Working notes on running paid social for software, IT services and SaaS companies. Each one answers a question a buyer actually asks, leads with the answer, and says where the evidence for it comes from. Where we have a commercial interest in the answer, the article says so at the top.
Latest
Across 42 accounts over 18 months, cost per qualified lead ran roughly 94 pounds for IT services firms, 173 for software development agencies and 306 for B2B SaaS selling a demo. The averages are less useful than the spread: the best quartile paid about a quarter of what the worst quartile paid for the same outcome.
· 4 min read · Uzair
KlientBoost is a large paid advertising agency running search and social across many industries. We run one channel for three kinds of software business. When each is the right call.
· 3 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
A teardown of thirty live ads from B2B software advertisers, what almost all of them did, and the four habits that made them interchangeable.
· 3 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
A page-by-page look at a real agency proposal a client shared with us, what fourteen pages actually covered, and the four things that were missing.
· 3 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
Column Five is a content and design agency. We buy Meta ads. The choice is between making something worth finding and putting something in front of people, and the order matters.
· 3 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
What should have happened by each point in the first quarter, which numbers are still meaningless, and the signals that mean something is wrong.
· 3 min read · Uzair
Directive is a multi-channel B2B performance agency built for SaaS. We run one channel for a narrower set of companies. The honest answer is that most companies comparing us should pick them.
· 3 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
NoGood is a growth marketing agency working across many channels for technology companies. We run one. The comparison is about whether you have a growth problem or a channel problem.
· 3 min read · Uzair
Barrel is a digital agency known for commerce and brand work. We buy Meta ads for B2B software companies. If you are weighing the two, the useful question is what you are actually trying to fix.
· 3 min read · Uzair
A question bank for evaluating a paid social agency, with what a good answer sounds like, what a bad one sounds like, and why each question matters.
· 5 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
How to grade an agency performance guarantee in four questions, why revenue guarantees are a warning rather than a reassurance, and where our own guarantee scores badly.
· 4 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
There is a real floor below which Meta cannot optimise, it is set by your cost per conversion rather than by a rule of thumb, and here is how to work out yours.
· 4 min read · Uzair
Search captures demand that already exists, paid social creates demand that does not. Which order to run them in depends on whether anybody is searching for what you sell.
· 4 min read · Uzair
Outbound produces conversations sooner and stops when you stop. Paid social takes longer to work and leaves something behind. How to choose when you can only fund one.
· 4 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
A scoreable test for whether Meta advertising fits a software development agency, IT services firm, or B2B SaaS company, including when the honest answer is no.
· 3 min read · Uzair
How to send closed deals from your CRM back to Meta, why B2B campaigns stall without it, and what to do when your sales cycle is longer than the attribution window.
· 5 min read · Uzair
The five ways agencies price paid social, the behaviour each model quietly rewards, and the questions that tell you what you are buying.
· 5 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
What running paid social in-house actually requires, when each option is clearly right, and the honest case for hiring nobody at all.
· 5 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
Meta can create demand for software companies that search cannot reach. Here is the specific set of conditions that has to be true first, and the honest list of when it will not work.
· 3 min read · Uzair
Managed services and IT consultancies get plenty of enquiries and few worth having. The cause is almost always the offer, not the targeting.
· 3 min read · Uzair
The choice between a self-serve trial and a booked demo decides your creative, your budget floor and what the algorithm learns. Here is how to pick, and when to run both.
· 3 min read · Uzair
Why nobody can quote you a cost per lead, what drives the number, and how to work out your own before you spend anything.
· 3 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
There is no ranked list here, and this explains why every one you will find is compromised. What replaces it is a way to judge any agency on evidence you can actually check.
· 3 min read · Suleman Aslam Virk
Nine things that produce bad leads on Meta, a way to tell which one you actually have, and the order to fix them in when more than one is true.
· 5 min read · Uzair
LinkedIn knows who people are and charges accordingly. Meta knows what people do and costs far less. Which trade is right depends on how narrow your buyer actually is.
· 4 min read · Uzair
Tell us whether your next useful outcome is a service enquiry, a SaaS demo or a product signup that reaches payment.
