Don’t worry.  As one of the best SaaS marketing agencies, we have compiled a list of 12 key SaaS marketing metrics that will provide plenty of data to optimize your marketing efforts without overwhelming you. Plus, you’ll learn how to track them even if you’re not a numbers person. Let’s dive right in!

12 key SaaS marketing metrics to track for your business

Unique visitors

Since SaaS products are primarily digital solutions, SaaS content writing plays a huge part in their success. That’s why you should measure unique visitors or the number of people who have visited your website or landing page.

If someone visits your website multiple times, they still count as one unique visitor, making this metric different from total visitors. Unique visitors can come from various sources, such as:

1. Organic traffic
2. Paid search
3. Social media

Knowing which channel brings the most visitors is helpful so you can double down on it.

Google Analytics is a great free tool for monitoring website traffic and visitor behavior. It can tell you how many unique visitors you have, which pages attract the most visitors and where the visitors come from.

Customer acquisition cost

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is how much you spend to acquire a new customer, including advertising expenses, promotion events and sales and marketing teams’ salaries.

Customer acquisition cost = Total marketing and sales costs / Number of new customers acquired

You get CAC by dividing the total cost of your sales and marketing efforts by the number of new customers you acquire over a certain period, such as a month or a quarter.

Suppose you spend $10,000 monthly on sales and marketing and acquire 100 new customers. In that case, your CAC would be:

$10,000 / 100 = $100

Now, you may be wondering what a good CAC is. The average CAC for SaaS depends on your industry but also on whether you’re breaking into a new market, your company’s age and size etc.

Studies show that the average CAC for small-to-medium-size SaaS companies can range from $274 to $1,450, whereas for enterprise companies, it goes up from $2,190 to $14,772, depending on the industry.

To increase CAC, companies should aim for sustainable and organic customer acquisition channels that don’t rely on paid advertising, such as SEO content.

💡 But what if you spend a bit more to acquire a customer, but that customer ends up spending much more than most? This is why the cost of acquiring customers alone can be misleading. You need to combine this metric with CLV to get more accurate data.

Customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value (CLV or CLTV) is the expected revenue one customer will generate for your company throughout their lifespan as your customer.

Customer lifetime value = Customer value x Average customer lifespan

You get your CLV by multiplying customer value by the average customer lifespan. Let’s break down this formula further:

Customer value = Average purchase value x The average number of purchases

Average purchase value = Total revenue / Number of orders

The average number of purchases = Number of purchases / Number of customers

Average customer lifespan = Sum of customer lifespans / Number of customers

You can improve your CLV by:

• Providing incredible user experience and customer service
• Asking customers for feedback and improving your products to meet their needs
• Offering customers upgraded or more expensive plans (upselling)
• Offering customers related or complementary services to what they are currently using (cross-selling)

CLV:CAC ratio

Now we can introduce the CLV:CAC ratio, which is more helpful than CAC and CLV alone. It indicates whether your sales and marketing strategy is paying off. Divide your CLV by your CAC to get your ratio.

Let’s say your CLV is $300 and your CAC is $100. Your ratio calculation would then be:

CLV:CAC = CLV / CAC

CLV:CAC = 300 / 100

CLV:CAC = 3

Therefore, your ratio would be 3:1. A ratio of 3:1 or higher is considered good because it means the customers bring you three times greater profit than you’re spending on acquiring them.

A high CLV:CAC ratio means your marketing efforts are paying off and you are getting a good return on investment (ROI).

Leads by lifecycle stage

Source: Community HubSpot

Not all leads are equally qualified. There are two categories of qualified leads:

1. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs): a lead the marketing team has designated as the one that’s most likely to become a customer based on the CTAs they clicked, offers they downloaded, interaction etc. but needs further nurturing
2. Sales qualified leads (SQLs): a potential customer that has expressed enough interest in your product or service and is ready to talk to a sales team

Separating your leads will help you determine the following steps to push your prospects further down the funnel and boost conversion rates. You can use marketing automation tools to classify leads based on their actions on your website.

Activation rate

While signups show the number of users signing up for your product, activations refer to the number of users completing the signup process and taking the necessary steps to start using your product.

