Lead gen strategy for SaaS leads to a 52% user growth

About the brand

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Spica, a leading SaaS workforce management solutions provider with over 30 years of experience, has helped 3,000+ global clients modernize their HR and workforce management processes.

They partnered up with us in 2021, seeking expertise to refine their digital presence and marketing efforts. Their goals were to reduce costs and expand their user base.

In line with their goals, we primarily focused on two challenges: cutting down the trial acquisition cost in key markets and improving their lead generation processes. 

Through a combination of strategy and digital marketing know-how, we reshaped Spica's online strategies and campaigns. Before diving into our collaboration with Spica, let's quickly touch on a few basic concepts.

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About the project

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a cloud-based service where software is accessed online rather than being installed on individual devices. 

The software is hosted on remote servers, maintained and updated by the service provider, and made available to customers via browsers, mobile apps and APIs. This model saves upfront costs and ensures users always have the latest features.

Marketing a SaaS product comes with its own unique set of challenges and opportunities. The two main areas SaaS marketing heavily relies on are:

1. Lead generation: With tons of software out there, standing out and capturing attention is crucial. To achieve this, digital marketing in Saas mainly leans on:

1. Content marketing that educates potential users, 
2. Targeted ads that reach the right audience and key decision makers
3. SEO to ensure they rank prominently in online searches.

2. Cost efficiency: Efficient SaaS marketing means maximizing marketing budget. This involves optimizing ad budgets and improving the conversion rates—ensuring that more of those who show interest become actual customers.

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The Challenge

Even with the fundamentals in place, Spica needed a tailor-made approach to their challenges. After analyzing their current marketing initiatives, our team crafted a strategy that would specifically fit their business model. 

One of the main challenges we tackled was an elevated trial acquisition cost (TAC) in the key markets, Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia, standing at 144€. This was indicating a significant area for improvement.

Beyond just addressing this cost issue, Spica had a broader vision: improving lead generation. It wasn't merely about getting more users; it was about creating a solid system that would effectively nurture and convert users into loyal customers. 

The end goal was clear: sustainable growth driven by smart strategies and efficient conversion processes. Our team was equipped with the right knowledge and tools to guide them in this mission.

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The Process

We addressed multiple areas of opportunity simultaneously. First, we began by diving deeper into their business and understanding their users. We gradually introduced improvements in areas showing early potential.

1. Marketing audit: We began by evaluating the existing Google ad campaign results, structures, keywords, ad copies, and landing pages.

2. Enhancing quality score: Then we focused on tweaking quality score to ensure better visibility and reduce ad cost. 

Quality Score is a metric in Google Ads that rates the user experience that your ads and landing pages provide when users search for your keywords. A higher score indicates better relevance of your ad and landing page to users and leads to lower cost per click (CPC), better ad positioning and increased visibility.

3. Landing page revamp: Our focus was to embed the most successful keywords into landing pages, enrich the user experience, and ensure there were clear call-to-actions. As a result, we successfully launched landing pages for the Swiss, Slovenian, and Serbian markets.

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A landing page is a specific web page crafted for marketing campaigns, where visitors land after clicking an ad or post. Its purpose is to drive a particular action, known as a call to action (CTA). 

A well-structured and compelling landing page can create a powerful first impression that sparks interest in potential users. It is optimized for conversions, guiding visitors toward desired actions such as starting a free trial or ordering a product or service. 

1. Micro-conversion: While our primary conversion goal was to encourage users to start a free trial, we also recognized the importance of smaller user interactions leading up to that main action. 

These actions are called micro-conversions. For example, when a user clicks on an email or phone number, or submits an inquiry in Spica's case. Tracking those helped us gain a deeper understanding of the user journey and fine-tune our strategies.

2. Reorienting messaging: Instead of listing Spica's software features in ad copy or on landing pages, we shifted the focus to explain how it benefits users and simplifies their tasks. Our goal was for users to quickly understand the software's value.

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The Results

Our tailored-made strategy led to impressive outcomes for Spica (and filled our team with excitement and pride):

• By May 2023, the trial acquisition cost was reduced to 56€.
• Trials from Google ads in early 2023 saw an increase of 87% compared to 2022.
• Ad cost was reduced by 35% overall. In Croatia, ad cost was decreased by 47%, while the conversion rate increased by 60%.
• Overall user trials grew by 52%.

Impacts & Learnings

Through our collaboration, Spica recognised untapped opportunities and started expanding into new markets, Romania and Hungary. Plus, their team acquired some valuable insights:

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• They recognised the importance of a well-structured landing page that now plays a crucial role in their engagement and conversion rates optimization activities.
• By diving deep into user search patterns, they learned how their potential customers search for their or similar solutions on Google. 
• Their team improved in content creation and began aligning content with keywords to drive more traffic to their website and position Spica as a thought leader in the domain.

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About Bighead:

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Bighead is a growth-obsessed performance marketing agency dedicated to help eCommerce and SaaS companies reach their full potential through media buying, email marketing, analytics and CRO design, while working as an agile extension of their team.

After years of working together in e-commerces and SaaS industry we connected into a team of experts that wanted to do something new in digital marketing. 

After working with over 200 companies, we have discovered that a significant portion of marketing budgets are wasted. That's why we've decided to take a fresh approach, using data-driven insights to craft our advertising narrative, and make our client budgets as profitable as possible.

Why clients trust us?

✅ We collaborated with over 200 businesses.

✅ We generated ~50M of revenue for our clients so far.

✅ We manage ~3M+ in ad spend annually.

✅ We developed and executed new-market-entry strategies for over 50 clients.

✅ We’re advertising in 150+ countries

Ready to kick off your growth journey? Let’s talk on info@bigheadlab.com

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