Do you already know what you need to look for in a SaaS marketing agency? Then:
Jump straight to our list of top B2B SaaS marketing agencies for 2024.
The Bay Leaf Digital team has written extensively about what is SaaS marketing. SaaS marketing is a full spectrum of marketing and nurture efforts including brand awareness, lead generation, demo/free trial/freemium offer, and even engagement of paying subscribers. It is massive, and it is complicated. An agency that can get these goals accomplished without wasting your money is a SaaS marketing agency worth considering.
How can you identify and select the agency that’s best for your company? Bay Leaf Digital is here to help with a list of the top B2B SaaS marketing agencies for 2024.
To learn how to go about selecting a strong SaaS marketing partner, read our guide below. Here’s what’s inside:
- What is a SaaS Marketing Agency?
- Why Do You Need a Specialized SaaS Growth Partner?
- What Are the 5 Signs That You Are Looking at a Saas Marketing Agency?
- How to Vet a Saas Marketing Agency
- Choosing a B2B SaaS Marketing Agency
- Best B2B SaaS Marketing Agencies: The 2024 List
What is a SaaS Marketing Agency?
Specialized knowledge and rich experience marketing for companies that provide software as a service (SaaS) product for other businesses makes a SaaS marketing agency stand out from the crowd. The real value these agencies offer is a deep understanding of what works – and what doesn’t. They’ve tested various strategies across different markets and audiences, gaining a keen sense for successful tactics. This know-how is crucial for effective SaaS marketing.
Agencies like Bay Leaf Digital stress the importance of designing a solid SaaS marketing strategy before diving into execution. Although not every strategy needs to be built from the ground up, each SaaS company is unique, and a careful review of which elements to include or leave out is required. The best SaaS marketing agencies draw from previous experience to know which potential strategies are more likely to hit the mark.
Why Do You Need a Specialized SaaS Growth Partner?
A B2B SaaS marketing agency has what it takes for your company to grow.
- Focus on B2B: B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing strategies differ significantly. B2B SaaS marketing involves navigating longer decision times and multiple stakeholders. How an agency manages the journey from lead generation to decision-making is key.
- Immediate Results and Long-Term Growth: You can’t afford to spend months waiting for results while the competition gains ground. As a result, high expectations are placed on SaaS marketing agencies to deliver both immediate results and long-term growth strategies. Expert SaaS marketing agencies like Bay Leaf Digital understand the value of standing out quickly better than our more generalized colleagues do. Meeting immediate sales needs while simultaneously building a long-term, steady flow of leads is a skill that comes from experience.
- The Right Strategy at Every Stage: Familiarity with your vertical isn’t enough to get the job done. Specialized B2B SaaS agencies are also familiar with the growth stages of a SaaS company and with the customer lifecycle.
- Metrics Matter: A focus on tangible outcomes should guide any agency’s approach to setting key performance indicators (KPIs). Learn more about Bay Leaf Digital’s approach to metrics in our free guide, Five Key Metrics Proven to Maximize B2B SaaS Marketing Return.
What Are the 5 Signs That You Are Looking at a SaaS Marketing Agency?
As the SaaS vertical has exploded with opportunity, so have the number of agencies calling themselves SaaS experts. So how do you know that you are actually talking to a SaaS agency that knows how to market SaaS?
1. Their Home Page Says a Lot
Look for a specialist that is heavily invested in SaaS. From defining the persona to creating the right mix of demand generation and lead generation, the SaaS mindset needs to be everywhere. You should get a sense that the agency you’re considering is steeped in SaaS at every point, beginning with your first visit to their website.
2. They Talk About SaaS on Social and Through Content
Check your prospective marketing agency’s social media, particularly their LinkedIn and Facebook pages. See how far back their posts about SaaS marketing really go (pro tip: If they only go back to 2021, then you may be looking at a wannabe SaaS agency because the pandemic drove a lot of pivots). Look at the content they post on their blog. Is it primarily about SaaS? Read a few articles. You’ll know soon enough how deep their SaaS expertise runs.
3. SaaS Reviews and SaaS Clients
Most agencies will have their client logo lineup on their home page. Investigate the clients they have chosen to feature. If at least 50% of them are SaaS companies, then you should be in good company. Look for more than a high star count at the company’s reviews on big directories such as Clutch and Upcity as well. Who wrote them? Do they reflect SaaS experience?
4. Strategy vs Tactics
SaaS marketing strategies and tactics are not the same thing. Think of strategy as the “what” and “why” part of marketing, defining what the company wants to achieve and why those goals are important. Strategies might include expanding into new markets, focusing on a specific customer segment, or building brand awareness. They could also involve determining the overall positioning of the product in the market, deciding on a pricing model, or setting long-term revenue goals.