Activation doesn’t necessarily mean they are paying for it. Perhaps you offer a free trial or plan – someone can still activate and use your product even if they haven’t paid for it.

Activation rate = (Number of activated users in a given period / Number of signups in a given period) x 100

To get your activation rate, divide the number of activations in a given period by the number of signups in that period and multiply that number by 100.

Let’s say 100 users sign up for your product and 50 complete the necessary steps to activate their account. The activation rate would then be:

(50 – 100) x 100 = 50%

Why is this metric useful? It helps you see if you’re generating enough interest in the product to drive sales or if your onboarding needs improvements. To improve your activation rate, you can design a personalized onboarding to convince those who sign up to activate.

The activation rate is also fantastic for scaling paid advertising. You can put this metric into your paid marketing algorithm as a conversion goal and target those likely to use and invest in your product rather than sign up only.

Signup to paid conversion rate

This metric is helpful for those businesses offering free trials or free plans. If you don’t, skip this and proceed to the next metric.

Perhaps your acquisition efforts get you signups and activations, but that still doesn’t mean paying customers.

The signup to paid conversion rate measures the percentage of users who convert to paying customers after signing up for a free trial or freemium. It helps you predict paid conversions from signups.

Signup to paid conversion rate = (Number of paying customers in a given period / Number of signups in a given period) x 100

Divide the number of paying customers in a given period by the number of signups in that same period and multiply that number by 100. If you had 500 users last month sign up for a free trial and out of those 500 signups, 100 converted to paid plans, your signup to paid conversion rate would be:

(100 / 500) x 100 = 20%

You should analyze how long it takes someone to convert into a paying customer and try to close the time gap between free trials or freemiums and paid plans.

Lead-to-customer rate

The lead-to-customer rate measures the percentage of leads that convert into paying customers.

What is considered a lead can vary depending on the industry and business. It generally includes users expressing some level of interest in your product, for example, by filling out a form, subscribing to your newsletter or downloading an ebook.

Lead-to-customer rate = (The number of customers acquired over a certain period / The number of leads generated in that period) x 100

Divide the number of customers you acquired over a specific period by the number of leads you generated and multiply that number by 100. If you generated 1000 leads from which 300 turned to customers, your lead-to-customer rate would be:

(300 / 1000) x 100 = 30%

Calculating a lead-to-customer rate can help you gain valuable insights into your marketing campaigns and their effectiveness in turning leads into customers.

Lead velocity rate

Lead velocity rate (LVR) refers to the percentage of your leads’ growth from month to month, measuring whether your marketing strategies are inspiring growth and determining growth potential.

To simplify the formula, we’ll make two distinctions:

• A = total number of leads from the current month
• B = total number of leads from the last month

Lead velocity rate = (A – B) / B x 100

Subtract the total number of leads from the previous month from the total number of leads from the current month, divide that result by the total number of leads from the last month and multiply by 100 to get a percentage.

Imagine you generated 500 leads in March and 600 leads in April. What is the lead velocity rate in that case?

(600 – 500) / 500 x 100 = 20%

Net Promoter Score

Image source: mTab

Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures how likely customers are to recommend your company to the people they know. You get your score by first asking the question:

On a scale from 1-10, how likely are you to recommend our company to someone you know?

Depending on the score they give, customers are classified as:

• 0-6: Detractors (those that can damage your brand image)
• 7-8: Passives (those neither likely to harm nor promote your product)
• 9-10: Promoters (those likely to promote your product)

NPS = % of promoters – % of detractors

To calculate NPS, you first need to calculate the percentage of promoters and detractors among your respondents. You can do this using these formulas:

% of promoters  = (Number of promoters / Total number of respondents) x 100

% of detractors  = (Number of detractors / Total number of respondents) x 100

Let’s say you have 600 respondents, out of which 100 detractors and 300 promoters. Here is how you get NPS:

% of promoters = (300 / 600) x 100 = 50%

% of detractors = (100 / 600) x 100 = 16.67%

NPS = 50% – 16.67% = 33,33%

NPS score provides insight into whether you have a loyal customer base, but you shouldn’t stop at asking that one question. Delve deeper and ask further questions to determine why you’re getting those scores and how to improve them.

