Real SaaS Facebook Ad Examples

In this article, you’ll find examples of real Facebook Ads being run by SaaS companies.

These are not necessarily the best SaaS (Software as a Service) ads on Facebook. But each example offers valuable lessons about what you should and shouldn’t do when running ad campaigns for SaaS products.

Continue reading this post to find out…

The #1 variable that will influence the success of your ads
A proven template you can use when writing your ad copy
The benefits of using long-form ad copy
A strategy for running remarketing ads through Facebook

AutoEntry

AutoEntry offers accounting software that allows accountants, bookkeepers and businesses to automate data entry. At the time of writing, they are currently running Facebook Ads to promote a 3 month free trial.

The Good

AutoEntry are promoting a clear and compelling offer in this ad. The offer being a free 3 month trial is highlighted in the ad graphic and also in the ad headline.

Presenting a strong offer in your ad is probably the main factor that will be responsible for the success of your Facebook campaign. Yet, many advertisers fail to present an offer in their ad, as you’ll see in other examples in this post.

While the ad copy is a bit light on details, the ad runs to a strong landing page that provides more detail about how AutoEntry works and the benefits of the product.

The Bad

The biggest weakness of this ad would be the ad copy. This ad copy may work with a warm retargeting audience that is already familiar with AutoEntry. But the limited ad copy is likely not enough for many cold prospects.

If I were running Facebook Ads for AutoEntry, I would test ads promoting the same offer but with more detailed ad copy.

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels offers marketing funnel-building software. I wanted to include ClickFunnels in this post, because unlike many of the other large SaaS companies in this post, ClickFunnels has never raised venture capital.

This means they have had to rely on very strong marketing to grow into the $100 million+ business they are today.

The Good

ClickFunnels are currently running 89 Facebook Ads on their main account. The majority of these ads are some variation of the formats above.

The first example includes four key ingredients for a successful Facebook lead generation ad..

Description of what the product/service is.
Benefits of the product
A compelling offer
A call to action

This is a very similar template to what I personally use when creating Facebook ads and it works extremely well.

The ad copy doesn’t provide a lot of detail about the features and benefits of ClickFunnels but their landing page more than compensates for this.

They have also done a good job of addressing key concerns that many people would have when registering for a free trial.

A lot of people fear that a trial will be difficult to cancel and they will be charged a high price at the end of the trial period. These are important concerns to address either in your ad copy or your landing page if you’re offering a free trial.

The Bad

It’s hard to fault ClickFunnels’ Facebook ads. No doubt, the team at ClickFunnels would have done a lot of testing to see what works.

I’m not sure what audiences ClickFunnels are running these ads to. They may only be running them to warm traffic, already familiar with the product.

But assuming that they are running ads to cold traffic, I wonder if the ad copy could be improved to generate more interest and make it clearer what ClickFunnels is.

For those who aren’t already familiar with the product, the limited amount of details in the ad may not be enough to make someone click on the ad.

HumanPal

HumanPal is an AI powered video maker. The software allows users to enter text, which is converted into speech and animation.

The Good

When researching Facebook Ads for SaaS companies, I noticed one common mistake from a lot of advertisers..

That mistake was not making it clear what the product being advertised does.

But HumanPal provides an excellent example of how to clearly communicate what the product does in a Facebook Ad.

This company has done a great job of summarizing its product in just one sentence…

“Digital Humans + Realistic Text To Speech + Perfect Lip Sync = HumanPal!”

That one sentence allows readers to instantly grasp what HumanPal offers. They then use videos in their ads to demonstrate what the product is and how it works.

HumanPal uses longer ad copy than other most other advertisers in the SaaS space:

The benefit of this longer ad copy is that it does a lot of the selling for them. Other advertisers like AutoEntry and Click Funnels who use shorter ad copy are relying on their landing pages to do most of the selling.

The Bad

There is a lot to like about what HumanPal are doing with their Facebook Ads. My one criticism would be in their branding.

The branding used in their graphics and on their landing page feels like that of an early 2000’s tech company.

Using this style of branding could cause some customers to subconsciously associate the product with low quality, outdated and glitchy products that were released in the early days of the internet.

I would also advise against using a graphic like HumanPal used in the first example. Facebook typically doesn’t like advertisers using this much text in their graphics.

You will usually find that you’ll get a much higher CPM (cost per one thousand impressions) when you use a graphic containing this much text. Unless you’re getting very high conversion rates, this can really drive up your cost per conversion.

Zero Bounce

Zero Bounce offers email address validation tools that companies can use to reduce the bounce rate on their emails.

The Good

From looking at the URL on this ad, I can tell that Zero Bounce are running this an a remarketing ad. They are most likely remarketing to previous website visitors who did not convert within a specified time frame.

If you already have a lot of traffic coming to your website through organic search traffic or paid advertising, then remarketing campaigns can be very profitable.

A lot of visitors to your website won’t convert the first time they visit. But if you can bring them back through remarketing ads like this, some will convert at that point.

Using a tool like SEM Rush, I can see that Zero Bounce is already spending money on Google Ads, targeting relevant keywords. So they are likely attracting a lot of visitors to their website that are already searching for the solution that Zero Bounce offer.

This can be a powerful combination, using Google Ads to attract a more targeted audience to your website. And then Facebook to retarget that audience.

The Bad

I understand that Zero Bounce are running these Facebook Ads to a warm audience that is already somewhat familiar with their product.

But I’d still like to see them provide more information in their ad copy or even in the graphic.

Yes, this ad will be enough to get some of their website visitors back to the website and converting. But they’re likely leaving money on the table by not doing more with this ad.

Don’t assume that just because someone has already visited your website, they will automatically click on your remarketing ad.

Many of those who visited the website already will be looking at competitors of Zero Bounce. This remarketing ad is an opportunity to convince those prospects why Zero Bounce is a better option than competitors.

Others in their remarketing audience may not be convinced that they even need email authentication software. The remarketing ads could be used to highlight the benefits of using software like Zero Bounce.

If you’re planning to run remarketing ads through Facebook, don’t get lazy with them. Consider the reasons why website visitors may not have converted the first time they visited your website. And address those reasons in your ads.

Sisense

Sisense provides data visualisation software for businesses. The New York based company has received nearly $100 million in funding since it launched in 2010.

The Good

Sisense have taken a different approach in this ad compared to the previous example. They are using a free report (also known as a lead magnet) to generate a list of potential customers.

Once a user has provided their email address in exchange for the report, Sisense can continue to communicate with that user through email.

This strategy can work well in some industries and is worth testing.

The Bad

Most people won’t read the ad above. Why? It’s just too hard to read..

The first sentence in the ad copy is far too long. Most people will automatically skip over this ad when they first see it. This is because the effort required to read the ad is perceived as being too high.

When you write the ad copy for your Facebook Ads or on your landing page, your goal should be to make it simple to read.

You should try to avoid long sentences and paragraphs like Sisense have used in this ad. Keep your text simple and easy to read.

Even the text in their graphic is far too long. Very few people will stop scrolling through their Facebook feed to read the text in that graphic.

Compare this ad from Sisense to the ClickFunnels ad from earlier. You can see how much easier it is to read the ad from ClickFunnels.

If people won’t stop to read your ad, your chances of getting them to click on the ad or convert are very slim.