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Google Ads are changing Match Types

From February 2021, Google will be phasing out Broad Match Modifier keywords. This will affect the keywords that PPC accounts currently have, and the keywords that can be created going forward. For a reminder of what keyword Match Types are, please see below ‘What are Match Types?’. However, if you are familiar with match types, please skip to ‘What are the changes to Match Types & when will they happen?’.

What are Match Types?

Keywords in PPC accounts pick up searches based on the match types that are selected when the keywords are added. Prior to the upcoming changes, match types were as follows:

Broad Match Modifier (BMM) – denoted by pluses in front of words e.g. +running +trainers. This could be used to trigger ads with searches that contain the same words in any order. For instance, ads may have shown for “where can I buy trainers for running”.

Broad Match – catches the same searches as Broad Match Modifier keywords, but also covers searches containing words with similar meanings, which BMM may not. This is a ‘catch all’ tool. It can help pick up large volumes of searches but can be less precise. It picked up the searches you wanted to reach as well as searches you were not interested in (machine learning is improving its precision).

Phrase Match – denoted by quotation marks e.g. “running trainers”, could be used to pick up searches containing the phrase, but the order previously had to remain the same. For instance, ads may have shown for “order running trainers” but may not have shown for “where can I buy trainers for running”. This is changing.

Exact Match – denoted by square brackets e.g. [running trainers] is used for picking up searches of those exact words or close variations where the meaning is identical.

What are the changes to Match Types and when will they happen?

From July 2021, you will no longer be able to create BMM keywords. There will be a transition. From 18th February 2021, BMM Keywords will automatically mirror Phrase Match without making any changes. Phrase Match will also pick up more searches, accounting for some of the gaps created by the sunsetting of BMM.

What will the end of BMM mean for BMM keywords in your account?

BMM keywords currently in your account will continue to be, but will begin to pick up searches that Phrase Match would. That said, many search terms were already captured by both Phrase Match and BMM (please see diagram above), however, not all were.

Therefore, as always, stay on top of search terms reports to better understand any new searches that are triggering your ads. Using this information to build on and optimise the performance of your keywords could positively impact performance. Furthermore, make sure that additional negative keywords are added to your accounts where any unwanted searches begin to come through.

Why is Google removing BMM?

Google aims to simplify account management. This may just be another update, but it is not isolated. The timeline of recent updates to match types are well documented*, which may reflect a trend. Over the years, Exact Match has become looser, meaning it could show for more search queries that were not the exact keyword, but still closely matched.  BMM becoming Phrase Match is now more indicative of a road to fewer match types.

The simplification extends to the amount of search terms you see in the search terms report. In 2020, Google limited the list of search terms you can see to “significant searches” – this reduced the amount of information you saw in search terms reports.

The simplification can also mean less visibility. For instance, you may not see the infrequent search terms anymore, which previously came through and could spark keyword ideas. However, as with previous changes, we’ll adapt.

What can we do about the changes to Match Types?

With things becoming more uniform in terms of account management, how can we get or stay ahead of competition? There is and will continue to be an increasing reliance on other levers in order to get ahead of competition, for instance, utilising audiences and Smart Bidding. Google have called out improvements in machine learning, which will facilitate the transition from BMM to Phrase Match.

What about searches that were captured by BMM, but not by Phrase Match?

It may be useful to test some Broad Match keywords. Broad Match keywords were often infrequently used due to the array of potential searches that could previously trigger ads; however, this is changing. With Smart Bidding and improvements in machine learning, bid strategies are becoming better at identifying intent. This also applies to Broad Match keywords which could help account for gaps not covered by Phrase Match. 

Thus, if reviewing performance and search terms reports suggests you’re missing out on searches, consider testing some Broad Match keywords. If current trends continue, adding more broad keywords may even prepare your account for a future with fewer match types.

How can we prepare for changes to BMM and Phrase Match?

Look at your BMM keywords, consider areas you may need to expand on e.g. where word order may reflect different intent, but you provide products or services that satisfy the alternative meanings. Using Google’s example, when BMM transitions to Phrase Match, the BMM keywords +moving +services +boston +to +nyc, may no longer trigger ads for the search “moving services nyc to boston”. However, you may wish to show for both. Therefore, where word order may change the meaning of your keywords, consider including variations that you still want your ads to appear for.