Churn rate

There are two types of churn rates:

1. Customer churn rate
2. Revenue churn rate

Customer churn rate refers to the percentage of customers who cancel their subscriptions over a specific period. It helps determine the success of your customer retention efforts.

Customer churn rate = (Number of customers lost over a certain period / Number of customers at the start of that period) x 100

For example, if you lost 100 customers over a certain period and had 1000 customers at the beginning of the period, your customer churn rate would be:

(100/1000) x 100 = 10%

However, not every customer brings equal revenue. That’s why you also need to calculate your revenue churn rate.

Revenue churn rate measures the revenue lost due to customer churn over a specific period.

Revenue churn = (Revenue lost from existing customers over a specific period / Total revenue at the beginning of the period) x 100

For example, if your company generated $500,000 in revenue during a quarter and lost $50,000 in revenue during that same quarter due to customer churn, the revenue churn rate for that quarter would be:

($50,000 / $500,000) x 100 = 10%

Product marketers and customer success teams need to work together to improve the churn rate. You can:

• Improve product messaging to set realistic expectations
• Collect feedback to understand the reasons behind churn
• Offer better customer support
• Give incentives for retention, such as loyalty programs or exclusive access
• Improve customer engagement through valuable content
• Monitor decline in usage and take proactive steps to re-engage users

Annual and Monthly recurring revenue

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) refer to the total revenue your business generates on a monthly or annual basis.

MRR = Total number of monthly customers x Average revenue per user

ARR = MRR x 12

Higher ARR is the ultimate goal of any marketing or sales activities. Of course, many factors apart from marketing affect this metric, such as the work of a product, support and sales teams. The marketing team can help grow ARR by working effectively with other departments.

SaaS marketing metrics: How can Quoleady help?

Quoleady is a SaaS blog writing company and SaaS SEO agency. Our team of SaaS content marketers can help you generate qualified leads, increase the number of unique visitors and ultimately affect your ARR through organic marketing. How?

• We can research your competitors, conduct SaaS keyword research and design a high-intent content marketing strategy that will bring qualified leads
• We can provide SaaS copywriting and SaaS content writing services, creating well-researched, informative and optimized articles that will push your readers further down the sales funnel
• We can conduct technical SEO and SaaS content audit to optimize your SaaS blog for SEO, allowing you to get more unique visitors
• We can build high-quality SaaS backlinks to your website to increase its visibility and authoritativeness
• We can track SaaS content marketing metrics, report on them and adjust our strategies based on data
• We can help you set up Google Analytics 4 to get better insights into what’s working and what isn’t
• We are committed to creating one of the best SaaS content marketing blogs to inspire you.

Even if you don’t have a SaaS business yet, you’re considering buying a SaaS business, or starting one, we’d love to hear from you anyway and discuss how we can help when the time’s right.

Schedule a free call today and learn more about how Quoleady can help your SaaS business grow!

Conclusion

With the right data, you can measure your way to sustainable growth in the competitive SaaS market. Here are the 12 key metrics to track:

1. Unique visitors
2. Customer acquisition cost
3. Customer lifetime value
4. CLV:CAC ratio
5. Leads by lifecycle stage
6. Activation rate
7. Signup to paid conversion
8. Lead-to-customer rate
9. Lead velocity rate
10. Net promoter score
11. Churn rate
12. Annual and Monthly recurring revenue

However, it’s not enough to track the numbers – acting on the data is essential to make it worth your while. Regularly analyze your metrics, identify areas for improvement and adjust your strategies accordingly. Happy tracking!

FAQs

What are marketing metrics for a SaaS company?

Marketing metrics for a SaaS company refer to the metrics a SaaS business tracks to measure the success of its marketing efforts.

What are the key marketing metrics of B2B SaaS?

The key marketing metrics of B2B SaaS include:

1. Unique visitors
2. Customer acquisition cost
3. Customer lifetime value
4. CLV:CAC ratio
5. Leads by lifecycle stage
6. Activation rate
7. Signup to paid conversion
8. Lead-to-customer rate
9. Lead velocity rate
10. Net promoter score
11. Churn rate
12. Annual and Monthly recurring revenue

What is a good marketing ROI for SaaS?

