PPC (pay-per-click)

What is PPC?

PPC, or pay-per-click, is online advertising where you pay each time someone clicks your ad. You pick the searches or audiences you want and set a budget and a bid. Then the platform runs an auction every time an ad slot comes up.

For B2B SaaS, the main PPC channels are Google Ads and Microsoft Ads for search and LinkedIn Ads for job titles and companies. Software review sites like Capterra work the same way, with vendors bidding per click to rank higher in a category. LinkedIn also lets you pay per thousand impressions, but most teams start with clicks.

Let's say you sell field service software for HVAC and plumbing companies. An operations manager types "field service management software" into Google. Your ad shows above the results. She clicks, and you pay for that click. She lands on a page about your product for trades teams, with pricing and a demo button. That's a PPC campaign doing its job.

Why PPC matters for B2B SaaS

PPC is the fastest way to get in front of buyers who are already searching. SEO and LinkedIn content take months to build, while a search campaign can bring demo requests in its first week. That's why I treat PPC as the bridge while the organic side grows. We compared the two channels with real numbers in our SEO vs PPC statistics.

It's getting pricier, though. Dreamdata's 2026 benchmarks found B2B cost per click on non-branded Google searches rose 29% from 2024 to 2025, while click-through rate fell 26%. So every click has to come from a buyer you actually want.

Here's where PPC earns its budget:

• Speed: A new campaign can bring meetings in days. That's useful when you launch a product, enter a new market or need pipeline this quarter.
• Intent you can pick: You choose the exact searches you pay for, like "[competitor] alternatives" or "[category] software for [industry]". Those buyers already know they want a tool.
• Fast testing: You can try two headlines or two offers and see which one gets more demos within weeks. The winner can shape your homepage and SEO pages too.

How to run PPC for B2B SaaS

Most wasted B2B ad spend comes from paying for the wrong searches and sending clicks to the wrong page. Here's how I'd set up a first search campaign:

• Start with high-intent keywords: Bid on category, use case and competitor alternative searches first. Skip "what is" and "how to" searches at the start, since those people want to learn and rarely book a demo.
• Control match types: Start with exact and phrase match on your core terms. Broad match can find new searches later, once you have conversion data and a solid negative list.
• Add negatives on day one: Block words like free, jobs, salary, login, template and course before launch. Then check the search terms report every week and add new negative keywords.
• Build one landing page per ad group: A click on "HVAC dispatch software" should land on a page about dispatch for HVAC teams. The homepage makes the buyer hunt for the answer, and most won't.
• Track past the form fill: Send SQLs and closed deals from your CRM back to Google Ads and LinkedIn with offline conversion import. Then the bidding learns which clicks turned into revenue, and you stop paying for students and job seekers.

A PPC example

Here's how a hypothetical field service software company could split its first Google Ads search campaign:

Four small ad groups like these are easier to manage than one giant campaign. Each one has its own ads and its own page, so you can see which kind of search brings SQLs.

How to measure PPC

The ad platforms will happily report clicks and form fills. For B2B SaaS, you need to follow the click into the CRM. Here's what to track:

• Cost per click and click-through rate: Check CPC and CTR by ad group in Google Ads or LinkedIn Campaign Manager. A low CTR usually means the ad doesn't match the search.
• Conversion rate by landing page: The share of clicks that become demo or trial requests, from GA4 or your form tool. WordStream by LocaliQ found that 8.18% of Google and Microsoft search ad clicks became leads in 2026, so a page far below that needs work before it gets more budget.
• Cost per SQL: Total spend divided by the leads sales accepted. It's the number that tells you whether a cheap click is really cheap.
• Pipeline and revenue per dollar: Pipeline created and closed revenue divided by spend, from your CRM. That's ROAS, and it's the number your CFO will ask for.
• Search terms: The real searches that triggered your ads, in the Google Ads search terms report. Read it every week.

Common PPC mistakes

• Letting the platform run the account: Auto-applied recommendations and broad match with no negatives spend fast on searches that will never buy. Review changes before you accept them.
• Sending every click to the homepage: A buyer who searched for a specific use case wants to see that use case. Give each ad group a page that answers its search.
• Optimizing for form fills: If the bidding learns from every form, it finds more people who fill forms. Feed it SQLs and closed deals instead.
• Judging it in two weeks: B2B deals take months. Judge early campaigns by cost per SQL and pipeline, then by revenue once deals start closing.
• Spreading a small budget thin: Ten campaigns on $3,000 a month means none of them gets enough data to learn. Start with two or three ad groups and add more once they work.

Here's a first step you can take today. Open the search terms report in your Google Ads account for the last 30 days. How many of those searches came from someone who could actually buy your product?