Google Ads Doesn’t Work for B2B and SaaS

SET UP TRACKING

Please, please, PLEASE.

Do not start a campaign without tracking.

I know its going to take time to get those main sign up conversions but double check that event is trackable in Google Ads.

Now think of other valuable actions users can take on your site in the meantime.

Do you have a chat bot?

Make sure interactions are being tracked in Google Ads.

Do you have assets that users can download?

White paper downloads have been a thing in B2B forever now.

If so, you REALLY need to make sure they’re LOADED with value and that you’re explaining why the user just has to have it.

If not, these days most people will just leave.

There’s too many distractions and not enough time in the day.

You have to provide ridiculous value.

So with that said, make sure anything you’re giving away (gated or free) is trackable in Google Ads.

At the very least, import a GA4 page scroll depth (of 90%) event into Google Ads as a conversion event.

That’s last resort but just track something.

DON’T USE PERFORMANCE MAX

It won’t work.

It just won’t.

Not at this stage.

Read that again.

Don’t do it.

USE GOOD OLD FASHIONED PAID SEARCH

Yep, those text ads we’ve all seen for 20 plus years now.

You just have to make sure you specifically choose that campaign type.

But before you do that…

KEYWORD RESEARCH

Just use the Keyword Planner built right into Google Ads.

“What about that __ keyword tool?”

“I saw someone on Linkedin talking about the ___ tool”

Ignore them.

You don’t need any other keyword tools.

You will get nothing out of them at this stage.

Jump into Keyword Planner and enter in 5 to 10 of the best keyword phrases that you think sum up your app or software.

Google will return estimated monthly search volume for your exact phrases along with other phrases related to them.

How many of these you should begin with depends on how different they are from each other and how much budget you have.

What I mean is that Google’s algorithm is pretty good now.

It understands that the keyword phrase of “Best SAAS For Accountants” means the same thing as “Best Accountant Software”.

You technically don’t need both of those phrases in your account.

We no longer need 100s or 1000s of keywords.

But if the phrase is significantly different enough, where you think Google might miss it, then add it.

DO NOT CHOOSE YOUR KEYWORD PHRASES BASED ONLY ON CHEAPER COST-PER-CLICK ESTIMATES.

That is a classic beginner Google Ads mistake.

Just because a keyword averages a lower CPC does not automatically mean you’re going to get conversions at a lower cost.

Be cautious of a keyword that has an average CPC much lower than another keyword that has the same meaning or is in the same category.

That’s typically a red flag that means advertisers aren’t bidding on it or not bidding high on it because its not a consistent conversion driver.

CAMPAIGNS and AD GROUPS

Once you have your keywords you need to decide how much you need to segment.

At this stage one campaign is probably all you need.

Inside that campaign you should have multiple ad groups though.

How different your keywords are will determine how many ad groups.

If you intend to reach multiple personas and speak to different solutions then that is where you’ll segment by ad group.

KEYWORDS

Now you’ll take your keyword phrases you found in the keyword planner and add them to your ad group(s).

As of this writing in 2025 we still have [Exact], “Phrase” and Broad keyword match types.

**Don’t Make The Beginner Mistake of Ignoring Keyword Match Types**

If you copy and paste all your keywords into your ad groups without using [Brackets] or “Quotes” then you are adding BROAD match versions of your keywords.

That means you’re letting Google be as lenient as possible with what they match your ads up to.

Now here’s the thing.

There’s all sorts of scenarios where an experienced paid search manager uses Broad Match.

Broad Match has come a long way.

Eventually it’ll be the only option we have.

But for you – as someone new to Google Ads.

Try all you can to only use Exact and Phrase.

At least for quite some time in the beginning.

And don’t forget Negative keywords as well.

Be proactive and think about what irrelevant phrases Google might try to serve your ads on.

Add them in now.

Save yourself wasted ad spend.

AD COPY

This is where your ad group segmentation comes in.

You shouldn’t use the same ad copy for all your keywords unless your app only does one super niche thing.

If it can solve problems for different people and in different scenarios then you should make sure you’re speaking directly to that in each ad group.

Its not always easy to do with limited character counts but look for ways where you can “pre-qualify” the right user too.

To prevent the wrong type of persona from clicking on your ad.

And don’t just mimic what other advertisers are doing in their ads.

Thats another beginner mistake I see all the time.

Using those “competitor research” tools to see what their competitors are running for ads.

And then just doing the same thing.

Why wouldn’t you want to stand out?

Be different.

Make a searcher stop and pay attention.

LANDING PAGES

Unless you’re super niche and only serve an extremely specific persona(and where you’re sending users to clearly breaks down how you solve those problems.) then you probably need to consider landing pages.

I will always recommend testing them if you have the resources to do so.

Use them to test different messaging, visuals, layout, style, etc.

I can’t count how many times I’ve recommended that a client take their originally-planned first month budget and invest that into a website redesign and/or new landing pages that clearly speak to their ideal persona’s problems.

I get it.

We’re all excited to get ads going once the software is working and free of bugs.

But then we completely miss the fact that no one cares about it until you clearly define why they need it and how it will make them a hero at their job, help them get more sleep at night, or save them money, etc.

BIDDING MODEL

This is where things really get tricky.