The industry standard is 3:1 CLV:CAC ratio, which means your customer lifetime value (how much your business is expected to generate from a single customer over the course of your relationship) is three times greater than the cost of acquiring a new customer.

How much do B2B SaaS companies spend on marketing?

Research shows that, on average, SaaS businesses spend 10% of their ARR on marketing. Of course, it depends on the industry and business size. We are at your disposal for B2B copywriting services.

The post 12 Key SaaS Marketing Metrics: Measuring Your Way to Growth appeared first on Quoleady.

But it is tricky because there are so many of them, with everybody claiming to produce high-quality content. How do you sift through all that information and find the best one for your business? We hope to narrow down your search as we present our top five choices and a simple hiring checklist you can use.

A SaaS blog writing company: Top 5 choices

Here is a breakdown of our top SaaS blog writing companies and their services.

1. Quoleady

At Quoleady, we help SaaS companies grow their visibility through SEO, AI visibility, content marketing, digital PR, and authority-building campaigns, handling everything from strategy and content creation to distribution and outreach. Some clients we have worked with include Monday.com, PandaDoc, GetVoIP, and Expandi.

Here are the services we offer:

• Content strategy – We research the market and competitors and learn about your product and buying persona. Based on that, we conduct keyword research for your SaaS and create a high-intent content marketing strategy.
• Content writing – Our B2B SaaS writers receive detailed article briefs and write compelling and optimized SaaS content consistent with your brand voice, helping you convert readers into customers.
• Link building – We build high-quality white-hat backlinks to your pages without link farms, content mills and outdated approaches, helping your content rank better and bring more traffic and leads.
• SaaS content audit – We perform content audits where we systematically analyze all the content on your site, detect areas for improvement and help you act on them.
• Technical SEO audit – We detect technical issues with your site and help fix them.
• Content updates – We update your old content to keep it fresh and boost rankings.
• Forbes & Entrepreneur publications – If you want your articles featured on Forbes or Entrepreneur under your name, we’ll get you a membership and handle your content production.
• GA4 setup – This service includes GA and GTM settings audit, creation of GA4 property and basic settings, setting up custom events or micro conversions and configuration of custom definitions.
• SaaS content marketing consulting – We also offer consulting services, whether about your SaaS link building, content strategy, conversion optimization or building a successful content marketing team.

Transparency is one of our core values, so you can read about our methods for getting results on our blog. We believe the results should speak for themselves, so check out our case studies to see:

• How we helped our client RingBlaze get 650 leads and increase the blog traffic from 0 to 50,000 with just 20 articles
• How we helped our client FullSession get 500 leads with 16 articles in four months

We are also proud of helping Expandi get from 0 to $7M ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) in a few years. You can read the whole Expandi success story here, where Stefan Smulders, co-founder of Expandi, talks about the six key ingredients to their success, one of which is content marketing.

Content Production pricing:

• Execution: $2,250/month – 15,000 words/month, content production based on a client-provided strategy.
• Strategy: $3,000/month – 15,000 words/month, content production plus content planning, briefs, SEO guidance, and CMS publishing.
• Research: $4,500/month – 15,000 words/month, content production, strategic planning, deep research, SEO guidance, and performance reporting.

SEO + AI Visibility pricing:

• Launch: $3,500/month – 10,000 words/month, content planning, optimization for Google and AI answers, and authority-building support.
• Growth: $5,000/month – 15,000 words/month, expanded content production, larger authority-building budget, and increased placements.
• Scale: $7,000/month – 20,000 words/month, advanced authority building, higher placement volume, and a fully managed SEO and AI visibility program.

Link Building pricing:

• Lite: From $300/link – placements on relevant websites with Ahrefs DR 20–39.
• Plus: From $350/link – placements on websites with Ahrefs DR 40–69.
• Pro: From $400/link – placements on websites with Ahrefs DR 70+.

All content packages include keyword research, detailed article briefs, content writing with internal linking, free stock images and Surfer SEO optimization, editing, two rounds of revisions, publishing on the WP, monthly reports, link building and consistent communication.

