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Looking back at your marketing numbers from 2023 will help you set goals for 2024. But knowing how other companies across your industry are performing unlocks a whole new world of insights you can apply to your SaaS marketing strategy to gain a competitive edge and leverage trends early on.
Databox collected and examined data from our Benchmark Groups to help you understand potential reasons for highs and lows in metrics like sessions, clicks, CTR, CPC, spend, organic reach, reactions, and more, and leverage these benchmarks when creating a strategy for the next year.
Ready to dive into SaaS marketing benchmarks?
The median number of sessions across all industries in November was 3.93K, according to 6,412 contributors from our benchmark group. This indicates that SaaS companies, on average, were drawing slightly higher traffic to their websites compared to businesses across all other industries.
SaaS companies should continue exploring strategies to increase their rankings, keeping in mind their position, the median being 28.78 across all industries, based on the data from 2706 benchmark group contributors.
Let’s dive into the metrics.
Let’s explore each metric.
The median number of sessions per month within the SaaS industry was 4.12K in November 2023. As we mentioned above, this number is higher than the median number for all industries.
The higher session count might indicate a more digitally literate user base that is comfortable navigating and utilizing online platforms. For SaaS companies, this could mean that investing in a well-functioning website with a great user experience is a must.
Expert recommendation: Track your website sessions and other relevant metrics in this free Google Analytics Website Engagement dashboard template and get insights into your website performance at a glance. This dashboard will help you understand your average session duration, which channels generate the most sessions, what percent of your website sessions end with a conversion, and much more.
The median conversion rate across SaaS companies in November was 2.09%, which is an improvement compared to our data from August 2023, possibly indicating an upward trend across the SaaS industry.
Expert recommendation: To improve your session conversion rate, identify top-performing content on your website and run an SEO analysis to learn how you can improve it even more. Refresh these pages with up-to-date information, optimize meta tags, add visual elements, and make sure the content is aligned with search intent and easy to navigate. You can also analyze your top performers to discover what works well for your audience in terms of topics, messaging, and design.
The median conversion rate across the SaaS industry in November was 2.45%.
Expert recommendation: In Databox databoards, you can easily monitor conversions with different filters applied, to discover the best converting traffic sources. To see your conversion rate for, let’s say, organic search, email marketing, or social, simply include “Customer Conversion Rate by Source” metric and specify a time frame for which you want to check the numbers.
Let’s get more insights into each listed metric.
The median number of impressions SaaS companies in our benchmark group had in November is 95.82K, which is slightly lower than what they had in August this year.
Expert recommendation: Looking at impressions and clicks can reveal if you’re leaving money on the table. Use the data from Google Search Console to improve the effects of your pages appearing in search results. Is your impression-click ratio off? Think about modifying titles and meta descriptions of your articles to draw more attention from your users. You can easily connect your GSC account with Databox and track these metrics in a streamlined databoard.
The median number of organic clicks SaaS websites received in November is 1.05K, dropping a little compared to our August data.
Expert recommendation: Want to increase the number of organic clicks? Target specific, longer phrases that are more specific to your audience’s intent. They often have less competition and can attract highly relevant traffic. Make sure you include these keywords throughout your text, including titles and meta descriptions.
In November, SaaS companies from our benchmark group had a median CTR of 1.25%.
Expert recommendation:Organic CTR depends on many factors, including search intent. Sometimes, people search for queries with simple answers that can be answered in the featured snippet, so they don’t need to click on any links in the search results. To keep your business top-of-mind, optimize your pages to win featured snippets and show up at the top of SERPs. These may not bring you clicks, but are a factor that positively affects your SEO performance.
SaaS companies recorded a median average position of 33.44 in Google search results. According to our August data, it used to be 33.89, so there’s a slight improvement in rankings across the SaaS industry.
Expert recommendation: We often think that “beautiful writing” equals quality content. In reality, we need to bear in mind that a reader visits our page to get information, not to enjoy poetry. This is why it’s key to keep your content accessible—through informative visuals, bullet points, short paragraphs, and text that actually answers the reader’s questions without fluff. This will help improve your rankings, drive more traffic to your pages, and open the door for more conversions.
This is also why our users love Databox dashboards: a snapshot of your performance is available at a glance and in real time.
If you ever asked yourself:
Databox Benchmark Groups can finally help you answer these questions and discover how your company measures up against similar companies based on your KPIs.
When you join Benchmark Groups, you will:
The best part?
When it comes to showing you how your performance compares to others, here is what it might look like for the metric Average Session Duration:
And here is an example of an open group you could join:
And this is just a fraction of what you’ll get. With Databox Benchmarks, you will need only one spot to see how all of your teams stack up — marketing, sales, customer service, product development, finance, and more.
