3 Questions for Kamel Ben Yacoub on PPC mistakes on B2B SaaS companies

In this flash interview, Kamel Ben Yacoub highlights key PPC mistakes B2B SaaS companies make. He recommends early-stage SaaS focus on paid acquisition for quick validation and advises using LinkedIn Ads strategically to target high-level decision-makers and build trust before lead generation.

1. What are the common mistakes you see B2B SaaS founders or marketing teams making on PPC Campaigns?

Not understanding their audience: If you don't have a clear ICP and knowledge of your audience's demographics and firmographics, it's the easiest way to run ads that won't resonate with them. 

Not defining a minimum budget and time to test and optimize: Paid marketing and performance is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to start with some hypotheses and iterate based on the signals you get over time. 

Many companies have a very short time frame for their PPC plans, often just a couple of months with a very low budget. 

A minimum time duration should be 6 months for B2B SaaS, knowing that the buyer journey involves many touchpoints and is not linear. This is especially true if your product is complex with a long sales cycle. 

Another common mistake is related to conversion tracking: companies tracking clicks as conversions or relying on irrelevant signals. This is easy to fix. In addition, in the era of machine learning and smart bidding, you need solid conversion tracking that tracks revenue and pipeline, not just form submissions. 

This can be done with offline conversion imports into your paid platform. The best way to feed your platform with relevant signals is to synchronize your CRM with your paid platform"

2. Do you believe organic channels like content marketing and SEO should take precedence over paid acquisition strategies?

No, I think it should be the opposite. You need to validate some hypotheses quickly about your audience and messaging and what faster way to do that than with paid advertising? 

You can test different audience segmentation, ad messaging with a pain point or benefit angles, and different offers immediately. SEO will take months, if not years, to gather feedback and data. 

Once you see some traction with your paid strategies, you can pause them and work on your SEO and content marketing based on the learnings you obtained from your paid campaigns."

3. There’s a common belief that LinkedIn Ads are ultra expensive. In what situations do you recommend using LinkedIn Ads, and do you have any tips for those looking to use LinkedIn Ads for lead generation?

LinkedIn Ads aren’t as cheap as Meta, but you're also reaching a different audience on this platform. If you have a SaaS product and want to target C-level management, you have to pay for that kind of quality traffic. 

If your product has a low ticket size and LTV, LinkedIn Ads likely won’t be a good fit for your business. However, if your product or services are complex with a high ticket size and a long sales cycle, LinkedIn can offer a great opportunity for advertising. 

If you're looking to generate leads, you need more than 'book a demo' ads. People won’t buy when you want them to—they’ll compare vendors, and the process will be slow and long. It’s better to build trust first with social proof, authority, and brand awareness first. Once they know you, you can move to more bottom-of-funnel offers by using retargeting.