Specific actions or steps you take to execute the strategy, tactics are the “how” part, detailing how the company will achieve those strategic goals through concrete actions. They are more focused, short-term, and concrete in nature than strategies. Examples of SaaS marketing tactics include email marketing campaigns, social media advertising, content marketing (like blog posts or webinars), SEO optimization, and PPC advertising campaigns. Be sure that you select an agency with expertise in both.
5. Leads vs Hand Raisers
Last but most important – The roles of marketing, BDR, and SDR have blurred. The traditional expectation was that leads were to be nurtured, and nurtured leads would then turn into SQLs to be engaged by BDRs who would turn them into SALs. While that may still be true in other verticals, SaaS leaders are particularly focused on the time it takes to close a deal. For SaaS companies, time isn’t just money, it is the difference between success and failure. The agency needs to talk in terms of delivering demo requests, not MQLs.
This is the one thing separates the wannabes from true SaaS marketing agencies – the ability to deliver hand raisers in quantities that meet SaaS company goals.
How to Vet a SaaS Marketing Agency
These five questions will reveal to you the quality and quantity of work you can expect from an agency. With them, you should be able to get a good sense of the experience and level of expertise of any B2B SaaS marketing agency you might be considering. Of course, answers will vary depending on your company’s unique situation.
1. How many clients does a client strategist (other agencies have names such as associate CMO for such roles) handle?
What you are looking to determine is how much high-level bandwidth is allocated to your account. While there isn’t an optimal fixed answer, you do have the right to expect white glove treatment in exchange for your SaaS marketing dollars.
2. Who writes your content?
You need to figure out the content quality you can expect and how much heavy lifting your team will have to do to support the agency you choose. Ask questions to determine the content department’s experience and comfort in talking to your target market. Many agencies – including Bay Leaf Digital – have begun leveraging Al, but human support is still required. Inquire about if and how the agency generates content with AI and find out what the human to AI breakdown looks like. Do they farm assignments out to low-paid freelancers? If so, lower your expectations accordingly.
3. Once LinkedIn campaigns are running, what is the target CTR and lead form conversion rate you will strive for?
You might wonder why we’re specifically recommending that you ask about LinkedIn. If you are looking for a B2B SaaS marketing agency, then LinkedIn is one channel that they need to show mastery in. While organic search, paid search, and other social media channels are also important, if your agency doesn’t have a good handle on the core channel for B2B marketing, then nothing else really matters. Want to know what a good click-through rate (CTR) and lead form conversion rate for B2B SaaS on LinkedIn looks like? – drop us a line.
4. What are the core KPIs you use to measure success?
A strong agency will have very specific high level KPIs for all parts of the funnel. For example, the number of visits to your site isn’t a great traffic KPI. A bettertraffic KPI is the number of relevant visits/engagements to your properties (website and social media profile pages). Other similar KPIs for conversion, nurture, and sales hand-off need to be as clearly established. These are KPIs that don’t change from client to client.
5. How long will it be before we start seeing results of your work?
The answer to this question will shed light on how your discussions with a Business Development Representative (BDR) are progressing. A capable BDR from the agency should be able to assess your SaaS company’s specific needs and outline the necessary resources for launching campaigns. To make sense of their response, it’s important that your agency understands what must be set up before starting advertising efforts. For instance, if you’ve already reached Product-Market Fit (PMF), elements like target verticals, customer personas, style guide, and brand voice should be established. However, if you’re still pre-PMF, you might need assistance in determining these foundational aspects first.
There are several other such questions that are very revealing when vetting agencies. We have a checklist put together that we can share. Contact us today to get your copy.
Choosing a B2B SaaS Marketing Agency
2023 was a watershed year for anyone working in B2B SaaS. This has been a year of explosive growth and widespread industry change including:
- Mainstream adoption of artificial intelligence (AI)
- Increased focus on platform security
- More specialization and verticalization as SaaS providers continued to niche down
We can all expect that, as we step into the coming year, the ground we stand on will continue to shift. Choosing the right marketing agency for your SaaS has never been more important. A marketing agency dedicated to B2B SaaS will know how to create and implement strategies to build awareness of your brand, generate leads, and then turn those leads into long-term customers.
Such agencies bring a wealth of SaaS-related experience to the table, including a nuanced understanding of the typical customer life cycle. These professionals are best-equipped to create and implement marketing strategies that are effective and perfectly aligned with your business objectives.
