The No-BS SaaS Marketing Guide (For B2B and B2C Startups)

Quick Summary 

We’ve put together everything you need to know about SaaS marketing, whether you’re targeting B2B or B2C customers. You’ll learn about the best channels to focus on, from SEO to paid acquisition, how to adapt your strategy at different growth stages, the key metrics you should track, and the tools that can make your life easier. Keep reading for the full guide.

Want to build a winning SaaS marketing strategy from scratch?

“Build it, and they will come” is the most dangerous lie in SaaS. 

The barrier to entry is at an all-time low. Lately, anyone with an idea can “vibe-code” a fully functional SaaS without manually writing a single line of code. And that’s the problem. When anyone can launch a product, everyone does. So we see thousands of SaaS solving similar problems and competing for the same customers. 

A great product still matters, but it’s table stakes. Survival comes down to one thing: visibility. And that’s what strong SaaS marketing brings.

In this Embarque guide, we’ll break down everything you need to know about SaaS marketing and how to do it right.

Why listen to us? 

We’ve helped over 50 SaaS companies grow using smart, revenue-driven SEO. Cleanvoice saw a 300% jump in monthly recurring revenue, and Picflow’s signups increased by 525% thanks to our SEO strategies. 

But it’s not just about SEO. As SaaS marketers ourselves, we understand how SaaS marketing works across the board, including what works and what doesn’t. This guide is a complete walkthrough of everything you need to know to master SaaS marketing, based on real-world experience and proven results.

What is SaaS marketing? 

SaaS marketing is the process of promoting and selling software-as-a-service (SaaS) products to potential customers. It involves creating and executing strategies to 

• Attract
• Convert 
• And retain customers

But unlike other types of marketing, the retention part isn’t just important, it’s survival. SaaS businesses rely on recurring revenue, which means if customers don’t stick around, the business doesn’t survive. So getting users is one thing. Keeping them is everything.

Top 7 marketing channels & strategies that drive explosive SaaS growth

Modern SaaS companies use a mix of inbound and outbound marketing channels. Below is a breakdown of the most effective channels and how to use them for both B2B and B2B SaaS growth. 

1. Build a steady customer pipeline with SEO optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) has evolved from a nice-to-have into a mission-critical strategy for SaaS growth. And the reason is simple: the majority of SaaS buyers begin their journey with search. In fact, 66% of B2B SaaS buyers use search engines to research solutions before ever talking to a salesperson. 

If your product is not discoverable in those moments, you’re out of the running.

Plus, SEO drives a scalable, compounding pipeline of high-intent visitors. We’ve seen this firsthand.

Take BlueTally, for example. When they came to us, they were barely getting 50 visitors a month. However, after working with our SaaS SEO agency for a few months, that number shot up to nearly 8,000. That’s a 14,637% increase in organic traffic.

And this is not just a one-off. We helped Instatus boost their monthly recurring revenue (MRR) by 833% in a few months using SEO.

So how does this channel work? Well, it’s a big topic (you can check out the video below for a deeper dive). But for now, let’s keep it super simple.

Strategic keyword research 

Every successful SEO strategy starts with one thing, understanding what your potential customers are searching for. Your goal is to identify those keywords and then make sure your site appears when people search for them. This is the bedrock of SEO.

To discover the best keywords, you can use SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or even free first-party data tools like Google Search Console. These tools help you see what people are searching for and how often. 

But you don’t have to rely only on tools. Talk to your existing customers. Ask them about their biggest pain points and how they search for solutions online. Sometimes, their answers will give you keyword ideas you won’t find in any tool.

We generally divide these keywords into two main types: 

Informational: Users want to learn something, but are not ready to buy

Commercial: Users are ready to buy or are close to it.

Here’s a picture summarizing the differences:

Once you’ve found your keywords, the next step is to create content that targets them. For informational keywords, this usually means blog posts, guides, or knowledge base articles. For commercial keywords, it means product listicles, landing pages, or service pages.

The easiest way to know what content to create is to check the search engine results pages (SERPs). 

If the top results are all landing pages, that’s your signal that Google prefers landing pages for that query. So you should create one too.

Link Building

Link building is the process of getting other websites to link to your site. These links, called backlinks, signal to search engines like Google that your content is valuable and trustworthy. 

In SEO, they’re a big deal, think of them as votes of confidence from other websites. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the better your chances of ranking higher in search results.

