a better way to achieve the same (teamwork) or better results (accessible anywhere).
12. Dropbox offers a free trial with an easy sign-up
Free trials and SaaS tools are practically synonymous today. The question now is, how long should it be? Simple answer: however long it takes for subscribers to see the value in your platform.
For example, if your tools offer monthly insights, a 30-day trial is the minimum.
Why it works: Dropbox offered a 14-day trial because that’s all the time a user needs to see how it works. Then as a cherry on top, it highlights its fast two-minute setup to combat worries of it having an extensive process.
13. Hootsuite creates FOMO with a little-known secret
If there’s one thing consumers dislike, it’s being the last to learn about something awesome. Hootsuite’s ad pushes the envelope further by presenting a secret few know: how to become a verified Instagram user (in only three steps).
Even if you have no idea where to start, Hootsuite’s ad soothes and guides you with a simple way forward:
Why it works: It doesn’t just provide a solution, it presents it as a simple process, making it a no-brainer click for folks who aren’t “in the know.” Also note the link to Hootsuite’s blog.
Facebook ads don’t always need to lead potential customers to a sales page. Sometimes, a relevant, valuable resource is enough to convince an audience to look deeper into your brand and product.
14. Kinsta plays on customers’ worst fear
If your research reveals your customers are afraid of a certain outcome or threat, use it to gain their trust. Kinsta knows its audience’s biggest fear is cyber threats, and created a downloadable cheat sheet to safeguard against website attacks.
Best of all? It’s free.
Why it works: It helps prospects overcome safety fears for free. But you don’t have to be a security SaaS tool to ease fears. For instance, you can highlight other anxieties your product resolves, such as reducing churn, preventing financial loss, or speeding up manual processes.
15. Flo uses emojis and soft visuals to appeal to women
Flo is a women’s health SaaS app that tracks menstrual cycles and helps women learn more about their reproductive health. Common pain points for Flo’s audience? Trouble syncing their cycle and planning to conceive.
Flo knows its target audience is primarily female, and its branding, ad copy, and messaging.
Why it works: Hearts, pastel colors, and emojis in general appeal to Flo’s primarily female audience. Additionally, the platform checks off thought leadership and pain point solutions within just two lines with “expert-backed” and “When to Have Sex to Get Pregnant” in the image.
16. Adobe maintains industry-leader status with accolade-focused ads
Should Facebook ads always lead to a direct conversion? In an ideal world, yes. But industry titans like Adobe know how important it is to build brand trust and awareness before you can push for a sale.
That’s exactly what they do with this sponsored post that shares a new Adobe system from TechCrunch:
Sure, Adobe can talk about how much its new software will cater to wider audiences like students and business owners.
But if they already have an objective tech publication like TechCrunch talking about it? Even better.
Why it works: This Facebook ad comes off as much more trustworthy (a must for SaaS audiences) since they have the credibility of TechCrunch vouching for the brand.
17. InfluencerCandy leads with results
Affiliate SaaS platform InfluencerCandy helps brands track affiliate conversions and revenue through their SaaS platforms. But what does that really translate for a business considering a subscription?
No guessing game required, because the stats are all listed in the ad:
Why it works: We love how clearly InfluencerCandy lays out the benefits front-and-center within their ad copy. The green bullet emojis also make the ad easy to skim, while more interested audiences can watch the video for more of a picture.
18. Mindbody teases wellness brands with more new clients
Can a $1.5 trillion market still be competitive? McKinsey says yes for the wellness market. And booking software Mindbody knows that, which is why it states clearly what pain point it solves: getting new clients in a competitive industry. The Mindbody marketplace opens the door for new prospects.
Why it works: This ad proposes the benefit of new clients to the small- to medium-enterprise businesses (SMBs) that come across this ad. We love the visual appeal to different wellness niches within the photo (massage, yoga, boxing, weights, gym), and we can bet that Mindbody knows its customer base to inform those images.
19. OpenTable opens the door to more patrons
Slow Friday night? Every restaurant business wants to fill the tables. OpenTable knows this all too well. Its Facebook Ad wastes no time offering up a tantalizing stat: 33.1M guests booked each month through online reservations.
The simple yet effective call to arms, “Get Discovered,” encapsulates why this ad is so effective: in just two words it teases the pain point and offers a solution.
Why it works: The booking and review software keeps ad copy concise, with a heavy focus on its authority and results. We’ll bet this ad filled more seats on the conversion count, too.
20. HawkSEM highlight: Datadog shares a wealth of knowledge with Amazon’s reinforcement
Our SaaS client Datadog is an analytics platform for all things IT. The challenge? Datadog offers over 100 different types of tracking tech and integrations, which makes it hard to find cohesion in their PPC ads.
Datadog spent a ton of money on campaigns that didn’t bring quality scores or conversions.
We created more ad groups to make each ad specific to Datadog’s different integrations, technologies, and benefits.