What are the key take-outs?

  • Broad Match Modifier (BMM) keywords will become like Phrase Match keywords while the reach of Phrase Match is expanded.
  • You will no longer to be able to create new BMM keywords from July 2021.
  • If you have BMM keywords already, they will continue to run but as Phrase Match keywords.
  • You may notice a difference in the searches picked up by your keywords, which could influence performance.

What can we do now?

Speak with your agency team to discuss next steps best suited for your account. This may be moving away from segmentation by match type, testing some new Broad Match keywords, or being even more watchful over search terms reports and assessing the initial impact, if any. This change will affect different accounts differently, so stay vigilant and prepare for change.

IOS14 and Facebook

Apple’s development and release of iOS14 introduced a new feature designed to give more control to users around data collection by third-parties.

While the controls were previously available, they required manually checking for them. The update means that users will be proactively prompted by their device to opt into or out of data collection for each app. If permission is denied, Facebook (and other publishers) will have reduced ability to track site and app behaviour via their pixels.

This will impact Facebook alongside other platforms (such as Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest), traditional publishers (Buzzfeed, etc) and ad tech companies.

Why Has Apple Made This Change?

The change builds on Apple’s continued approach of reducing automated tracking – In 2017 Apple made changes to its Safari browser to reduce tracking of third-party cookies via “Intelligent Tracking Prevention”.

Apple’s goal appears to be to give users more control of their data in accordance with their AppTrackingTransparency Framework.

While Apple couches the move in being consumer-focused, the cynic among us cannot help but wonder if there is an ulterior motive that benefits Apple, whether that be as simple as improving customer loyalty, or improving the bargaining position and power dynamics between Apple and Facebook.

How Will This Affect Facebook Marketing?

This change will affect all advertisers across Facebook, regardless of whether the audience is using Apple, Android, or Windows to access Facebook and the web in general. To make up for this data loss, Facebook must change how its pixel collects information and, in some cases, build statistical models in the backend to fill in some gaps of user behaviour.  It calls this change ‘Aggregated Event Measurement’ and is a big factor in why pixel events will now be restricted.

Facebook will lose out to a degree on valuable insights gained from non-Facebook websites where pixels were previously installed. With the network of Facebook pixels installed across the web, Facebook was able to understand which user (or which category of user) was interested in anything from running shoes to financial software. This data gathering fed into Facebook’s machine learning to get ads in front of the right people. With less information being passed back, audience targeting may be less precise as there will be fewer signals to categorise and segment users. This could lead to lower CPMs due to broader audiences but higher CPCs due to the audience being less relevant.

Additionally, there will be reduced support for viewing performance breakdowns, such as segmenting by age or by gender. These breakdowns enabled some key optimisations and data analysis, so their loss makes having a strong understanding of your target customer even more important.

Remarketing lists as well as custom audience lists (and lookalikes off the back of these), have been powerful tools to improve the quality of audience targeting. However, we should be prepared for possible reductions in the population of these lists due to the changes to tracking. Remarketing lists of website visitors are frequently the top performing campaigns due to the audience already having shown interest in the product. Losing them, or at least, having a smaller audience pool, will likely make them less efficient and could result in lower conversion rates.

We may also see a growth in the importance of Facebook Shops and Instagram Checkout as Facebook moves to keep people on platform where possible.

What Are The Key Take-Outs?

  • iOS users will be opted out of Facebook tracking by default instead of having an option of opting out.
  • In response, Facebook is making changes to pixel implementation and event tracking that will affect all marketers who use the platform. These changes are to minimise the amount of data that will be lost and is referred to as ‘Aggregated Event Management’.
  • Only 8 conversion events can be associated with each pixel which may impact advertising strategies
  • Attribution windows are being reduced from 28 days to 7 days which may lead to fewer conversions and less data from which to optimise.
  • Performance of paid media campaigns may suffer but the impact will be monitored by Tug.

What Is Tug’s Take?

This isn’t the last we’re going to hear about less data being passed through to advertising platforms.  It’s going to be a recurring theme in 2021 and beyond. Now is the time to make sure you are building your own first-party data lists, so you can communicate directly with your current and potential customers through channels such as email. It’s going to get harder to do it using advertising platforms in future.