Before you start building links, make sure you’re getting them from the right places:

• Relevant Websites: Only target sites that are related to your industry. If you offer a productivity SaaS, getting a link from a casino website won’t help you.
• Authoritative Sites: Aim for websites with a Domain Rating (DR) of 40 or higher. These are seen as trustworthy by Google.
• Strategic Pages: Focus on getting links to your most important pages, like your homepage, landing pages, or high-converting blog posts.

There are several effective ways to build high-quality backlinks:

• Guest Posting: Write valuable content for other websites in your niche, and include a link back to your site.
• Link Insertions: Reach out to existing articles where your SaaS would be a good fit and ask to be added.
• HARO (Help a Reporter Out): Contribute expert quotes to journalists and get backlinks in return. Featured.com is another great alternative.
• Paid Links (Grey Hat): This is riskier and falls into a grey area, but some sites sell backlinks. Use this carefully and only from reputable sources.

For a deeper dive into this, check out our full SaaS link-building guide.

Technical and on-page optimization. 

Even with the best content and the strongest backlinks, your SEO efforts can fall flat if your technical and on-page elements are not properly set up. These are the basics that keep your site running smoothly and help search engines understand your content. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to focus on:

• Site Speed and Web Vitals: Ensure your website loads quickly and provides a smooth user experience.
• Sitemaps: Make it easy for search engines to discover and index your pages.
• Internal Links: Use internal links to guide users and search engines through your site.
• Website Architecture: Organize your site in a clear, logical structure that makes navigation simple.
• Meta Texts: Optimize your meta titles and descriptions to improve click-through rates.
• Heading and Title Structures: Use clear, descriptive headings (H1, H2, H3) to organize your content and make it readable.

Beyond the basics

There is more to SEO than just technical and on-page basics. Some other factors can significantly impact your success:

• Brand Building: Strengthen your brand presence to boost trust and recognition.
• Competitor Analysis: Regularly check what your competitors are doing, from keywords to backlink strategies.
• SaaS SEO Content Audit: Review your existing content to identify gaps, opportunities, and outdated pages.
• SERP Element Optimization: Optimize for AI-generated answers, featured snippets, and other SERP features.

Again covered all of this in much greater detail in our comprehensive SaaS SEO guide. Be sure to check it out for a complete walkthrough.

2. Attract and educate your audience with value-driven content marketing

If SEO is the engine, content marketing is the fuel that powers it… and much more. Content is how SaaS companies educate the market, build trust, and generate demand. 

Buyers are more self-directed than ever, often engaging with dozens of content pieces before ever speaking to sales. This content could be: 

• Blog articles
• Whitepapers 
• Case studies 
• Videos 
• Podcasts 
• Or social posts

SaaS companies that provide this information win mindshare. 

In 2025, SaaS content marketing is all about quality and differentiation. Everyone is creating content now, so it’s not enough to just publish another blog post. To stand out, your content needs to be both high-quality and different. 

One effective approach is product-led content. This means creating educational content that naturally showcases your product without feeling like a sales pitch.

Let’s take our work for Cleanvoice, for example. We create blog posts on different AI podcasting JTBD topics, then naturally showcase how Cleanvoice can help in that context.  

It’s educational but also subtly highlights relevant product features. This is done in a helpful, subtle way (e.g., showing a screenshot of a dashboard solving the discussed problem) rather than a hard sell. 

You can also turn your content into a community endeavor. Databox, for example, does this. 

They invite industry experts or power users to contribute guest posts, be interviewed, or participate in roundups. This not only enriches their content (with diverse voices and expertise) but also encourages those contributors to share it, expanding reach. 

A common mistake we see is companies trying to be everywhere—blogs, videos, podcasts, whitepapers, and so on. But not every format is right for every audience. Don’t just create content for the sake of it. Make sure you’re focusing on the formats your audience actually consumes.

How do you know which formats work best? You can run a quick survey, analyze which content types your competitors are using, or even look at what your own audience is already engaging with. The goal is to double down on what works and skip what doesn’t.

3. Drive acquisition directly through your product with Product-Led Growth (PLG)

One of the biggest shifts in SaaS go-to-market over the past decade has been the rise of Product-Led Growth. PLG turns the traditional sales model on its head by making the product experience the primary driver of customer acquisition, conversion, and expansion. 

Instead of relying solely on marketing promises or sales pitches, PLG companies get the product into users’ hands early, often via free trials, freemium plans, or self-service demos, and let the value speak for itself. 

