At first glance, a Google Ads account for a SaaS product looks like any other: keywords, ads, a page with a sign-up button. The difference lies in what happens after the click. Someone who opens a trial account has paid nothing and may never pay; the money comes only after the person uses the app and is convinced.
If the only signal the platform receives is the sign-up, it will look for people who sign up easily, not necessarily those who stay. Everything that follows has a single purpose: for Google to find out which sign-ups become customers and to bid for more people like them.
Many trial accounts, few subscribers
The typical situation: the campaigns bring sign-ups at a cost that looks good, the chart climbs, and revenue does not follow. On closer inspection, some of the accounts never get past the welcome screen, and others belong to students or curious competitors.
The second problem is time. Between sign-up and first payment lie the trial period and, often, an internal discussion at the buyer’s end. If you judge a campaign by the subscriptions from the same week, you will stop exactly the campaigns that bring good but slow customers.
Conversions in three stages: trial, activation, subscription
Together with the product team, we define what an “activated” account means: the action after which a user usually stays on as a customer. In an invoicing app it might be the first invoice issued; in a booking app, the first calendar published.
Then we connect the app to the ad platform. The click identifier is saved at sign-up, alongside the account, if the user has accepted measurement for advertising purposes, and when the account reaches a stage, the app’s server or the payment system sends the event back to Google Ads.
- Trial account created: a quick, plentiful signal with low value.
- Account activated: the signal usually optimised for, because it appears quickly and predicts payment.
- Paid subscription: the true signal, with the value of the plan chosen; rare at first, so hard to use on its own.
- Values by stage: each event is given a weight, so that bidding prefers one activated account to several empty sign-ups.
Google Ads for SaaS by search group: problem, category, brand
People reach a software product by different routes, and each needs a different ad and a different page. Someone searching for the problem (“how do I keep track of stock”) is at the beginning. Someone searching for the category (“stock management software”) is comparing. Someone searching for your name has almost decided, or is already a customer and wants to log in.
The campaigns are split along these groups, with separate budgets; otherwise searches for your own name, cheap and with good results, hide what is happening elsewhere. Existing customers are excluded, as far as possible and where there is a legal basis, through a list uploaded to the platform, and words such as “login”, “free” or “tutorial” go on the negative list.
Comparison pages and keywords with competitors’ names
Someone searching for “alternative to” followed by a product name is searching at a good moment for you: they know what they want and are unhappy with something. For these searches we write comparison pages: features, limits, who each product suits. An honest comparison, one that admits where the other product is better, is more convincing than a table with ticks only in your column.
Bidding on a competitor’s name raises two issues. The first is practical: your ad is less relevant to that search, so the click usually works out more expensive. The second is legal: Google has its own rules on registered trade marks in ad text, and beyond them the legislation on trade marks, comparative advertising and unfair competition applies. The ad copy is checked with a lawyer before launch.
The long decision cycle and reading the reports
Because payment comes late, we set a conversion window to match your sales cycle, within the limit the platform allows, and read the results by cohort: groups of accounts created in the same period, followed through to payment. The question is not “how many subscriptions do we have this month” but “what became of the sign-ups from two months ago”.
Two reservations remain: with few activations, automated bidding runs short of examples and needs closer supervision, and ads do not fix a product that people leave after the first session. Otherwise, we track a small number of metrics, the ones below.
- Cost per activated account, by campaign and by search group.
- Trial-to-paid conversion, by source: shows which keywords bring users who stay.
- Acquisition cost set against the value a subscriber brings for as long as they remain a customer: shows whether you can afford the campaign.
- Churn: subscribers who leave quickly point to a weak campaign.
Frequently asked questions
What changes if the product is a mobile app?
There are dedicated campaigns for installs. Measurement is done through a code package included in the app, which reports the install and the actions after it. The principle stays the same: we optimise for an action that shows real use, not for the install.
What budget does a campaign for a subscription product need?
It depends on what a subscriber is worth over the time they remain a customer, on the competition for searches in your category and on how many activations are needed for bidding to learn. The calculation starts from how much you can afford to pay for a new subscriber.
Are we allowed to appear on searches for a competitor’s name?
The platform generally allows names to be used as targeting terms, but it can restrict registered trade marks from appearing in ad text, usually following a complaint from the trade mark owner. On top of its rules comes the law, which can be stricter, so the decision is taken with a lawyer, on the specific case.
This is a typical project description: it shows how we usually approach this kind of work and does not present a project carried out for a particular client. Every real project starts from your company’s situation, and the stages, timescales and price are agreed after the initial discussion.