Marketers will increase spend across other social channels as a result. With a decrease in their granular data, marketers will no longer be as tied to Facebook and this will lead to more spend in other platforms, such as TikTok, in order to find more value.

Recent press coverage plays into Apple’s hands and helps position themselves as a privacy-first company. As well as the favourable PR, it could be seen another step towards Apple building their own search engine. Their first-party data will be more valuable to marketers, especially if it can’t be found on any other platforms.

What Should Advertisers Do Now?

With the knowledge of these changes there are several actions that you should be taking in order to prepare and adapt:

  • Speak to your agency teams – they will be able to explain the changes in more depth and how they are monitoring the impact of the changes.
  • Verify your Domain within the Facebook Ads platform as soon as possible.
  • Ensure the correct pixel implementation on your website, depending on the domain structure:
    • .co.uk and .fr could have a pixel each
    • .com/uk and .com/fr must share a pixel
  • Evaluate current event tracking and prioritise events in importance from 1 to 8. Where necessary, consolidate events into one.
  • Ensure any additional tracking and attribution (e.g. Google Analytics or Campaign Manager) that you have in place is up to date and implemented accurately.
  • Explore opportunities on other social platforms.

If you have any more questions, please get in touch.

Google search results are constantly evolving, and features are always changing, to provide more accurate results and a better user experience. One of the more important updates to SERPs in the past decade are Featured Snippets. These can be seen at the top of main listings, pulling relevant content to answer search queries quickly.

A Featured Snippet, therefore, is one of the first items users see when searching for a word or phrase, and often ensures the website shown in the Featured Snippet has the top organic ranking. Capturing the Featured Snippet enables you to quickly gain the top organic rank, and improves overall visibility and brand awareness, making them an integral part of SEO strategy.

Read further to explore the definition and types of Featured Snippets, their importance to SEO and how to optimise for them.

What is a Featured Snippet?

Featured Snippets are short snippets of text that appear at the top of Google’s search results, that give a brief answer to a user’s search query. The content that appears inside a Featured Snippet is automatically pulled from a web page in Google’s index, usually one of the top-ranking pages and include that page’s title and URL.

The four common types of Featured Snippets are paragraphs, lists, tables and videos. The most common snippet type is the paragraph, which accounts for 50% of all snippet results, closely followed by the list (37%), which can be displayed in numerical format or bullet points.

Why are Featured Snippets important for SEO?

In 2016, Moz found that 23% of all search result pages include a Featured Snippet, whilst Ahrefs’ data shows 12.29% of search queries contain a Featured Snippet. Regardless of the exact number, since their introduction in 2014, Featured Snippets have become a prominent feature of Google Search results and consequently, play a crucial role in SEO.

So, how do Featured Snippets influence search and SEO?

  1. They create a shortcut to the top organic position.

If your site ranks on the first SERP for a query that shows a snippet, capturing that snippet offers a shortcut to top position. As Featured Snippets are pulled from pages that already rank in the top 10, gaining a featured snippet is an effective way to quickly attain the top spot.

  1. They increase organic traffic.

Though there is a debate as to whether Featured Snippets lead to fewer clicks, as the answer is in the SERP, this isn’t necessarily the case. Many snippets only provide a basic answer, meaning most searchers would want to know more, thus resulting in an increase in site traffic.

  1. They offer an excellent branding opportunity.

If Google chooses to highlight a site in the Featured Snippet, one can expect an increase brand awareness as well. Featured Snippets are the first result that users see; they’re even more prominent on mobile devices, where they often occupy all the given SERP real estate. This leads to greater brand visibility for relevant topics, driving long term growth and assisting in associating one’s brand as a market leader.

How to optimise for Featured Snippets

Google uses its algorithm to determine which page contains the best answer to a user’s search query to display as a Featured Snippet. However, it is possible to optimise your site in order to earn Featured Snippets. You can do this by following the steps below:

  1. Do keyword research.

The best way to start is by researching your keywords. 

