The Best Advertising Channels for B2B SaaS

Advertising for B2B SaaS has become incredibly competitive. Average CPCs have risen by roughly 10% across industries over the past year, and costs are only continuing to climb.

That’s why choosing advertising channels that deliver consistent conversions at an affordable CPC has become an essential part of any strong SaaS growth strategy.

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But, effective growth marketing is not about choosing one channel. It is about knowing which platforms to use and when to use them together to reach SaaS buyers across longer evaluation cycles.

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In this post, we break down the best advertising channels for B2B SaaS and show how we combine them into a unified cross-channel strategy that drives real pipeline.

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Choosing The Right Advertising Channel Matters

The length of a B2B SaaS sales cycle varies widely depending on industry, pricing, and product complexity. According to a Databox survey, the average SaaS sales cycle is about 2.5 months and enterprise-level deals can extend well beyond a year. 

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These longer timelines create multi-touch journeys where buyers interact with several channels before ever speaking to sales.

Because of this, SaaS teams need to balance intent, relevance, and rising CPCs so they are not wasting budget on top-of-funnel ads on high-cost platforms. Instead, your paid channels need to work together so prospects move naturally from first interaction to qualified lead to opportunity.

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This is where many SaaS teams fall short. They choose a single channel instead of building a cross-channel experience that supports the full evaluation cycle.

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Retargeting is a key component of a multi-channel advertising strategy. When buyers see you across multiple platforms, conversion rates rise and the sales cycle shortens. 

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At InterTeam, we call this “surrounding our leads”. When your brand appears everywhere they go, they stay engaged and tend to move through the funnel much faster. We’ve taken year long sales cycles and shortened them to a month with this approach.

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This is why understanding your advertising channels is essential to growth marketing. Each channel serves a different purpose, and knowing how to use them at the right moment is how you lower CPLs, improve conversions, and scale ROI.

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How to Choose the Best Paid Advertising Channels

At InterTeam, we have a variety of preferred channels, but not every business requires the same combination of platforms. Instead, we look at a variety of factors to select the approach that best fits each business.

Some of the things we consider when deciding which channels to use include:

• Where does your target audience spend their time: Channels must align with your ICP and where they spend time online.
• What stage of the sales cycle are you targeting: Search captures in-market demand when volume exists, while social platforms are better for reaching buyers earlier when search demand is limited.
• What are your goals and budget constraints: Are you trying to scale fast and drive lead volume, or get the most efficiency out of your budget?‍
• How does your target audience research: Technical users rely on Reddit for peer reviews, executives rely on LinkedIn, and many buyers evaluate tools on G2 and Capterra alongside broader discovery on Meta.

The Top B2B SaaS Advertising Channels

Now that you know what goes into choosing the right marketing channels for your paid advertising campaign, let's take a look at some of our favorite advertising platforms and when to use them.

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1. Google Ads: Best for Targeting In-Market Buyers

Google Ads is the strongest channel for capturing high-intent, in-market buyers. The platform allows you to connect with users at the exact moment they are searching for your services. This is a level of intent that no social platform is able to replicate.

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But with rising CPCs, success on the platform ultimately comes down to how well you target high-intent, in-market audiences.

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At InterTeam, we use four key strategies:

• High-Intent Keyword Targeting: Using exact match industry keywords for search terms that indicate a clear purchase intent, like “software,” “tools,” and “platform.”
• Competitor Campaigns: Targeting competitor branded keywords paired with high-intent keyword indicators, like “alternatives” and “reviews.”
• Branded Campaigns: Targeting our own brand names to capture high-intent, bottom of funnel traffic using high-intent keywords like “trials,” “pricing,” and “demos.”‍
• Retargeting Campaigns: To reach previously engaged audiences across Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discovery, reinforcing your brand throughout the evaluation cycle and improving conversion rates in your search campaigns.

By using a combination of these four strategies, you ensure your ads reach highly qualified leads and keep them in your sales funnel long enough for them to convert into pipeline.

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Strengths

• Reaches in-market buyers at the exact moment they search for a solution.
• High-intent keyword and competitor targeting helps qualify traffic early.
• Strong retargeting across Search, Display, YouTube, and Gmail supports longer SaaS sales cycles.
• Reliable for capturing demand and converting users already exploring alternatives or pricing.

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Weaknesses

• CPCs continue to rise, especially in competitive SaaS categories, where CPCs can often exceed $40 per click.
• Requires precise keyword strategy to avoid wasted spend on broad, low-intent traffic.
• Performance depends heavily on landing page experience and conversion tracking setup.