Sounds like something you want to try out? Join a Databox Benchmark Group today!
Paid ads across different platforms were another marketing channel for which we extracted data from our benchmark groups. Here’s how each of the most popular platforms performed:
Microsoft Ads were the biggest surprise of our benchmark group, with a substantial investment surpassing spending on other platforms.
LinkedIn Ads, while having the lowest engagement compared to other platforms, have a considerably higher CPC. This higher cost could be due to the platform’s specific audience, making reaching this target group more expensive.
Let’s dive deeper into each platform.
Despite a higher cost, Google Ads still generate the highest CTR, indicating top engagement. This indicates that it is a high-quality channel for SaaS.
The median value for the cost of Google Ads for SaaS companies in November was $1,978.68.
Expert recommendation: If you’re unsure whether to invest in Google Ads over some other advertising platforms, think of it this way: if you aim for purchases as your main conversions, work with a relatively broad audience, and want to run retargeting campaigns, Google is a good choice. You can also choose among a variety of ad formats, increasing your chances to appeal to your audience, whatever their preferences are.
According to our data, the median value for the Avg. CPC metric for Google Ads for SaaS companies in November was $1.52.
Expert recommendation: Filter your data to see CPC for different locations, devices, and times. Identify locations and times of the day and days of the week when you have the lowest CPC, but with good CTR and conversion rate. Then, for maximum campaign efficiency, set your ad to show during that most successful time instead of 24/7.
The median Google Ads CTR across the SaaS industry was 4.28% in November, which is an increase compared to our August data, when the average CTR for SaaS was 3.72%.Expert recommendation: There’s little room for compelling copy in Google ads, so you should make sure you’ve made the most out of that space to increase your CTR. Effective copy is concise, contains your unique value proposition, and triggers an emotion in the user. You can achieve this by using relevant keywords (including long-tail ones) and showing exactly how your product or service solve the user’s problem.
SaaS companies spent a similar amount of money on Facebook ads as on Google Ads. However, the Facebook ads CTR was only higher than the one on LinkedIn, indicating that SaaS companies may benefit from improving targeting to make the ads relevant for more specific audiences on Facebook.
The median amount spent for Facebook ads across SaaS companies in our benchmark group was $1,906.79 in November.
Expert recommendation: Track how much money you spend on Facebook ads with this free Facebook Ads Campaign Performance dashboard template. Populated with other relevant metrics, such as clicks, impressions, CPM, CPC, and deep dives into more granular data, like amount spent by country, this dashboard will provide you a complete overview of your Facebook campaign performance so that you can tweak it to maximize success.
Based on the data from our benchmark group, the median value of Facebook Ads CPC in November was $0.66 across all SaaS businesses.
Expert recommendation: If you’re launching several ads simultaneously, try to avoid overlapping multiple audiences because it essentially makes you bid against yourself. This is a common mistake among marketers, but it drives your CPC higher than it should be. Make sure that all factors, including location, gender, interested, and others are different for all the ads you run.
Our benchmark data shows that the median CTR for Facebook ads for SaaS companies was 1.43% in November, essentially the same as earlier this year.Expert recommendation: Social proof is one of the biggest purchase motivators, and it can help boost your ad’s CTR. You can use customer reviews and quotes both as text and in visual form, but also show your ad to loyal customers to get likes, positive comments, and shares on your ad. When new users who are unfamiliar with your product or service see an ad with high engagement, they may be more likely to click it.
The median value of Microsoft Ads spend across the SaaS industry was $2,836.72 in November, around $1,000 more than for any other advertising platform.
Expert recommendation: We’ve found through surveys thats B2B businesses like SaaS believe they may benefit from Microsoft Ads in terms of driving new traffic to their website, as well as boosting customer retention. This advertising platform lets you reach new users through its precise targeting features of niche audiences and ability to show your ads across smartphones and tablets. Given that over 25% of users in the US and over 35% of users in China use Bing more than Google, so running ads on Bing makes perfect sense.
The median value of the average CPC for Microsoft Ads for SaaS companies was $1.04 in November, very similar to Google Ads.
Expert recommendation: if you’re running ads on Bing, here’s a simplified way to track your spend, impressions, clicks, and more—all in a single screen. Check out our Microsoft Advertising Overview dashboard template: it’s free and customizable and allows you to monitor how many people have seen your ads, which campaigns have been the most successful at driving clicks, which ads have the best performance, etc.
When it comes to Microsoft Ads, the median CTR across SaaS companies was 2.87% in November.
