7 examples of effective B2B SaaS retargeting ads

Retargeting Ads is the most effective way for B2B SaaS companies to generate leads and grow brand awareness quickly.

I’m going to show you my 4-step approach, along with examples from other leading B2B SaaS brands, for you to take inspiration from and implement into your business.

You may have tried Ads before with limited success. The most common cause of poor-performing Ads is only doing bottom-of-funnel ads, i.e. book a demo or free trial. This rarely works on a cold audience.

People need to know you, like you and trust you before jumping on a call or trying your product. Do this by taking them down a funnel of retargeting Ads.

Step 1 – Problem Ads to a cold audience

Your first set of Ads should address a problem that your target audience has.

The goal of this ad is not to generate leads. Instead, you are seeking brand awareness and engagement.

A 2 min video of someone talking to the camera and giving a quick tip works really well.

A free (ungated) eBook is also a great way to help a prospect solve a problem and increase brand awareness. Take this example from Monday.com:

Below is an example of a quick tip Ad that I created using LinkedIn’s new Thought Leader Ads.

Step 2 – Benefit Ads

You can retarget your Step 2 Ads to people who engaged with your Step 1 Problem Ads.

Retargeting includes those who:

• Watched x% of a video ad
• Clicked the “See more” link
• Clicked the CTA, i.e. visited your website
• Downloaded the eBook
• Comments, likes or shares
• Clicked the carousel buttons

So you will only be showing these Ads to people who are familiar with your brand already and have an interest in the problem you addressed in Ad 1.

Benefit Ads should clearly outline how your solution will benefit your customers. Facts and stats tend to be highly effective. Take this example from Mailchimp:

Here is a solution Ad example from one of Rocket SaaS’ clients, BackupVault.

First, we showed the audience a cold ad, warning them that Microsoft does not back up your 365 data. We then showed the above Ad to anyone who engaged with the first one.

Moving the above Ad from a cold Ad to a retargeting Ad increased the conversions by 47%!

Step 3 – Social Proof Ads

These Step 3 Ads should be shown to those who have engaged with Ads in steps 1 and 2. So at this point, they resonate with the problem and have checked out your solution. Now they need some reassurance.

We do this with testimonials and case study Ads.

The below single-image ad from Monday.com does a great job.

Video testimonials are also highly effective. Jump on a video call with a happy client and record it. Edit it into a social video… and voila!

Step 4 – CTA Ads

The final step in the retargeting flow should be a simple call to action. You don’t need to go into detail about the problems and benefits, as the only people seeing this CTA Ad will have already seen the previous Ads and visited your website.

Here’s a simple example from PandaDocs:

By implementing retargeting Ads, like in the above flow, means that your prospects are warmed up nicely before seeing your bottom-of-funnel Ads, meaning they are much more likely to convert as they know you, like you and trust you.

Retargeting Ads have a lot more complexities around targeting, ad time duration and campaign types. I’ll cover that in a future blog.

If you can’t wait to learn more about retargeting Ads or would like a quote from Rocket SaaS to create and run these Ads for you book a free strategy call with me personally.

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By Ryan James

Founder @ Rocket SaaS