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2. LinkedIn Ads: Best for Targeting Qualified Leads 

LinkedIn is the internet’s hub of business professionals, and its refined audience filters lets you target based on job title, seniority, industry, and company size, making it an amazing advertising channel to reach users that specifically match your ICP.

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Where many advertisers go wrong is by treating LinkedIn like a broad social channel. At InterTeam, we use it very differently. We build tightly layered audiences so ads only show to decision-makers and operators who can influence a purchase.

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Using this approach tends to generate fewer total impressions, but it often results in much higher conversion rates. And on a high-CPC platform like LinkedIn, this refined focus on pipeline is exactly the strategy you need to scale efficiently.

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Here are strategies we use to generate pipeline while reducing CPL with LinkedIn Ads:

• Top-Of-Funnel Ad Campaigns: Running low-friction, educational content to build awareness and grow retargeting pools.
• Competitor Audience Targeting: Reaching users who engage with or belong to competitor-related groups and communities.
• LinkedIn Retargeting: Re-engaging people who have visited your key pages or interacted with your ToFu campaigns.

Together, these campaigns ensure your LinkedIn Ads budget is focused on in-market decision makers without wasting spend on unqualified leads.

Strengths

• Best platform for reaching decision-makers in your target audience through job title, seniority, and industry filters.
• Ideal for ABM-style targeting and reaching specific companies with company targeting filters.
• Strong for retargeting due to ability to layer high quality filters on retarget audiences 

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Weaknesses

• One of the most expensive CPCs of any  B2B advertising platform.
• Lower reach compared to Meta or Google limits scale for top-of-funnel.
• Limitations to audience filtering, like age, gender, device and schedules.

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3. Reddit Ads: Best for Lead Value From Low CPCs

Reddit is where buyers go for real conversations, unfiltered opinions, and product comparisons.

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Its users are some of the highest-intent audiences online, especially for technical or research-heavy products. Reddit users are also 27% more likely to purchase a product here than on any other platform.

What makes the platform even more valuable is that CPCs on Reddit are far more affordable than Google or LinkedIn. Reddit averages around $2 per click and rarely exceeds $5, while B2B SaaS clicks can easily exceed $30 on other platforms.

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Despite this, many advertisers avoid Reddit Ads because the platform’s user base is quick to call out low-quality or overly promotional content. But if you find the right communities and match your messaging to the conversations already happening, Reddit can quickly become one of your most profitable B2B SaaS advertising channels.

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The trick is finding the right communities to target. We do this in three ways:

• Check the ad group interface for related communities.
• Run a Google search using your keyword + “reddit” to uncover relevant threads.
• Review retargeting data to see which subreddits have driven conversions.

From there, we sort through relevant subreddits and focus on the ones most aligned with our target audience. Smaller, niche communities often outperform large general subreddits because the discussions are more focused.

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Because of its low CPCs, we like to use Reddit to test creative on high-intent audiences before rolling it out to higher-cost platforms. This helps us lower CPLs, improve conversion rates, and scale growth more efficiently for our clients.

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Strengths

• Conversation placements attract a high volume of search and AI referral traffic, making Reddit effective for reaching buyers researching products, comparisons, and technical solutions.
• CPCs are significantly lower than Google and LinkedIn, leading to lower CPL.
• Community-based targeting lets you target high-intent audiences. .
• Great platform for testing creative and messaging before scaling to channels with higher CPC.

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Weaknesses

• Smaller overall reach and limited scale outside relevant subreddits.
• Users quickly reject ads that feel salesy or out of sync with community norms.
• Requires manual effort to identify the right subreddits and avoid wasted impressions.

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4. Microsoft Ads: Best Lower CPC Paid Search Alternative

When it comes to search advertising, Microsoft Ads is often overlooked. Bing only holds about 4.3 percent of the global search engine market, but it is still the second most used search engine after Google and is rapidly gaining market share. The platform currently sees over 23 billion monthly PC searches, and in PPC, desktop users tend to be some of the highest intent audiences.

Microsoft also reports that 52 percent of users within its B2B audience segment are classified as business decision makers. This is because many businesses that use Microsoft products keep Bing as their default browser. So while the Microsoft Ads network is smaller than Google, it can be highly effective for reaching B2B SaaS audiences at CPCs far lower than other channels.

