Type of SaaS
FinTech / LegalTech SaaS
Growth Levers
PPC & Marketing Strategy
Results Window
18 Months Channel Performance
The Situation
The client – a fintech SaaS company selling to financial and legal businesses wanted to expand beyond Google Ads and social PPC to diversify lead sources and reach a new audience. Existing PPC channels were performing well, but pipeline concentration on two platforms created risk. The team wanted a third acquisition channel that could deliver qualified leads without cannibalizing existing spend.
Microsoft Ads offered a compelling hypothesis. The platform reaches approximately 63 million users unavailable through Google Ads, and its audience skews toward the exact demographic this client needed: educated professionals in the 35–64 age range with high purchasing power.
Ads serve across Bing, Yahoo, AOL, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and Microsoft-owned properties like MSN, Outlook.com, and Edge – plus the Microsoft Audience Network, which uses LinkedIn profile data for B2B targeting. For this client, the audience fit was strong. The question was whether results would follow.
Key Results
| METRIC | RESULT |
|---|---|
| Revenue attributed to channel | $72,298 |
| Return on ad spend (ROAS) | 13.9x |
| Customers closed | 30 |
| Contact-to-customer conversion | 39.5% |
| Sales qualified leads (SQLs) | 52 |
| Average cost per click (CPC) | $0.54 |
What We Did
Launched Performance Max campaigns targeting affinity audiences.
We built PMax campaigns around audiences specific to where they hang out digitally (affinity). This approach reached decision-makers already evaluating similar software solutions. By focusing on audiences with existing purchase intent, we maximized the value of every click at $0.54 average CPC.
Structured campaigns around high-intent conversion actions.
Each campaign tracked three distinct conversion goals: form submissions, booked meetings, and ebook downloads. By weighting bidding toward meetings, we prioritized lead quality over volume from day one. The result was a $68 cost per HubSpot-verified contact - with 68% of those contacts reaching SQL status.
Controlled spend with disciplined daily budgets.
Daily budgets ranged from $3 to $20 per campaign, keeping total spend under $5,200 over 18 months. This micro-budget approach let us test multiple campaign structures simultaneously without overcommitting before validating performance. The constraint forced precision in targeting - every dollar had to earn its place.
Validated every lead in HubSpot to measure what actually mattered.
We verified every contact in HubSpot to confirm lifecycle stage and revenue attribution. Of 76 verified contacts, 52 reached SQL status and 30 converted to paying customers - a 39.5% contact-to-customer conversion rate. The channel generated $72,298 in attributed revenue, confirming that Microsoft Ads was reaching buyers ready to act.
What The Data Tells Us
Three numbers define this effort: $5,195 in total spend, $72,298 in attributed revenue, and a 13.9x return on ad spend. That ROAS did not come from volume – it came from conversion quality. Of 76 HubSpot-verified contacts, 30 became paying customers, a 39.5% contact-to-customer conversion rate you rarely see from any paid channel. Pair that with 52 SQLs from the same pool – a 68% contact-to-SQL rate – and the data confirms the targeting consistently reached decision-makers at the point of purchase, not researchers browsing for options.
The results validate the channel thesis: Microsoft’s audience of educated professionals in the 35–64 demographic matched the client’s buyer profile precisely. At $0.54 per click and $173 per closed customer, what started as a diversification play became one of the most efficient acquisition channels in the portfolio. A $5,195 investment that returns $72,298 in revenue is not a test – it is a growth lever.
Bay Leaf Digital on PPC and Retargeting
We build PPC programs for B2B SaaS companies that drive qualified pipeline at predictable cost – without wasting budget on unqualified clicks.