The idea here is you wouldn’t buy a car without a test drive, so why expect customers to buy software without a trial? 

There are a few hallmark PLG tactics top SaaS companies use:

Free Trials

Offer the full product (or most of it) free for a limited time. Almost every major SaaS does this in some form because it dramatically increases conversion when prospects can kick the tires. Here’s Growform, for example:

But here’s something a lot of SaaS companies get wrong: they set trial periods that are too short. If users don’t have enough time to reach that “aha!” moment, where they see your product’s real value, they’re unlikely to stick around. 

A good rule of thumb is to offer a trial that lasts around 14 to 30 days.

Besides trial length, you also need to pay attention to which actions tend to lead to conversions, and design your trial experience to encourage those actions. 

For example, if you know that users who create three projects in your project management app are more likely to convert, make sure your onboarding nudges them to do exactly that. 

And when the trial ends, make the transition to a paid plan as smooth as possible. A simple nudge highlighting the value they’d lose by leaving can make a big difference.

Freemium models

Instead of time-limited trials, many SaaS opt for a freemium plan, i.e., a free tier of the product that users can use indefinitely, but with limited features or capacity.

Some of our SaaS clients like Cleanvoice, Instatus, and BlueTally have found success with freemium, giving free users significant (but not full) functionality and then prompting upgrades when they need more. 

Freemium can massively widen the top of the funnel: you may get tens of thousands of free users, far beyond what a limited trial would attract. The trade-off is that you must support a large base of free users and be patient in converting a fraction of them. 

Easy onboarding and self-service

If you want your free trial or freemium model to succeed, you need a smooth onboarding process. The moment a user lands on your site or app to try the product, the experience should be frictionless.

• Keep sign-up forms short.
• Offer single sign-on options (like Google or Microsoft).
• Make the next steps crystal clear.

The idea is to remove any barriers that might stop a user who hasn’t invested money yet. Some SaaS companies skip traditional sales demos altogether, using an interactive product tour instead. 

For example, Strackr lets visitors click around a live demo environment without signing up—giving them a taste of the product without any commitment.

Another smart approach is segmented onboarding. 

This means customizing the experience based on who the user is, like their role, company size, or use case. For example, a developer might see different starter templates than a marketer, making the product feel instantly relevant.

4. Get predictable growth with performance-driven paid acquisition

Organic growth is essential, but paid acquisition remains a crucial lever for SaaS companies to drive demand at scale, especially when you need faster results or want to target specific audiences with precision. 

Some popular paid channels include 

• Search engine ads (SEM/PPC), 
• Social media advertising, 
• Display ads,
•  Sponsored content, and more. 

Today, the market of paid media for SaaS is both highly advanced and highly competitive. 

On one hand, we have sophisticated targeting (e.g., by job title, industry, intent data) and A/B testing capabilities to hone our campaigns. On the other hand, costs have risen as every SaaS and its competitor bid on the same keywords and audiences. That means you have to be strategic to maintain a healthy CAC-to-LTV ratio.

To do this, start with a data-driven plan. 

You need to first identify where their audience spends time (Google search? LinkedIn feed? Niche forums?) and allocate budget accordingly. 

For many B2B SaaS, LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads are bread-and-butter. On Google, you can bid on a mix of high-intent keywords (“<category> software”) to capture bottom-funnel leads and also experiment with content-driven ads (promoting a whitepaper on broader keywords to fill the top of the funnel). 

On LinkedIn, you might run sponsored content ads featuring case studies or short videos that catch a decision-maker’s eye and drive them to sign up or learn more. 

But one thing you shouldn't joke with is relentless AB testing. 

Test everything. Your ad copy, images, CTAs, and even value propositions. For example, you might test “Save 20% of your time” against “Trusted by 500 clients” to see which message resonates better. Then kill underperforming ads quickly to avoid wasting your budget.

If your SaaS has an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy, take it a step further with account-based advertising. 

This means showing ads only to people at specific target accounts you care about. For example, if you have a list of 100 high-value accounts, you can target those directly with LinkedIn or programmatic ads. This keeps your brand visible to decision-makers and warms them up for sales outreach.

5. Use lifecycle marketing to drive retention and loyalty 

The economics of SaaS demand that we keep customers around. Typically, a lot of upfront cost (marketing, sales, onboarding) is spent to acquire a customer, and profitability comes only as the customer renews over time. 