  • Utilise tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs and AWR to find relevant keywords and queries that trigger Featured Snippets.
  • As well as snippets your site has already captured and those captured by competitors, which can be used as a guide.
  • Target question-type search queries that your audience is searching for, as these are easiest to identify.
  • Identify queries with informational intent; according to the aforementioned Ahrefs study, most of the keywords that trigger snippets are long-tail queries without questions.

Tip: The “People also ask” section on the SERP can also help identify similar queries that can be answered on a single page, maximising the number of snippets you might capture with a single piece of optimised content.

  1. Identify search queries you rank highly for.

As discussed, most Featured Snippets contain content from sites on the first page of SERPs.  Therefore, optimising these pages is likely to be the easiest way in which to capture Featured Snippets.

  • Use a position tracker to create a list of pages that rank within the top ten for search queries.
  • Correlate these with the previously identified queries that have a snippet opportunity, to provide you with a list of existing pages you can optimise for groups of keywords.
  1. Leverage existing content

Once you’ve identified and grouped these existing pages, you can begin to optimise them.

  • First, explore the current snippet holders for a group of keywords; identifying the type of snippet and the content highlighted will give you the basis for your optimisation.
  •  Locate where on your high-ranking page these search queries are, or could be, answered to begin optimising these sections.
  • Google often selects an answer given in a single paragraph, so the ‘inverted pyramid’ writing method is a great way to structure your content; highlight the question as a subheading and immediately follow with a one paragraph answer.
  • The answer can be elaborated on in the rest of the article.
  1. Create new content with Featured Snippets in mind

If there are any snippet opportunities that your site does not have any content for, you can create new content with Featured Snippets in mind.

  • New content should not be created for the sole purpose of capturing a snippet.
  • The content should be relevant to the business and add value, but answering search queries that are in demand from your audience.

Tip: It’s important to note, Ahrefs found that once a page is featured, it is likely to be featured in a lot of similar queries as well; this means it is good practice to ensure one article answers as many similar questions as possible. FAQ sections and Q&A style blog posts provide an ideal structure for this.

  1. Pay attention to formatting.

Ensure your information is conveyed in Google’s preferred way.

  • If the current snippet displays information in a list or a table, it is ideal to format your content in this way.
  • Schema mark-up can be used to wrap lists and highlight main points.
  • For paragraphs, ensure you have descriptive headers, header tags and short, factual sentences.
  • Relevant imagery can also be included alongside content.
  1. Follow the optimal word count

Last, but certainly not least, ensure your content is the optimum length. After analysing over 10 million keywords, and 1 million domains, SEMrush found that most featured snippets have an optimal length:

  • Paragraph answers (usually 40-60 words)
  • Numbered or bulleted lists (up to nine lines)
  • Tables (up to nine rows and three columns)

Ensure you’re sticking to this guideline when optimising your content to maximise your ability to earn a Featured Snippet.

Conclusion

Although, it takes a lot of research and planning, optimising for Featured Snippets is a great way to achieve the top organic position, increase overall traffic and brand awareness, and can be done as easily as updating the structure of a blog post or restructuring content into a list. See if you can capture a Featured Snippet today by following these steps.

As a successful SaaS publisher, no doubt you already have your business’s core markets worked out. You know your highest revenue drivers; you know your areas of lowest churn and where you have a fair share of voice. But how do you find pockets of opportunities in markets you haven’t entered or trialled yet?

In a globalised market, there is always more opportunity to be found somewhere out there, and smart and insightful data use is the way to do it. For one SaaS client, for example, Tug burst targets by 100% across 28 territories. Given the complexity of the world and the infinite variety of SaaS products, there is no one-size-fits-all scenario for data-fuelled global expansion. But there is a process to find the right path for your SaaS.

A lake of data

Using our own channel data and the client’s own data sources, spanning digital marketing activity, sales and analytics, combined with careful desktop research and high-quality third-party tools, we create and manage a ‘lake’ of audience data. This provides a unique window into a market, drawing in information spanning everything from search and PPC volumes and existing sales data to local buying attitudes and currency issues.