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Keep in mind that Microsoft Ads includes Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and DuckDuckGo search inventory. What you want to avoid are the partner websites outside of the search network, which are often low quality. For B2B SaaS campaigns, we recommend excluding those partner sites so your ads run only on the core search engines.

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To make this easy, we have put together a Complete List of Bing Exclusion URLs.

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Strengths

• Lower CPCs and less competition make it a cost-effective complement to Google Search.
• Strong for reaching corporate professionals who use Bing as a default search engine.
• Integrates smoothly with Google Ads, making campaign setup and importing easy.
• Access to LinkedIn audience data helps with B2B refinement.

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Weaknesses

• Much smaller search volume reduces scale, especially in niche SaaS categories.
• Partner sites often produce low-quality traffic unless carefully excluded.
• Slightly industry dependent. Not all industries have a large Bing audience.
• Works best as a supporting demand capture channel, not a standalone engine.

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5. Meta Ads: Best for Affordable Reach and Retargeting

Meta Ads is often seen as a B2C platform, but it can be a powerful B2B channel when used to support longer sales cycles and multi-channel campaigns.

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With over 3 billion monthly users across Facebook and Instagram, Meta offers the broadest social media reach and some of the lowest CPCs available. This makes it a strong channel for generating awareness, although it can also bring in more unqualified leads compared to LinkedIn or Google.

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Meta’s algorithm is extremely powerful, especially when paired with a properly configured conversion API. When tracking is aligned to qualified actions, Meta can efficiently scale results. When it isn’t, the platform will just as efficiently optimize toward low-quality leads.

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For this reason, Meta Ads is most effective as a retargeting channel. The platform lets you re-engage high-intent users based on several signals, including:

• Website visitors who viewed pricing pages, demos, or case studies.
• Users who interacted with your content or watched videos.
• Lookalike audiences modeled on your best customers.

Used this way, Meta becomes a valuable addition to a B2B SaaS advertising strategy. It creates extra touch points outside of professional channels and keeps your brand present during more casual online activity throughout the evaluation journey.

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Strengths

• Massive reach and low CPCs make it ideal for awareness and early-funnel visibility.
• Strong retargeting capabilities help re-engage users who visited demos, pricing, or case study pages.
• Lookalike audiences and strong overall algorithm help expand reach affordably based on existing customer data.
• Complements high-cost platforms by keeping your brand visible throughout long evaluation cycles.

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Weaknesses

• Lower buyer intent because users are not searching for SaaS tools; they’re browsing socially.
• Limited B2B targeting compared to LinkedIn .
• Higher chance of low-quality leads without strong filters and nurturing in place.
• Creative fatigue can set in quickly with smaller audience segments.

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How These Advertising Channels Work Together in a Multi-channel B2B SaaS Growth Strategy

A strong B2B SaaS advertising system is not built on a single platform. Each channel plays a different role in the evaluation cycle, and using them together is what creates consistent visibility, better conversion rates, and a smoother path to booked demos.

Here is a simple way to think about how these channels work together:

• Reddit: Community engagement and creative testing with high-intent researchers.
• Google Ads: Core demand generation for in-market buyers searching for solutions.
• LinkedIn: ICP targeting for the job titles and companies that control the purchase.
• Retargeting across all channels: Keeps your brand present as buyers compare tools.

When working together, these channels support SaaS buyers from first interaction through to scheduled demos, while reducing the risk of relying too heavily on any single platform.

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B2B SaaS Cross-Channel Advertising Results

At InterTeam, we help our clients scale growth through effective cross-channel advertising campaigns that drive more leads while reducing CPLs.

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Here are some of our results.

• CoDev: 7x increase in leads and 87 percent lower CPL using LinkedIn, Reddit, and Google Ads.
• Celayix: 25 percent more MQLs and 3x higher conversion rates with LinkedIn, Google, and Bing.
• Pimly: 5x return on investment after two months with LinkedIn and Google.
• InTouchLink: 10x increase in qualified leads and a 50 percent lower CPL with Google and Bing.

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Want Us to Build You a Cross-Channel Advertising Strategy?

If you are looking to scale your B2B SaaS advertising campaigns effectively, you need a partner who understands how to build effective cross-channel campaigns that actually drive pipeline.

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At InterTeam, we’ve developed a process for choosing the right platforms for each stage of the marketing funnel. The framework has to be tweaked depending on the service and industry, but we’ve tested this process over hundreds of thousands of dollars of Ad spend and the results speak for themselves (See case studies above).

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Click this link to request a custom ad strategy call for your business made by our founder.

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FAQs