If customers leave after a month or two, you likely lose money. 

As a result, marketing cannot just hand off a customer at the point of sale; it plays a role in influencing long-term satisfaction and advocacy.

This is where lifecycle marketing steps in. It’s the catch-all term for all the strategies used to engage and nurture a user throughout their journey: from initial lead, to active customer to advocate. We also call it customer marketing or retention marketing.

So what does this entail? The first part is seamless onboarding, which we’ve explained earlier. 

Here are some other necessary aspects:

Ongoing engagement and education

Once the customer is up and running, your focus should naturally shift to keeping them engaged and helping them get the most out of the product. 

The easiest way to do this is content. This could be: 

• A monthly customer newsletter with tips and tricks
• Invites to exclusive customer-only webinars where power users or experts share how they use the product
• A help doc or knowledge base 

Email marketing also remains a primary channel here: it’s cheap, direct, and if done right, welcomed by users. You can send them product updates, downtime notifications, tips, and so on. Beyond email, many SaaS platforms also use in-app messaging (pop-up messages highlighting new features when they’re released, or suggesting underused features). Just pick an option that’s convenient for you and your users. 

Renewal and upsell/cross-sell

As a customer approaches the renewal point (for annual contracts) or periodically for monthly, lifecycle marketing kicks in to reinforce value. This might involve an account review email: 

“In the past year, here’s what you achieved with [Product] – and here’s what’s coming next.”

Reminding customers of their usage and ROI can preempt doubts about renewing. If usage is high or they’re bumping against limits, that’s a prime time to propose an upsell: 

“Upgrade to our Pro plan to unlock [benefit].” 

The communication for upsells is often highly personalized and sometimes done by a CSM (Customer Success Manager) in person, but marketing provides the materials (targeted messages, one-pagers, case studies relevant to the upsell). 

Cross-selling (selling a different product or add-on) is also another option. For example, if your SaaS offers both a core platform and an add-on module, and a certain customer profile is a good fit for that module, marketing might send them a tailored campaign about it after X months of using the core product.

Win-back campaigns

Despite best efforts, some customers will go dormant or cancel. That’s what win-back programs are there to tackle. If a user has not logged in for, say, 30 days, they might get an email:

 “We miss you – here’s what’s new since you last logged in,” highlighting new features or improvements (showing the product is continually getting better).

For example:

 If a customer fully cancels, some will send a polite note after a cooling-off period, offering a conversation to understand why, or even an incentive to rejoin (“Come back and get 2 months free”).

The tone has to be right, the focus is on solving whatever issue made them leave, not just pushing them to return. Even if only a small fraction win back, it can be worthwhile given the sunk cost of acquiring them initially.

6. Brand and Community: Building an Enduring Presence and Evangelism

Beyond the tactical channels and funnels, there is the more intangible side of SaaS marketing: brand and community. These are long-term assets that can significantly amplify all your other efforts. 

Brand is essentially the sum of perceptions about your company, it answers questions like: 

• Are you seen as an expert and thought leader? 
• Do customers feel an emotional connection or just view you as a commodity tool? 

A strong brand is like a magnet, attracting customers, talent, and partners, and can even allow you to charge a premium or close deals faster because people trust you. 

Think of how Salesforce built a massive brand around “No Software” (the cloud revolution) and a vibrant orange-haired mascot (SaaSy) – they became almost synonymous with CRM. So even if competitors had similar capabilities, Salesforce’s brand trust gave it an edge

A vibrant community turns your user base into an army of advocates and co-creators, deepening customer loyalty and providing a moat competitors can’t easily replicate. 

To build a solid brand, you need to start with a clear mission and narrative. Articulate not just what the product does, but what your company stands for or the problem it is passionately solving. 

For example, Growform's mission is to help busy founders build high-converting lead generation forms without a team of developers. 

Tactically, branding comes through in consistent visuals, tone of voice, and values across all touchpoints (website, emails, social media, even within the app’s copy). 

Many SaaS now have fun, humanized brands – e.g., using mascots (Datadog literally has a dog, MailChimp had the chimp), or a distinct tone (Slack’s friendly, slightly playful tone in its UI messages differentiated it from stodgy enterprise software). 

These elements make the brand memorable and likable.

Influencer marketing is another solid way to build your brand. You can connect with industry experts or micro-influencers (like popular bloggers, LinkedIn voices, and YouTubers in your niche) to advocate or create content about your product. 

This is basically tapping into existing communities and audiences via respected figures. 