Apart from these pricing plans, you can opt for only one or two of our services if you only want GA4 setup or link building. Book a free consultation call to see how we can help you grow and join a great company of RingBlaze, FullSession, Expandi and other success cases.

2. Animalz

Animalz is a content marketing agency working with SaaS companies, venture capitalist (VC) firms and other tech companies, offering different types of content. Some big names they have worked with include Google, Amazon, Airtable, Intercom and Zendesk.

Here are the services they offer:

• SEO consulting – content audit & site structure, keyword research and strategy
• Brand awareness – blog articles, thought leadership content and conference presentations
• Lead generation – ebooks, whitepapers and landing pages
• Product marketing – video scripts, knowledge base articles and case studies
• Promotion and distribution – link building and social media & email campaigns

Some of their results include generating 550 leads for Frontify with just one blog post and increasing Sellbrite’s monthly blog visits from 20,000 to 71,000 within a year.

Pricing: available upon request

3. Simple Tiger

Simple Tiger is one of the SaaS marketing agencies that help you improve organic search and increase revenue. They pride themselves on their ability to integrate into your team and help you make better decisions.

Their services include:

• Keyword research – finding the best keywords to target in your industry
• Content marketing – devising a SaaS content marketing strategy and producing quality content
• Technical optimization – finding technical issues with your site and helping fix them
• Link building – building links to promote your business

For results, Simple Tiger has to show an increase in organic traffic for about 20,000 new users in the first five months for ContractWorks and over 330,000 unique visitors to JotForm’s site in just under three months.

Pricing plans: 

• Growth – for SaaS companies getting started with SEO, $10-20m ARR 
• Scale – for SaaS companies familiar with SEO, $20-100m ARR
• Enterprise – for enterprise SaaS companies, $100m+ ARR

They offer three pricing plans, each based on your business size and needs and differing in the number of words and links, but the quotas are available upon request. All three pricing plans include the four services listed above and ongoing support in terms of consulting, Slack communication and reporting.

4. Flying cat marketing

Flying cat marketing is an SEO and blog writing company helping growth-stage B2B SaaS companies achieve predictable and sustainable growth.

They offer:

• Full-service SEO – SEO audit, on-page SEO, technical SEO, conversion rate optimization, link building and strategy
• Content writing – shareable, well-researched content optimized for humans
• SEO strategy only – helping you get the most out of your content team
• Process – onboarding, market and audience research, content marketing strategy, content creation, optimization and reporting

Flying cat marketing helped Stonly reach a 986% increase in qualified traffic and helped Mixmax achieve a 500% increase in blog-assisted demo requests in ten months.

Pricing: available upon request

5. Growfusely

Another SaaS content marketing agency to consider is Growfusely, formerly known as The 20 Media.

They offer:

• Content marketing – content strategy, creation, promotion, measurement and thought leadership
• SEO – SEO audit, technical SEO, link building, local SEO, Google penalty recovery, website migration
• Digital PR – building a reputation on social media, promoting your brand and establishing thought leadership

Growfusely helped Mind the Graph generate a 217% organic traffic increase in six months.

Pricing: available upon request

SaaS blog writing company: Hiring checklist

Before hiring, check if your SaaS blog writing agency ticks all the boxes below.

SaaS specialization

After all, you are looking for a SaaS blog writing company, so you better check if your agency specializes in SaaS content marketing. Why is this important? A general B2B agency doesn’t have the understanding and experience of SaaS businesses like a SaaS-specific company. 

If you have a problem with your kidney, you don’t go to a general practitioner but to a nephrologist who specializes in solving your specific problem. You should treat your SaaS business similarly – take it to a SaaS specialist instead of a B2B generalist.

A proven track record of success

Everyone can claim they’re the best at what they do and share advice, but what do they have to show for it? You need a company that walks the talks and can show results. Let’s see what you can look at to check the agency’s credibility.

Case studies

Most companies have case studies on their website, but you can also request them from the company since not all case studies will be public because of the confidential information. See what results the company brought in terms of leads, organic traffic and rankings.

