SaaS (B2B) Google Ads Benchmarks

B2B SaaS on Google Ads sits at a strategic inflection point in 2025. Bottom-of-funnel branded and competitor terms remain essential and cost-effective (CPCs £3-8), while generic category terms like 'project management software' have CPCs exceeding £15 with conversion rates barely above 1% — making them uneconomical without a strong brand and landing page. **The PLG shift is measurable.** SaaS companies with a free trial or freemium entry point consistently see 2-3x higher CVR vs demo-request-only funnels at the same CPC. The CPA advantage is significant; the trade-off is lead quality requiring nurture investment downstream. **Performance Max for SaaS** works best when seeded with first-party CRM data (Customer Match) of closed-won customers. Without this signal, PMax defaults to optimising for form fills from anyone — including students, competitors, and job seekers. With it, CPAs for qualified SQLs can drop 25-40% vs equivalent Search-only campaigns. **B2B keyword intent diverges sharply** between 'software' (high volume, low intent, consumer overlap) and 'platform' (lower volume, higher intent, retention-oriented buyer). Campaigns segmented by intent tier outperform blended campaigns by 30-50% on SQL rate.