Case in point–Cleanvoice. 

When it comes to community, you need to give your users a place to connect, share ideas, and learn from one another. And it can exist on any platform that fits your audience:

• Social Media Communities: Consider creating a subreddit, relevant social media account, or Slack community where users can connect.
• Native Communities: If you want more control, consider hosting a community directly on your website. Salesforce’s Trailblazer Community is a perfect example.

Once you have a community, don’t try to control it too tightly. Instead, empower passionate members to take on leadership roles. These are your superusers; people who love your product and want to help others.

• Identify Community Leaders: Look for active, helpful users and give them tools to lead, such as organizing local meetups or answering questions.
• Offer Perks: Reward your top contributors with perks like free swag, early access to new features, or recognition in the community.
• Create Exclusive Channels: Give your community members something special, like a private Slack channel with your product team, exclusive webinars, or sneak peeks of your product roadmap.

The key is to facilitate the community rather than trying to control it. Let members interact naturally, and be there to guide, support, and recognize their contributions. Authenticity is everything.

7. Partnerships and Affiliate Programs

Strategic partnerships and affiliate programs have become critical growth levers for SaaS companies. The core idea is leveraging external networks to expand your reach and drive revenue in ways you couldn’t alone. 

Partnerships can take many forms 

• Resellers: Companies that sell your SaaS product as part of their own offering.
• Tech Integrations: Collaborations where your software works seamlessly with another tool, creating a more attractive solution for users.
• Co-Marketing Alliances: Teaming up with complementary brands for joint campaigns, such as webinars, guides, or case studies.

…but all serve to multiply distribution. 

Affiliates similarly act as an on-demand sales channel: you incentivize individuals or companies to refer customers in exchange for a commission. 

The impact of these programs can be great when executed well. In fact, a well-run SaaS affiliate program can generate around a 30% increase in revenue for a business, 

As SaaS partner ecosystems mature, we’ve seen different companies adopting different strategies to maximize their impact. 

One approach is tiered partner programs. Rather than a one-size-fits-all partnership, you can create levels (Silver, Gold, Platinum, etc.) with escalating benefits and requirements. This incentivizes partners to deepen their commitment. 

For example, a Bronze-tier affiliate might get 20% commission, while a top-tier affiliate who consistently refers $50k+ in business gets 30% and extra perks. Tiered rewards recognize top performers and encourage up-and-comers to invest more effort. 

Similarly, for reseller or solution partners, higher tiers might unlock co-marketing funds, dedicated account managers, or lead sharing from the SaaS vendor. This structure creates a win-win loyalty loop – the more a partner delivers, the more support and reward they receive, which in turn enables them to deliver even more. 

SaaS marketing tips for every stage

The best marketing strategy for a SaaS company really depends on where you are in your journey. A scrappy startup with five employees and zero brand recognition isn’t going to market the same way as a well-known public SaaS company.

To keep it simple, here’s how to approach marketing at each stage:

• Early-Stage Startups (pre-launch to initial traction phase)
• Growth-Stage Scale-ups (post product-market fit, scaling revenue/users rapidly)
• Mature Enterprises (established SaaS with a large customer base, possibly market leaders)

1. Early-Stage SaaS Startup Marketing

In the early stage, you’re working with limited resources, so the focus has to be on validating your market and getting those first users without breaking the bank. Here’s how you can do that:

Nail Product-Market Fit first

Make sure your product actually solves a real problem for a specific audience. Manually onboard early users, talk to them, and learn what they like (or don’t). Happy early adopters can become your first brand advocates, spreading the word without any ad spend.

At this stage, most of your customers will come through word of mouth. That’s because you’re still building brand awareness and don’t yet have a track record of success stories to rely on. Rather than trying to outspend bigger brands, focus on creating a great user experience that gets people talking.

If acquisition feels like an uphill battle, try giving early users a reason to take a chance on you. One smart approach is to offer special deals, like a lifetime software license for early adopters. 

Juno, a signage SaaS, is a classic example here. 