In this case, potential new customers need help managing their Amazon Web Services workload:
Brand trust from Amazon’s tag? Check. Clear and concise ad copy that highlights the solution? Got it. But the real deal closer was our revamped and new conversion-focused landing pages:
Intuitive, clean, and solution-oriented—exactly what Datadog’s target audience ordered.
And it worked:
- Clickthrough rate increase from 1% to 3%
- 40% reduction in CPA
- 75% increase in sales demos and downloads
Learn more about Datadog’s marketing journey and results from partnering with HawkSEM.
21. Brightwheel lets customers speak for the brand
Testimonials are golden marketing tools for SaaS businesses like Brightwheel, especially in the childcare niche. Rave reviews build trust and help people feel more confident in putting their faith in a brand.
This ad lists the platform’s many functionalities and highlights its 5-star rating on a review site. The closer? A powerful testimonial from a client:
Why it works: The ad paints a trustworthy image of credibility and industry leadership, and lets customers sing the brand’s praises.
22. Intuit Mailchimp entices conversions with a selling resource
Personalization is the key to an effective email marketing strategy. People don’t want to feel like a million in a million; they want to feel like one in a million.
Intuit Mailchimp’s Facebook Ad offers a free resource to help sell products to various audiences with behavior-based triggers:
Why it works: Email marketing often misses the mark by targeting the wrong audience segments. Intuit Mailchimp’s ad is a no-frills example of taking what people need and delivering it with value.
23. Sera appeals to a diverse audience with lower costs and more efficiency
Every industry evolves at lightspeed these days, and trade businesses are no exception. Sera offers efficient software for HVAC and plumbing businesses to evolve beyond traditional handshake contracts and notepads.
But at the heart of this ad? More money, fewer calls. Aka: Sera helps you work smarter, not harder.
In this ad, Sera speaks to an audience looking to scale and invites customer data with an interactive quiz:
Why it works: The company’s robust Facebook ads campaign takes advantage of a wide range of audience engagement opportunities to capture a diverse client pool with equally diverse pain points.
24. Upkeep promises big savings and more time
Our client Upkeep is an operations management software for maintenance and reliability teams that wanted to see more conversions from its PPC efforts.
After diving into their target audience with social listening, surveys, demographic research, and purchase behavior, we discovered their biggest pain point: Manual data entry was tedious and time-consuming.
Why it works: The ad opens with a strong hook which immediately addresses the leading pain point: manual data entry. Then it serves up the solution on a silver platter by sharing all the ways it’s going to solve the problem.
Inspired to serve your brand’s solutions to your audience? We can help with our Facebook ads services.
25. Shopify capitalizes on recognition with thought leaders
As the leading CMS for ecommerce stores, Shopify’s reputation and popularity prove its value. So what can this brand do if not convince people of its value? Double down on upgrades to Shopify Plus, its scalable growth service for enterprise businesses.
And the best way to do that? Prep its target audience for upcoming changes with the help of industry experts.
Why it works: It’s a clean, minimal ad that gets straight to the point with a simple question. Then, it swings big with a solution via an industry-expert led webinar about how to navigate the year ahead.
26. Spotify teases no ads
Ad fatigue isn’t news to Spotify, who uses an ad to promote their ad-free premium plan. First, the ad invites you to listen to music that moves you.
Well, you can get that from any service: YouTube, Apple Music, Soundcloud. But ads can kill the vibe, and Spotify knows we don’t want that.
Why it works: Simplicity wins here because Spotify boasts two promises in two sentences: your favorite music, ad-free. Facebook ads don’t have to be complicated to be effective.
27. Dubsado knows what its audience needs
Business owners spend a ton of time on admin tasks while they scale, and SaaS business management software Dubsado knows this all too well. That’s why it targets its ideal audience of solopreneurs and small business owners.
The pain point? Spending too much time on contracts. The solution? The software that gives you more time “in the zone.”
Why it works: The ad flawlessly captures its target audience’s mindset, promising streamlined software for everyday tasks. Plus, the unlimited free trial closes the deal.
28. The Contract Shop entices with social proof and a discount
A first sentence that hooks attention with a “5-STARS” discount code? Brilliant.
The Contract Shop has three strategic points in this ad:
- Instant social proof with the code name, followed by a 5-star testimonial
- An enticing 15% discount
- A list of reasons The Contract Shop stands out from competitors
Why it works: The combination of social proof and a discount instantly builds trust and incentivizes a purchase.
We’ve looked at the most effective Facebook ads examples, but why are they important for SaaS brands?
Do Facebook ads work for SaaS?
Isn’t LinkedIn the go-to SaaS marketing channel, especially for B2B SaaS businesses?
While an omnichannel marketing strategy is important, you don’t want to miss your audience on Facebook, especially SaaS audiences in earlier stages of the buyer’s journey.
You need the widespread brand awareness that Facebook ads offer if you want your SaaS audience to trust your product.
Just look at our SaaS client, AppDynamics. The computer application SaaS brand helps massive companies like Expedia catch web bugs and get back on track in a flash.
We used a combination of Facebook ads and Google Ads to better reach their target audience with text ads optimization, gorgeous landing pages that prioritized user experience, and campaigns with a global audience in mind.