Portfolio 

Research their site for a portfolio of written work or ask for samples. When evaluating their written content, consider these questions:

• Is the content engaging and does it entice you to read further?
• Does the content provide value? Is the advice actionable or generic?
• Does the article answer the search intent? Is it straight to the point?
• Is it easy to skim, with headings, subtitles, lists, images etc.? 
• Is the article well-researched and does it provide accurate information?
• Is the blog post well-structured?

Testimonials

Although less reliable, you should look at client testimonials and mentions to see what the clients highlight about working with the company.

Communication and values

It is crucial that your team can efficiently work with the chosen agency. The best way to determine this is to book a consultation call and see how you feel about their communication style. Questions to ask yourself during or after a call include:

• Do I feel heard and understood?
• Do I feel they genuinely care about helping me?
• Are they transparent and clear? Do they offer direct answers?
• Do they openly discuss their services, pricing and what they expect from me?

Through a consultation call, you’ll be able to determine whether their values align with yours and see if you feel they care about potential customers, listen to them and value transparency and open communication.

Also, to determine what your communication during the project will be like and how responsive or flexible they are, you can ask:

• Who will be my point of contact during the project?
• How often will they be available?
• Which platform will we use to communicate?
• How often will I receive reports and what is your reporting process? 

SEO skills and strategy

First, why do SaaS businesses using content marketing need SEO and strategy in the first place? 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps your content reach a broader audience by optimizing for search engines and increasing your site’s visibility for the terms your buying personas are searching for. What good is excellent content if people can’t find it? 

Astrategy helps you focus on the content tailored to your target audience and bringing the highest ROI, with 45%of B2B marketers attributing strategy changes to their content marketing success. All your efforts will be in vain if you produce content without a well-thought-out strategy. 

Producing a piece that ranks, brings traffic and, most importantly, valuable leads involves much more than writing – you have to understand the market, product and target audience, search for suitable keywords, optimize your SaaS blog for SEO, ensure all the technical aspects of your website are in order and build backlinks to your site.

That’s why we believe it’s best to find a SaaS content writing company with SEO experts and strategists working with the content team, allowing you to save time on onboarding both an SEO and content agency and educating them about your product.

Even if you already have an SEO expert or strategist and hire a full-service agency only for SaaS content writing, it is more likely they know how to align their SaaS content creation with the strategy because they already work with SEOs and content strategists. You want your blog writing agency to integrate perfectly with the team you have and understand your goals.

So, how do you check their SaaS SEO skills and strategy? Apart from checking their blog for guides and case studies for the process, here are the questions you can ask on a consultation call to help you make a decision:

• How do you search for keywords and determine which keywords to target?
• How do you measure SaaS content marketing results? 
• How do you choose websites for SaaS link building? 
• What is your internal linking strategy for SaaS blogs?
• How do you devise a SaaS content marketing strategy?
• What SaaS content marketing tools do you use?

Ensure the company has established procedures they can tailor to your process, does not give vague answers and is not promising fast results but realistic long-term and sustainable growth.

Company’s website

The last point from our checklist is to look at the company’s website. Seeing how the agency markets itself can provide valuable insights into its marketing skills and understanding of user behavior. 

Here is what to consider:

• SaaS content marketing blog – Apart from the case studies and portfolio we mentioned, you can also check whether they have actionable blog content on their website to get an idea of their expertise in SaaS content marketing.
• User experience – The website should be user-friendly, mobile responsive and easy to navigate.
• Design – The site should be visually appealing and consistent with its branding.

Conclusion

Finding the right SaaS blog writing company can bring you more customers, but you must choose wisely. We suggest you pick a blog writing company that:

1. Specializes in SaaS
2. Has a proven track record of success (case studies, portfolio, testimonials)
3. Communicates clearly with your team members and cares about your results
4. Offers a complete content production service including SEO and strategy
5. Markets itself in a way that resonates with you and shows expertise

Whether you need high-quality content only or a full service from strategy to execution, we are here to help. Book a call today to find out how!

The post A SaaS Blog Writing Company: 5 Top Choices & a Hiring Checklist appeared first on Quoleady.