A visual map

Pulling this lake of data together is clever work, but visually mapping a SaaS market expansion strategy, prioritising the markets to enter and test, is where things get smart. When we are dealing with multiple markets, each with very specific commercial and cultural nuances, we need to organise them into levels of priority. One way to do it is by using tiers:

  • Tier 3 (Low) – Potentially difficult economy to enter. It may have a closed or restricted currency. It may have a less mature middle class and offer little or no IP protection.
  • Tier 2 (Mid) – The next level “open” economy. Capable of delivering sustainable business, and with a low barrier to entry.
  • Tier 1 (Top) – A large global economy, with a high global ranking for critical IT infrastructure. Most likely the most ease of entry to market.

Formulating strategy

As we distil multiple data streams, detecting local insights on a global scale, we begin to pinpoint opportunities. Having formed a clear, informed picture of the markets in which a SaaS product might find untapped demand, we can move to the planning stages and the next set of questions: what’s the right level of entry investment for an entirely new market? Do we need to do an SEO audit? How much prospecting do we need to carry out for brand awareness? What kind of budgets are likely to be required for different levels of return?

There is no standard template for global SaaS growth, but the necessary research pulls out all the pertinent information on a given market, from competitors’ positions to barriers to entry. With such an array of data at our fingertips, we can begin to tell clients: this is the right market for you.

Applying the data

The combination of sources contained in our lake of data allows for enhanced cross-channel targeting and more effective measurement. It also sets the stage for customer journey mapping, allowing us to find new prospects in a market, convert them and gain their trust and loyalty.

Different markets call for different approaches. In top-tier markets, we can apply a comprehensive structure of localised campaigns, including brand and non-brand marketing, competitor targeting, display and retargeting. In mid-tier and lower-tier markets, the campaign structure will necessarily be simplified and include localisation testing.

In all cases, as our campaigns are running, we optimise them continually, identifying and improving KPIs. We can quickly see which markets are the rising stars: which show potential for long-term growth and are worthy of deeper investment; which are clearer candidates for only organic growth.

Get help with your SaaS marketing today

Whether you’re at the start of your SaaS marketing journey or want to explore ways we can take your business into its next phase of development, we would love to meet you. Use the Get in touch form below and we’ll get back to you.

For such a snappy acronym, SaaS maps out an increasingly vast business. The subscription software model has conquered the global workplace in the past decade, and Software as a Service describes a multitude of cloud-hosted apps in an industry whose revenues Gartner expects to grow to $85.1bn this year.

What SaaS publishers know is that a SaaS marketing campaign is unlike any other kind. In a fast-moving world, the stakeholders with a say in any new SaaS investment are not simply IT bosses – they are scattered throughout a company, across different teams and external agencies, requiring intelligent and dogged targeting.

From a sales perspective, prospects come in a complex array of conversion types and nurture flows, and these leads follow their own complex set of terms as they slide down the funnel: MQLs (marketing qualified leads), SQLs (sales qualified leads), and more to come.

SaaS often depends on giving away the product, at least for a trial period. The free model comes in numerous different shapes and sizes, and SaaS publishers need a careful strategy to turn the ‘free’ into revenue. The sales cycle can be rapid, too.

In this difficult marketplace, the reassuring news is that, while SaaS marketing campaigns are as varied and unique as the products they are designed to sell, they also obey certain simple strategic rules.

Assuming that the SaaS product you’re marketing is a killer one – because that is the most important part of all – successful SaaS marketing boils down to three fundamental steps:

1. Acquisition

SaaS products are usually researched and bought online, and publishers need to understand the mechanisms that turn their prospects into clients. The website is the hub of the SaaS marketing strategy, and it must be a finely tuned, relentlessly tested acquisition engine, leading the visitor from idle curiosity through to whole-hearted commitment. Which offers or content deliver the most efficient path to conversion? How best to nurture prospects through to trial? The answers lie in testing, iteration and the kind of insight an experienced SaaS marketing partner provides.

2. Conversion

However brilliant a visionary the SaaS product, for a business to be viable SaaS publishers need to understand the true cost of a newly acquired lead (cost per lead: CPL) and ultimately, the cost of the newly acquired customer (cost per acquired customer: CAC). Given the highly trackable sales funnel, SaaS publishers have a golden opportunity to draw up sophisticated attribution models that answer fundamental questions about the precise cost of making a sale. Correctly built campaigns that deliver on all such KPIs are a science, but one that can be mastered.

