Native advertising is a top marketing trend for B2B SaaS companies in 2021. Find out how native ads can help you generate leads and drive sales.
As more businesses go digital, the need for B2B SaaS solutions continues to rise. Gartner predicts a huge increase in end-user SaaS spending in 2021, but as demands and sales increase, so does competition. Here’s how native advertising gives B2B SaaS companies an edge over their competitors.
Why B2B SaaS companies are turning to native ads
Almost 26% of people in the United States use an ad blocker when browsing the internet, which affects both B2B and B2C SaaS marketing tactics. Due to the increasing percentage of people actively blocking advertisements across their devices, revenue losses are projected to be over $12 billion in the US—that’s more than an $8 billion increase since 2016.
The B2B SaaS sales funnel is longer and more complex than its B2C (business-to-consumer) counterpart, and marketers are moving toward native ads to engage with their mid-funnel customers. They do this by offering relevant information that puts a positive spin on their B2B SaaS products, providing an opportunity to set their brand apart, which is something that many Brax users are taking advantage of.
It can be challenging to move prospects through the B2B SaaS sales funnel—many of them make it to mid-funnel and lose interest before making a purchase. Marketers are using native ads to engage with potential buyers in this stage by offering relevant content that puts a positive spin on their B2B SaaS product, providing an opportunity to set their brand apart. This is something that many Brax users are taking advantage of.
A study performed by the Content Marketing Institute, which primarily focused on US B2B marketers, found that:
- 53% of marketers who use native advertising stated that native ads are extremely effective.
- The three most valuable uses for native ads are building an audience, driving an action (like a B2B SaaS sale), and promoting content marketing efforts.
- The top reasons that B2B marketers use native ads are to target and retarget buyers in the sales funnel, extend their reach through trusted channels, and increase the content’s shelf life.
- Only 2% of marketers planned to use less native advertising in the next 12 months, while 34% planned to use the same amount, and a massive 63% said they were going to increase their native ad efforts.
This native ad by Deloitte appears on Entrepreneur. First off, it doesn’t look like an advertisement—it’s an article covering a topic that offers business leaders insights into their employees. Once you view the post, it provides data about the employee burnout problem and possible solutions. In fact, while Deloitte cites their own research, they never even advertise their products throughout the article. So, what purpose did this native ad serve for them?
The answer is simple: Deloitte gave potential buyers relevant information about problems they may be facing, along with a reason to visit Deloitte’s website (viewing their report on human capital trends). By offering useful data and meaningful solutions to an issue that many business owners face, Deloitte is effectively bringing B2B SaaS consumers into their sales funnel.
4 types of native ad content to drive B2B SaaS sales
Potential buyers tend to linger in the B2B SaaS sales funnel; it’s important to keep them engaged with quality content so that you don’t lose their attention. According to a Gartner study, supplying buyer groups with useful information makes them three times as likely to make a high-value purchase—45% of their time is spent performing independent research on B2B products.
For B2B SaaS companies, there are four types of native ad content that can help drive sales.
- Insights: This is top-of-funnel content that B2B companies can produce to talk about the main issues in their industry. These insights offer a look into the industry’s future based on recent trends or big changes.
- Brand: This type of content is similar to the top-of-funnel insights, but it focuses more on topics that highlight the company’s mission, goals, and values.
- Education: Getting into the mid-funnel, this content is practical and offers potential clients strategies that they can implement right now. Educational content typically consists of “how-to” and tutorial-type articles and videos.
- Solutions: This is the bottom-of-the-funnel content that really drives B2B SaaS sales. It focuses on a known problem that the industry faces and gives companies a chance to demonstrate how their software can solve the issue.
Drive your B2B SaaS sales with Brax
B2B SaaS marketing is driven by offering potential buyers high-quality, relevant, and useful content. Native ads give your company a great opportunity to get that content in front of your target audience and get them moving through the sales funnel.
Here’s how the Brax native advertising platform can help drive your B2B SaaS sales:
- Easily create campaigns. Set a custom budget, audience targeting specifications, tracking parameters, and duplicate native ads across various networks.
- Build native ads in bulk. Create hundreds of native ad variations at once, and push them directly to networks like Outbrain, Taboola, and Revcontent.
- Get insights in real-time. Track ad performance across every network and pause ads or adjust bids automatically based on your custom metrics.
Interested in learning more about how Brax can help enhance your B2B SaaS marketing efforts? Start your free trial today.
