Marketing tests that helped our self-funded SaaS reach $44,000 MRR

General Forum
1

Here’s a summary of our experimentation, ranked by success:

ajor Success

  • Word of Mouth and Powered By
  • SEO
  • Google Ads

Moderate Success

  • Affiliates

  • Build in Public / Communities

  • Cross-Marketing from RMLP
    Limited Success

  • Outbound v1

  • Side Projects / Launches

  • Integrations / Cross-Marketing with Other Companies
    Failure

  • Social Selling

  • Newsletter Sponsorships
    Currently Testing

  • Outbound v2

  • Lead Magnets + Paid Sponsorships / Meta Ads
    Notes
    The major successes are fairly intuitive, as they involve higher intent:

  • SEO / Google Ads: People are actively searching for the problem or solution we provide.

  • Word of Mouth: Strong recommendations lead to higher conversion rates.

  • Powered By: Visitors have interacted with our product (through forms or widgets) before visiting our website.
    For my SaaS, Senja.io, I recommend running your own experiments to determine what works best for your product and audience. Other startups might find success with channels that haven’t worked for us.

2

SEO and blogs always good

3

For us, it’s effective.

4

How many posts or articles have you shared on your blog so far? How long did it take for your SEO writing to be successful?

With mine, I’m not getting it right. I’m failing to achieve my goals.

5

I don’t think there is a lot of search volume for transactional keywords in this market. For leads that need more time to be nurtured, are you concentrating on those or more generic, wide marketing-related terms?

6

I appreciate you sharing. How much time did it take you to determine the right targeting and keywords for GAds? Would you mind explaining how the repayment period changed from the beginning to the present?

7

We eventually hired a contractor to manage our Google Ads, but not before I conducted some tests and noticed a few sign-ups. It’s still a work in progress as we continue to examine, refine, and test keywords.
We also make an effort to rank for keywords that promote well in paid search.
The payback period is subject to periodic adjustments due to ongoing ad optimization and significant price modifications.

8

Regards. Since your product naturally gets exposure outside of the main product experience (embeds/Powered by), which is by definition a compounding growth loop, I believe the free plan fits for you.
It’s interesting to combine SEO with search advertising.

9

Do you let consumers pay to remove the powered by links from your site? How many people do, if at all? Similar linkages are present in a product I’m developing, and I’m considering include this in the plan.

10

It’s difficult to gauge the effect of your work in public domains, but that’s how I found your product. Do you have any advice for someone who isn’t inclined to share?