LinkedIn Ads, while having the lowest engagement compared to other platforms, have a considerably higher CPC. This higher cost could be due to the platform’s specific audience, making it more expensive to reach this specific target group.
The median value of SaaS budgets spent on LinkedIn ads in November was $1,878.82, relatively similar to the median value across all industries.
Expert recommendation: To optimize your LinkedIn ad spend in 2024, rely on audience and creative data to discover the most engaged combination that you can reiterate and support further. Pause low-performing ads and allocate spend toward those that are driving the most clicks and conversions.
Based on our benchmark data, the value of the Average CPC metric for LinkedIn ads was $4.04 for SaaS businesses in November this year.
Expert recommendation: Databox’s LinkedIn Ads Overview dashboard template is an excellent way to streamline monitoring and reporting on your LinkedIn ad campaigns. With this free, customizable dashboard, you can answer some key questions about your ad performance, such as: how many users are seeing your ads and clicking on them? How much have you spent on LinkedIn ads this month? Which of your campaigns has the best performance? And much more.
We found that the median value of the Average CTR metric for LinkedIn ads was 0.62% in November across all SaaS companies, which is the lowest value compared to other platforms.
Expert recommendation: Among the several types of ads on LinkedIn, video ads typically generate a lot of engagement. To enhance your CTR for LinkedIn video ads even further, focus on the first few seconds of your video. These are key to generating interest in your audience so that they keep watching. To keep them hooked, use storytelling techniques to grab their attention, and make sure you always use subtitles.
Many claim that Facebook is dead, but is it? Our benchmark data shows that SaaS companies can still find relevant audiences on Facebook and build their brand organically.
Let’s take a closer look at the data.
Facebook pages even outperformed LinkedIn when it comes to reach and engagement. Here are the median values across the SaaS industry:
When it comes to organic reach, we found that Facebook Pages had a median value of 2.39K in November.
Expert recommendation: To stay on top of your Facebook page performance, get this free, customizable Facebook (Page Insights) dashboard template and track metrics such as: total page likes, post reach, page visits, impressions, and much more. This dashboard will let you get an overview of your page’s performance at a glance and understand what works best for your audience.
Our benchmark data shows that the median value of page engagements in November was 140 across all SaaS businesses.
Expert recommendation: If you can’t decide between running ads on Facebook and Instagram, base your decision on your primary goals. Aiming for conversions? Facebook is the platform to go with. Marketing experts claim that Facebook helps you generate qualified traffic and typically outperforms Instagram in terms of converting users into paying customers.
LinkedIn offers a variety of ways to engage with prospects and to reach a professional audience and relevant decisionmakers. It’s an excellent way to promote your business and increase sales, but our benchmark data shows that SaaS companies had more success with other platforms in November.
SaaS companies saw a median value of 1.36K unique impressions in November, based on the data from our benchmark groups.
Expert recommendation: To fully understand how your company page is performing on LinkedIn, you need a streamlined way to track relevant metrics. Enter this LinkedIn Company Page Engagement dashboard template. Here, you can easily monitor the total number of followers, impressions (even broken down by post), engagement, and other KPIs that will help you identify any trends and pinpoint posts that have performed exceptionally well.
Our benchmark groups recorded that the median value of reactions on LinkedIn pages across the SaaS industry was 76.5 in November, which is lower than in October of the same year.
Expert recommendation: How do you know if your LinkedIn company page is performing well or if you should dive deeper into your strategy to come up with more relevant and engaging posts? Benchmark your data against your peers to discover useful insights so that you can properly assess your LinkedIn company page performance. Join our LinkedIn Company Page Benchmarks for All Companies group—it’s completely free and anonymous.
It’s one thing to have all your data at a glance, but how do you know if your numbers are good? You can compare your ad clicks, page impressions, and follower list to last year’s, but the only way to know for sure if you’re leaving money on the table while your competitors are seizing every opportunity to grow is to benchmark your data against similar companies.
Databox launched Benchmark Groups to help you do just that. You can easily (and anonymously) see how your company measures up against your peers, which can help anticipate trends, understand increases and dips in your performance, and inform your strategy for next year.
With these objective insights, you can understand if your marketing activities are going in the right direction, identify areas of growth to invest in, and use benchmark data to support your content, from blog posts to investor pitches.
Don’t spend more time guessing how you’re performing — join our Benchmark Groups today and be in the know!
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Marketing Research Analyst at Databox. Being an experienced Strategic and Creative Planner, with more than 15 years of practice, Nevena is passionately dedicated to untying the knots and entanglements of marketing, sales, and human behavior in order to deliver understandable, useful, and actionable insights for businesses.
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