In the beginning, (and maybe not ever), you won’t be able to fully use the “modern” bidding models that Google’s devs have built out.

In order for something like Target CPA, (or even Max Conversions), to work properly is by driving consistent conversion activity each day.

Well you can’t really do that.

At least not for true, “WON”, new customer conversions.

Just doesn’t happen.

Unless you’re giving it away, people just take time to make decisions on this sort of thing.

Even with free software it can be hard to get people to stop and take the time to sign up.

Until they’ve reached that point where they tell themselves, “ok, enough of this nonsense, I need this problem solved. I’m ready to sign up for something that fixes it right now.”

So you’ve got:

• Manual CPC (you set the price of each one of your bids – the original bidding model.)
• Max Clicks (“hey Google, here’s my daily budget, get me as many clicks as you can with it today.”)
• Max Conversions (optimizing towards a “higher funnel” event like chat or page scroll.)

Its going to be on a case-by-case basis, relative to your own situation.

I know you want a definitive answer here but there just isn’t one.

“It depends.”

Everyone’s favorite answer.

Manual CPC

If you end up going with Manual CPC (still possible as of this writing) your ads should start running fairly quickly as long as there were no approval issues with your ads and you have billing squared away.

You’ll need to start with competitive bids.

Make note of what cost-per-click estimates Google’s keyword planner shows for your chosen keyword phrases.

If there’s a low and high end estimate, start your bid with the average of both.

If keyword planner isn’t showing an average CPC then you’ll have to start with a bid that “feels” competitive and start getting some data in.

Max Clicks

Even though this optimizes for just clicks, its still considered smart bidding.

So it might take a full day or so before your ads start to serve.

If your keyword phrases have generally low search volume it could take even longer.

Here, you’re not setting a bid manually, but just giving Google’s algorithm a daily budget and it attempts to get as many clicks as it can with that budget.

NOTE: In the settings of your campaign you can set a max CPC amount with your max clicks bidding. Typically I don’t recommend using it from the start, as it can hinder your campaign from getting started.

But if you’re super concerned about what your CPCs will be like from the get-go – that option is there for you.

Max Conversions

If you have a conversion event that you know will “fire” semi-regularly then go ahead and give this bidding model a try.

I say, “give it a try”, because you might have a problem with your ads being stuck.

Depending on how much search volume your keyword phrases get, you might have to start with Max Clicks first.

This is something we’ve done in the paid search world for quite some time now.

The thought process is that since Google’s algorithm has no conversion data on your account yet, it’ll have a hard time knowing who to serve your ads to.

It made sense for a while but we’re starting to see that it can work from the get-go now.

It might just take a bit longer to get going.

You may only see a few impressions for a day or two before it starts to ramp up.

If your ads just won’t serve much, or at all, after 2-3 days then you’ll need to go with Max Clicks for a while before switching back to Max Conversions.

Managing and Optimizing

Once your ads are serving consistently you’ll need to keep a close eye on your search terms report.

These are the actual searches users are throwing into Google – triggering your search ads to show.

Be prepared.

Even if you paid attention to my warnings about negative keywords and match types up there, you will see search terms that are not relevant and/or too broad.

Go ahead and exclude them as they come in, and again, try to think proactively about new negative keywords to add to your account as well.

Outside of that you should be watching how your Click-Through-Rates(CTR) are looking on your ads.

But only after your ads are serving consistently – you don’t want to be stressing over CTR on a few impressions.

It’s another “it depends” answer but I typically say that anything lower than a 4% CTR generally needs work.

Remember, you want a higher CTR (as long as search terms are looking good) which tells you that users are finding your ad copy compelling.

Either that or your ads are matching up to searches that aren’t relevant enough or too broad. So again, check those search terms reports!

How Long Should I Give It?

3 Months.

Easy answer, right?

No, honestly it’s another “It Depends”.

Sorry.

Everyone wants to know how long they should run with it.

There’s just too many variables to really answer that but I would actually at-least give it 3 months.

Just a good rule of thumb on timing.

If you’re serious about making marketing work then you have to be able to stomach a potentially “ugly” first few months.

Ugly, because you’re probably not getting many sign-ups but continuing to spend money.

During this time though, you’re getting valuable data in and seeing what resonates with searchers.

Make the most of it.

Watch your CTR.

What copy is grabbing people’s attention.

Once they’re on site how long are they sticking around and what are they doing?

Consider a tool like Hotjar for recordings and make sure you either have Google Analytics set up or something like PostHog in order to track time on site.

Remember: This isn’t like ecommerce where a significant portion of users might purchase on that first visit after an ad click.

It’s so much harder to gauge success here and you have to be willing to stick it out.

Are you seeing other channels increase?

Are direct visits starting to go up?

Getting social followers?

It’s all part of the puzzle and paid search conversions don’t always happen in a silo.

Sometimes it takes a full scale approach: hitting relevant users from multiple angles: search, video, social, etc.

Good Luck!

I should probably bring this to an end.

Even though this is now the longest blog post I’ve ever written, I feel like this was still generally pretty high-level.

But I do hope you got some value out of this and you’re feeling more confident in giving Google Ads a try now.

I’m around if you need to ask questions!