Google Ads for SaaS, bid on the accounts that pay.

Three kinds of SaaS search, three campaigns

People search for software in three ways. Category searches (“project management software”) come from buyers who know the type of tool they want. Problem searches (“track team hours across clients”) come from people who haven’t named the category yet and need a page that explains the fix. Competitor searches come from users of a rival tool, often ready to switch and expensive to win.

Each needs its own campaign, landing page and cost target. Google doesn’t restrict trademarks as keywords, but it can limit a competitor’s trademark in your ad text after a complaint (Google Ads trademark policy). Our guide to competitor keyword campaigns covers which rival searches to buy and when to cut them.

Bidding on activated trials, qualified demos and paid accounts

A sign-up goal teaches Google to find people who sign up. You want people who activate and pay, so we import those outcomes from your product database or CRM as offline conversions, tied to the original click. Self-serve products usually bid on an activation event. Sales-led products bid on qualified demos and closed deals. Our post on trial vs demo campaigns explains how to choose and how to stage bidding from launch.

SaaS volumes are small, and Google needs a steady flow of conversions to bid well. We pick the deepest event that still arrives often enough and move bidding one stage deeper as volume grows. The budget comes from your CAC payback period: what you can pay per customer sets what you can pay per trial or demo.

Where we work

SaaS companies selling in the US, the UK and the EU. We plan bids and budgets market by market, since click costs and competition differ between them. See our Google Ads management page for how we run accounts outside SaaS.