You’re going to want to choose an agency that provides a comprehensive range of marketing and nurturing services to help you build brand awareness and generate leads. These should include great content, paid advertising, and strategic email campaigns, all backed up with robust analytics.
All efforts must be continuously monitored and evaluated so that changes can be made as appropriate. You should expect to receive regular reports to help you understand what’s working and to maximize your ROI.
The challenge is finding a SaaS marketing agency that knows how to effectively achieve all of these objectives while simultaneously optimizing your budget. Our list will steer you toward professionals you can trust.
Best B2B SaaS Marketing Agencies: The 2024 List
After evaluating dozens of agencies, here is our top B2B SaaS marketing agencies list for 2024.
Bay Leaf Digital
Known and respected for our big picture approach, agile methodology, analytical abilities, and accountability for more than a decade, Bay Leaf Digital is a pure B2B SaaS marketing agency.
Every single marketer and specialist on our worldwide team obsesses about the same goals for our clients – more demos. How we do it is a robust mix of demand generation, lead generation, sales enablement, and sales tactics all neatly wrapped up in four proven marketing strategies. We create and implement data driven, full marketing funnel campaigns that address every stage of the customer journey from brand awareness to sales hand-off.
A Hubspot Gold Partner and Software World Top-Rated SaaS Marketing Agency, we quantify our expertise. Current certifications include:
- LinkedIn Marketing Insider
- LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
- LinkedIn Fundamentals
- LinkedIn Content & Creative Design
- Facebook Blueprint
- Google Analytics
- Google Ads
- SEMRush
Our team knows what it takes to succeed in the competitive world of B2B SaaS marketing. We lead the way by regularly sharing insights on our blog and in our LinkedIn newsletter.
Want to know more? Contact us today.
310 Creative
310 Creative is a B2B SaaS sales and marketing agency.
The company emphasizes the need for alignment between sales and marketing to be successful. On their website, they showcase their expertise in several sales and marketing functions essential to SaaS including B2B sales acceleration, B2B marketing operations, and growth-driven design.
They are also a Hubspot Diamond Partner. That’s a significant achievement that earns a lot of respect in our eyes.
Hey Digital
Hey Digital is a data-driven SaaS marketing agency.
They focus on PPC, landing pages, ad creatives, and video production.
You can learn more by listening to their podcast, “The SaaS Marketing Show.”
Inturact
Inturact is a SaaS marketing agency focused on scaling growth with a data-driven product-led approach.
The company promises improved conversion rate, lower customer acquisition costs, and increased customer lifetime value.
Inturact leans heavily on Hubspot’s inbound marketing methodology and has fashioned their SaaS marketing journey process around it.
Kalungi
Kalungi provides marketing for early-stage B2B SaaS companies. According to their website, they provide several services such as “start”, “scale”, “profit”, “coach” and more.
What we like about Kalungi is that they have a proven playbook to help B2B SaaS companies get to market and scale fast. To us, this means there is plenty of strategy behind the execution.
Kalungi is a Hubspot Platinum Partner with an outstanding NPS score of 83.
No Good
No Good is a growth marketing agency that lists SaaS as an expertise. The agency services start-ups and enterprises alike.
According to their website, No Good is a squad of marketers with various skills focused on unlocking rapid growth for iconic brands and fast-growing startups.
Past and present No Good clients including Amazon, Intuit, and TikTok.
Refine Labs
Refine Labs calls itself “the first Revenue R&D laboratory.” The agency features a five-phase scientific process to stop revenue chaos and create fully integrated programs consistently.
They help unlock sustainable growth for B2B software companies. Refine Labs features a five-phase scientific process to stop revenue chaos and create fully integrated programs consistently.
Refine Labs offers a variety of pricing plans to fit every company’s needs.
Roketto
Roketto is a full-funnel inbound marketing and web design agency that focuses on driving predictable growth for its clients.
According to their website, Roketto educates and empowers prospects at all lifecycle stages.
Roketto is a Google partner, a Hubspot partner, and a CallRail partner.
SimpleTiger
SimpleTiger is an SEO and PPC-focused SaaS marketing agency.
They use a proprietary AI-powered keyword research process to boost ranking and drive results for their clients.
Simple Tiger provides services including content marketing and website optimization to clients of any size and at any stage of development.
Single Grain
Single Grain is a full-service marketing agency.
They offer a wide spectrum of services including SEO, paid advertising, content marketing, and conversion rater optimization.
Single Grain boasts large clients including Amazon, Salesforce, and Uber.
That wraps up this year’s list of top B2B SaaS marketing agencies in the US. Good luck with your search. Remember, we are just a click away for your marketing needs!