Long story short, we increased their conversions by 20% and doubled their traffic.
But what did our ads have to generate these results? Keep reading to learn the HawkSEM difference when we create effective, converting Facebook ads.
12 best practices to create lead-generating SaaS Facebook ads
What did all our SaaS Facebook ad examples have in common? Most of them highlighted a pain point and solution, offered a free resource, and spoke directly to the brand’s audience.
With these tips, you can put the odds in your favor and build visibility for your SaaS brand:
1. Research your target audience
Extend beyond your current buyer personas by conducting interviews and surveys to capture insights straight from the source. From there, you can use tools that capture behind-the-scenes data to see who’s visiting your landing pages and converting.
Use all of this info to create narrower segments that are more likely to convert. The info you gather at this stage will help you with the following best practices.
2. Create multiple target audiences
Facebook attracts tons of SaaS brands for its massive audience, but that same vastness can get you in trouble if you don’t create proper targets. Go too broad? You risk marketing irrelevant products to the wrong audience.
That’s why Facebook audience segmentation is vital for personalization and reaching the most qualified audiences.
Consider grouping by industry, job role, or lifestyle choices.
3. Zoom in on key pain points
Pain points are a common theme in our SaaS ad examples and for good reason: they help you demonstrate your product as a solution.
For example, if you’re targeting CFOs with your payroll software, highlight how it eases or eliminates a common issue (e.g., tracking employee timesheets).
4. Highlight your SaaS product‘s benefits
This is a big one: Avoid talking about what your product has (features), and instead, show what it can do (benefits). Be explicit.
Let’s say your product is a project management tool. What can it do for your audience? Perhaps:
- Slash time spent on tasks by 60%
- Add 10+ more hours per week to your schedule
- Boost employee engagement and retention
5. Use social proof
SaaS audiences need a longer period to get to know your brand and trust your product. One way to speed up the process? Harness the power of social proof and show customer experiences and successes with:
- Case studies
- Public reviews
- Customer testimonials
It’s one thing for you to promise your product’s benefits. But if you get customers to back you up? Hello, conversions.
6. Promote educational content
Don’t rush to an immediate sales pitch with your Facebook ads. Believe it or not, your SaaS audiences are deeply interested in your niche. If you give them something juicy to read about, you’ll engage them and set yourself up as a niche authority.
Use your Facebook ads to promote educational content marketing like an e-book, research study, or survey with actionable insights that can improve your audience’s business.
7. A/B test everything
How do you know which headlines, calls to action (CTAs), content formats, or ad copy lines convert your audience? You don’t unless you A/B test them. Just remember to test only one element at a time to identify what improved (or tanked) your ad results.
8. Offer free demos
Everyone likes free samples at Costco, and your SaaS audience isn’t too different. Make it worthwhile, such as a 30-day test run, so they see its impact on their lives. This way, they’ll be more reluctant to continue on without it.
9. Build a complete funnel
The customer funnel generally covers awareness, consideration, and decision-making (purchase) stages. But your SaaS audience is scattered across the funnel, meaning your ads should be specific to each stage of their journey.
For example, educational content ads speak to awareness-stage customers, while free demo invitations speak to those in the consideration stages. As for purchase-ready customers? You’ll increase your chance of conversion with a limited-time offer or discount.
10. Create lookalike audiences
Reach more qualified leads by targeting audiences similar to those who engage with your ads (download, click, buy). Build campaigns for each type to see which performs the best. The result? More people, more reach, more qualified leads.
11. Remarket to your leads
Facebook ads might get you initial traffic upon first click, but conversions only come with ads focused on the customer journey stages. Later-stage audiences need a more persuasive pitch to budget them toward a sale. Remarketing via Facebook ads will help you seal the deal.
12. Use tech to monitor metrics and results
Facebook Analytics helps you assess ad performance, but it doesn’t give you as many details about your customer journey and results across your entire advertising strategy (including other channels).
You might try CRM tools like Hubspot and Salesforce to help you track leads throughout the customer funnel.
Or you could recruit an award-winning digital marketing agency like HawkSEM. Our proprietary tech ConversionIQ syncs data from all your marketing channels to measure your ad quality and lead generation in your Facebook campaigns.
Then, we use those data insights to design relevant and personalized ads to convert prospects into customers.
The takeaway
Facebook marketing for SaaS builds brand awareness, customer trust, and conversions. But the magic of Facebook ads for SaaS businesses happens when you:
- Highlight your product as a clear solution to your audience’s pain point
- Build customer trust and make your company look credible
- Effectively target the most qualified leads amongst Facebook’s vast audience of 3 billion people
That’s where HawkSEM’s skilled PPC strategists and marketers are here to help. Join our many SaaS clients who experience more customer acquisitions and an average of 4.5X ROI.
Use the best practices in this guide to ensure your ads are relevant and click-worthy. And if you ever need a little more inspiration, let’s talk.
This article has been updated and was originally published in September, 2022.