Focus on guerrilla and low-cost channels

You also need to prioritize free or low-cost tactics like:

• Content and SEO: Start a niche blog or knowledge base around your domain expertise. It takes time to rank, but even a single, highly-targeted post can drive significant early traffic if it resonates with communities like Reddit or Hacker News.
• Social media and communities: Be active where your users hang out, it  could be subreddits, Discord, Slack, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Engage directly by answering questions, sharing insights, or writing guest posts. Founders like Notion’s used this approach to build credibility early on.
• Product Hunt and early access platforms: Launch on Product Hunt or BetaList to reach early adopters. A successful launch can drive thousands of signups at no cost, while early users can provide valuable feedback and spread the word.
• PR stunts or niche press: Pitch a compelling story (unique founder story, solving a trending problem) to small industry blogs, podcasts, or niche media outlets. This can create early buzz and build credibility.

2. Growth-stage SaaS marketing (Scaling Up)

Once your SaaS has nailed product-market fit, built a growing customer base, and maybe even secured some funding, the focus shifts to scaling. This means expanding customer acquisition without losing efficiency. At this stage, you likely have a marketing team and a budget to work with.

Here’s how to do it right:

Double down on what works

Identify the channels that brought your best customers early on, and invest more heavily in them. 

If SEO was driving leads, publish more content, target more keywords, and perhaps hire content specialists. If a particular paid channel shows good CAC, increase spend there systematically (while monitoring diminishing returns). 

The idea is to pour fuel on the fire… but carefully.

Expand to new channels

Growth stage is a time to test and add new channels to avoid plateauing. 

For example, if you relied only on inbound marketing, you might introduce outbound sales or marketing. Now that you have a budget and a clearer idea of customer LTV, you can justify running more paid campaigns across Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other platforms to increase your ad spend.

Also, explore channel partnerships (resellers, integrations) to reach new audiences. Essentially, move from 1–2 channels to a multi-channel strategy.

Build the marketing team and tools

This is the right time to bring in specialists like SEO/content lead, paid acquisition manager, marketing ops for automation, etc. You also need to start thinking about implementing marketing automation and CRM systems if not already (HubSpot, Marketo, or others) to handle lead nurturing at scale. 

Further, begin formalizing analytics. Ensure you can track attribution of signups to channels, run cohort analyses on retention, etc., to make data-driven decisions. This is equally when A/B testing becomes crucial: optimize landing pages, sign-up flows, email subject lines – small % improvements at scale mean big gains.

Aggressive referral and virality programs 

If you didn’t have a referral program, now is a great time to launch one (or enhance the existing one) to amplify word-of-mouth. 

Notion, as it grew, expanded its community referral tactics, adding official ambassador and consultant programs to encourage more user-driven acquisition..

3. Mature Enterprise SaaS Marketing

Mature SaaS companies (often public or market leaders in their category) focus on sustaining growth, maximizing customer lifetime value, and defending market share. 

Marketing at this stage becomes more about optimization and expansion than basic acquisition. 

Key areas include:

Brand leadership and awareness 

At this stage, your brand is already well-known, but that does not mean you can relax. Marketing becomes about staying top of mind. 

This means investing in brand awareness through broad campaigns (think TV commercials, airport billboards, and major sponsorships). Basically, tactics that smaller companies can’t afford. 

Salesforce is a perfect example, with ads during major TV events and a digital billboard in Times Square. Zoom did the same during its peak, using TV ads to solidify its mainstream presence. The goal is simple: keep your brand visible and trusted, especially as new competitors emerge.

Product line expansion

Mature SaaS often have multiple products or modules. Marketing must handle go-to-market for new product launches (leveraging the existing customer base for cross-sell) and differentiate an expanding product suite. 

For instance, HubSpot evolved from just marketing software to sales, service, and CMS products. Its marketing now includes targeted campaigns for each hub, while maintaining an overall brand unity (“HubSpot: the CRM platform for scaling companies”). 

This requires nuanced messaging and sometimes separate marketing teams for each product line, plus an overarching brand team.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) at scale

For B2B enterprises, ABM becomes very sophisticated. Marketing works with sales to treat each large account almost as a “market of one”, with very personalized campaigns (microsites, custom events, executive networking) to upsell and cross-sell big clients. 

The metrics here are about account penetration and expansion deal size. Microsoft, Oracle, and other giants have entire teams for this.

Innovation in Marketing

Mature SaaS companies can afford to experiment. They invest in AI-driven personalization, sophisticated attribution models, and advanced automation.

The goal is relentless optimization. Even small improvements can make a huge difference at scale. For instance, a 0.5% reduction in churn at $500 million ARR means an extra $2.5 million in revenue each year. That’s the power of continuous improvement at this level.