3. Retention

Retention is the essential stage that turns all that acquisition and conversion work into profit. Gartner research suggests that 80% of future revenue for a SaaS publisher will come from around 20% of current customers. Just a small increase in retention can have an enormous effect on profitability.

So retention brings its own set of KPIs: what is the average lifetime value (LTV) of a customer? What is the average churn rate? How do we ensure that we are correctly calculating the LTV:CAC ratio to ensure we are setting the right CAC targets? Once all these metrics are established, publishers can be clear on exactly what they can profitably afford to pay for a customer, knowing the true value of that customer over time.

SaaS marketing requires seamless agency-client teamwork…

For a business and its SaaS marketing agency to work well together, internal and external stakeholders need to recognise and understand all the agreed metrics and figures and build their joint efforts around them. They need to share a well-defined approach to lead scoring, expectations and timelines. Only then can they be sure that investment is efficient, sustainable and correctly optimised across channels, and that long-term growth will follow. Ongoing optimisation will ultimately drive down wastage and poor MQLs, increasing the quality of new ones and reducing churn.

…and it requires forensic attribution

While acquisition, conversion and retention are the three pillars of SaaS marketing, attribution is the essential prerequisite of a successful SaaS campaign. The key is in multi-touch attribution (MTA) – tracking every step along the funnel, from an ad impression to a click or engagement, then to the point of trial and all the way through to sale.

If marketers don’t put effective tracking in place from the very beginning – which means possessing the ability to attribute every single point on the sales journey – their subsequent SaaS investments may well be in vain. Once they have, however, and with the correct KPIs in place, they are primed to navigate and ultimately master the science of SaaS marketing.

Get help with your SaaS marketing today

Whether you’re at the start of your SaaS marketing journey or want to explore ways we can take your business into its next phase of development, we would love to meet you. Use the Get in touch form below and we’ll get back to you.

This is the first in a series of content exploring the fascinating world of SaaS and SaaS Marketing. We will be investigating topics around data intelligence, tracking and visualisation as well as the common pitfalls SaaS marketers experience when starting out.

We will be looking at some of the guiding principles and strategies to consider when expanding your SaaS business internationally and discussing the tenets and trends of the industry moving into 2020 and beyond.

For such a snappy acronym, SaaS maps out an increasingly vast business. The subscription software model has conquered the global workplace in the past decade, and Software as a Service describes a multitude of cloud-hosted apps in an industry whose revenues Gartner expects to grow to $85.1bn this year.

What SaaS publishers know is that a SaaS marketing campaign is unlike any other kind. In a fast-moving world, the stakeholders with a say in any new SaaS investment are not simply IT bosses – they are scattered throughout a company, across different teams and external agencies, requiring intelligent and dogged targeting.

From a sales perspective, prospects come in a complex array of conversion types and nurture flows, and these leads follow their own complex set of terms as they slide down the funnel: MQLs (marketing qualified leads), SQLs (sales qualified leads), and more to come.

SaaS often depends on giving away the product, at least for a trial period. The free model comes in numerous different shapes and sizes, and SaaS publishers need a careful strategy to turn the ‘free’ into revenue. The sales cycle can be rapid, too.

In this difficult marketplace, the reassuring news is that, while SaaS marketing campaigns are as varied and unique as the products they are designed to sell, they also obey certain simple strategic rules.

Assuming that the SaaS product you’re marketing is a killer one – because that is the most important part of all – successful SaaS marketing boils down to three fundamental steps:

1. Acquisition

SaaS products are usually researched and bought online, and publishers need to understand the mechanisms that turn their prospects into clients. The website is the hub of the SaaS marketing strategy, and it must be a finely tuned, relentlessly tested acquisition engine, leading the visitor from idle curiosity through to whole-hearted commitment. Which offers or content deliver the most efficient path to conversion? How best to nurture prospects through to trial? The answers lie in testing, iteration and the kind of insight an experienced SaaS marketing partner provides.

2. Conversion

However brilliant a visionary of the SaaS product, for a business to be viable, SaaS publishers need to understand the true cost of a newly acquired lead (cost per lead: CPL) and ultimately, the cost of the newly acquired customer (cost per acquired customer: CAC). Given the highly trackable sales funnel, SaaS publishers have a golden opportunity to draw up sophisticated attribution models that answer fundamental questions about the precise cost of making a sale. Correctly built campaigns, that deliver on all such KPIs, are a science but can be mastered to achieve successful growth.

