Performance marketing for SaaS is a narrower lever than most agencies present. For PLG products under $200/mo ACV, Google branded search + narrow category-term search + retargeting covers 80% of what paid can deliver - cold Meta rarely pays back a $50-200/mo subscription. For enterprise SaaS with $500+/mo ACV and sharp ICPs, LinkedIn conversation ads and sponsored content become the cheapest pipeline source. Between those bands, it depends on product-market specificity. We run the math - CAC against cohort LTV, not last-click ROAS - and tell you which channels are worth the spend. That often means recommending a smaller paid budget than you arrived expecting. The uncomfortable version of this analysis is that some SaaS products cannot support paid acquisition at their current pricing at all, and we would rather establish that in week two than after two quarters.
The economics of paid SaaS acquisition are unforgiving below certain ACV thresholds. A $50/mo product with 30% annual churn has ~$1,200 three-year LTV; a defensible CAC cap is roughly $400 at a 1:3 CAC:LTV ratio. At a realistic Google branded-search CPC, that works. At a realistic Meta cold-acquisition CPA, it often doesn't. For $500+/mo ACV, the LTV headroom unlocks LinkedIn and intent-data platforms (Bombora, 6sense) - but those have higher ops complexity and only make sense once inbound is saturated. Branded search protection is the first move for any SaaS with measurable branded query volume - competitor brand bidding is cheap insurance. Category-term Google works for narrow, high-intent queries (e.g. 'Postman alternative', 'best invoicing software India') - not for broad terms ('project management software') where incumbent bids and CPMs make the math impossible. Retargeting works for high-intent visitors (pricing, sign-up started, demo requested) with tight frequency caps; long-tail retargeting blasts rarely convert and erode brand trust.