Key metrics for SaaS marketing effectiveness

To manage and optimize SaaS marketing, it’s important to track the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). SaaS businesses are typically subscription-based, so metrics span the acquisition funnel through retention. Below are the key metrics, how they differ by channel and stage, and what benchmarks to consider:

Tools and Platforms to Supercharge SaaS Marketing

Finally, successful SaaS marketing is enabled by a variety of tools and platforms that help automate processes, analyze performance, and manage customer relationships. Here’s a rundown of essential tools (by category) and popular options:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

A CRM is necessary for managing leads, tracking interactions, and handing off to sales. Popular choices include: 

• Salesforce CRM: Ideal for large enterprises with complex needs.
• HubSpot CRM: Perfect for startups and growing SaaS companies, offering an integrated suite that combines CRM with marketing automation.
• Pipedrive and Zoho CRM: Great for small businesses looking for straightforward lead management without the complexity.

Marketing automation

Marketing automation tools help you scale email campaigns, lead nurturing, and multi-channel workflows without manual effort. Top choices include:

• HubSpot Marketing Hub: A comprehensive platform for email automation, lead scoring, and multi-channel campaigns.
• Marketo (Adobe): Advanced automation for larger SaaS companies that need complex workflows.
• Mailchimp: A go-to for startups, offering basic email automation that can grow with your business.
• ActiveCampaign: Known for powerful automation at an affordable price, great for SMBs.
• Customer.io and Braze: Focused on product engagement messaging, perfect for SaaS with in-app messaging needs.

These tools let you set up triggers (like sending a welcome email to new users or alerting sales when a lead views the pricing page multiple times) and personalize content at scale.

Analytics and User Behavior Tracking:

 You need both website analytics and product analytics.

• Web Analytics: Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the standard for website/app traffic analysis. It tracks user acquisition channels, behavior flows, and conversions. For more advanced needs or compliance-focused companies, Adobe Analytics is an alternative.
• Product Analytics: Tools like Mixpanel, Amplitude, or Heap allow you to instrument your SaaS app and see how users navigate, where they drop off in onboarding, etc. These insights are gold for product-led growth and for marketing to understand feature adoption.
• Funnel/Conversion Analytics: Segment (now Twilio Segment) is popular for consolidating data and sending it to various analytics tools. ChartMogul or Baremetrics specialize in subscription metrics (MRR, LTV, cohorts) for SaaS business health monitoring.

A/B Testing and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

To keep improving your website and app experience, A/B testing is essential. Optimizely, MS Clarity and VWO (Visual Website Optimizer) are dedicated A/B testing platforms that let you test different page versions on the fly. 

Google Optimize was a free option (discontinued in 2023), so many have migrated to other tools.

These allow testing headlines, page layouts, signup flow steps – even a small uplift in conversion can yield big results. 

Also, Hotjar or FullStory are tools for qualitative CRO insights. They record sessions or heatmaps so you can see where users get stuck or what they click. (Hotjar was rated a top marketing tool for its user feedback and heatmap capabilities

SEO and content marketing tools

To win at SEO, Google Search Console, Ahrefs and SEMrush are widely used for keyword research, backlink analysis, and tracking rankings. They help identify content opportunities and monitor SEO health. 

Moz and UberSuggest are other options. 

For content workflow, tools like Google Sheets, Clickup, Trello or Asana can manage the content calendar, and Grammarly ensures quality writing (even listed as an essential tool for content creation

PLEASE note: tools should serve strategy, not define it. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the Martech landscape (there are thousands of solutions). It’s wise to start with a few core tools (CRM, analytics, email) and then add as needs arise. 

The best stack is one that your team fully adopts and that integrates well (data flows between tools). Many companies also opt for all-in-one solutions (like HubSpot’s full suite) for simplicity, while others mix and match best-of-breed tools.

Your next steps for a winning SaaS marketing strategy

Marketing a SaaS product in 2025 is a mix of excitement and challenge. There’s no single playbook. Successful strategies can range from creating killer content and running data-driven ads to building a loyal community or launching viral product features. 

The key is to pick the channels that actually make sense for your audience. Maybe that’s dominating Google search for a high-value keyword. Maybe it’s making a splash on Product Hunt. Or maybe it’s building an ambassador program that turns loyal users into your best marketers.

If SEO is part of your strategy, we can help. At Embarque, we specialize in helping early- to growth-stage SaaS businesses scale their traffic and revenue with smart, strategic SEO. 

Want to see if we’re a good fit? Book a free consultation today!