3. Retention

Retention is the essential stage that turns all that acquisition and conversion work into profit. Gartner research suggests that 80% of future revenue for a SaaS publisher will come from around 20% of current customers. Just a small increase in retention can have an enormous effect on profitability.

So retention brings its own set of KPIs: what is the average lifetime value (LTV) of a customer? What is the average churn rate? How do we ensure that we are correctly calculating the LTV:CAC ratio to ensure we are setting the right CAC targets? Once all these metrics are established, publishers can be clear on exactly what they can profitably afford to pay for a customer, knowing the true value of that customer over time.

SaaS marketing requires seamless agency-client teamwork…

For a business and its SaaS marketing agency to work well together, internal and external stakeholders need to recognise and understand all the agreed metrics and figures and build their joint efforts around them. They need to share a well-defined approach to lead scoring, expectations and timelines. Only then can they be sure that investment is efficient, sustainable and correctly optimised across channels, and that long-term growth will follow. Ongoing optimisation will ultimately drive down wastage and poor MQLs, increasing the quality of new ones and reducing churn.

…and it requires forensic attribution

While acquisition, conversion and retention are the three pillars of SaaS marketing, attribution is the essential prerequisite of a successful SaaS campaign. The key is in multi-touch attribution (MTA) – tracking every step along the funnel, from an ad impression to a click or engagement, then to the point of trial and all the way through to sale.

If marketers don’t put effective tracking in place from the very beginning – which means possessing the ability to attribute every single point on the sales journey – their subsequent SaaS investments may well be in vain. Once they have however, and with the correct KPIs in place, they are primed to navigate and ultimately master the science of SaaS marketing.

The agency and the client must establish a source of data truth from the outset. Only then can we establish trust in the data and make the right decisions for the business and the campaign.

Get help with your SaaS marketing today

Whether you’re at the start of your SaaS marketing journey or want to explore ways we can take your business into its next phase of development, we would love to meet you. Use the Get in touch form below and we’ll get back to you.

Never mind the tech (for a moment). What do you actually want to say? Will anyone care?

Welcome to our first in a series of white papers covering the latest thinking in the converging fields of Media, Technology and Creativity.

“Programmatic advertising is everywhere and growing. It brings new efficiency to media planning and buying, provides remarkable targeting capabilities, increases revenue to publishers and has levelled the playing field for brands of all sizes. So the audiences are out there and we can find them more accurately and elegantly than ever before. Now, why would that mean it no longer matters what we say to them, or how we say it?”

Download the full whitepaper:

[contact-form-7 id=”18719″ title=”Whitepaper Download”]

The latest Google update is nearly upon us – the migration of its entire index to a mobile-first version. If you’re in the SEO industry, you’ve been preparing for this since it was first announced in October 2016. But what about brands and publishers? Is your site ready to survive to this major shift?

Chances are, you’re not: only 40% of prominent sites are responsive, meaning many will take a serious hit once this update begins to roll out. Before the panic sets in, it’s important to adopt Google’s recommended guidelines to ensure your site rank isn’t penalised.

In this report, our SEO experts examine the new index in detail, and lay out the steps brands and publishers need to take prior to migration. Download this whitepaper to make sure your site’s ready (we’d recommend not waiting: the migration could begin at any time…).

Download The Tug Mobile First SEO Whitepaper

We hear agencies talking a lot about social media and ‘best practice’, but we know it’s not that simple.

Does a social-first financial technology brand look at social in the same way as a retail-driven FMCG group?

Download the full whitepaper

Marketers believe search is pivotal, and getting more so.

Search is a critical part of our business as a media agency, so Tug partnered with the World Federation of Advertisers to conduct a survey investigating the attitudes of over 100 senior C-level global marketers. To understand the challenges they face, and how they are using (and want to use) search as a part of their marketing plans.

We found some fascinating insights.

81% of marketers have a lack of understanding in relation to the contribution in the overall conversion funnel.

35% of marketers report a lack of clarity or transparency from agency suppliers around paid search.

48% of marketers report a lack of understanding of the data and insight generated.

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