Top 10 Lead Generation Tactics for Scalable Growth
Lead generation strategies are essential for bringing on new customers for your SaaS startup. Unfortunately, most startups fail before they even get started because the cost of acquiring new customers (CAC) far exceeds the lifetime value (LTV) of the customer.
With a low CAC:LTV ratio, SaaS startups can struggle to achieve scalable growth, ultimately paying more for customers that don’t stick around.
To achieve sustainable growth, your startup needs an effective, SaaS-specific lead gen strategy to help you acquire right-fit customers who will provide value beyond the initial purchase.
What Is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is the process of engaging and converting prospects who are aware of your product into solution-aware, paying customers.
Back when tech companies sold access to their product via licenses, predictable growth was easier to achieve. Contracts could last anywhere from one to three years, guaranteeing companies a consistent source of revenue.
Now, with the shift towards subscription-based services and product-led growth, customers can opt for shorter contracts and are quick to cancel or let their subscriptions lapse if they’re not getting the value they expected.
Effective lead generation strategies help mitigate some of this by demonstrating value and encouraging potential customers to buy into their solution, increasing MRR and ARR.
10 Lead Generation Strategies That Actually Work
These SaaS-specific lead generation strategies help you engage your target audience, make your value crystal clear, and persuade them to convert on your offer. They also have a low cost of entry, ensuring that your CAC:LTV ratio remains high and your business profitable.
1. Optimize Your Opt-In Opportunities
Website visitors are exposed to more content than ever before, while having a shorter attention span. As a result, a form and CTA aren’t enough to compel them to take action. Improve your SaaS lead generation by making it easy and desirable to opt-in.
Opt-in forms with a lot of fields tend to have lower conversion rates than more streamlined forms. Optimize your opt-ins by simplifying your lead gen form, only asking for the information that you absolutely need like name, email address, and website. You can increase your chances for conversion by placing the form where they’re most likely to see it. For example, you can use:
- Sticky forms that travel along the page
- Exit intent pop-ups that prompt opt-in when the cursor moves
- Chatbot-driven opt-ins that pop up when they are most engaged.
Additionally, create CTAs that are SaaS-specific and clear in their request. Avoid generic language, as that can introduce friction and cause visitors to leave. For example:
| CTA Don'ts | CTA Dos |
| ❌ “Download now” | ✅ “Download our Sales Playbook” |
| ❌ “Submit form” | ✅ “Start your free trial now” |
| ❌ “Contact us” | ✅ “Request a demo” or “Talk to a sales rep” |
2. Make Landing Pages Actionable
Only 4% of website visitors are ready to buy. And over 80% of visitors will bounce if you try to sell to them before they’re ready. So it’s not wise to greet a first time visitor — especially one who isn’t even aware they have a problem — to book a demo.
Instead, create landing pages that meet your visitors wherever they are in the customer journey. For example,
- Top of funnel content is more education-focused. Lead magnets work well here because they are informational, require less commitment, and introduce new visitors to your brand
- Middle of funnel content nurtures buyers. Free trials and case studies both show your prospect how your product can help solve their problem without pushing a sale.
- Bottom of funnel content converts your leads into customers. Demo requests and sales conversations work best with prospects who already know you and understand your value.
Tailor your landing page CTAs to each stage of the funnel so that clicking it will seem like the next logical step for your visitors.
3. Leverage Content Marketing to Build Trust
Trust is crucial for getting leads to engage with your brand and buy your product — it helps grow your bottom line. Eighty-three percent of customers say they won’t do business with a brand they don’t trust. Content marketing helps you build trust with your audience by solving their problems for free.
Content marketing allows you to connect with your audience, gain a deeper understanding of what they need, and position yourself to give them what they need when they need it. Using content marketing, you can provide downloadable content that offers practical solutions for the problem they’re trying to solve. For example:
- Templates give them a starting point for approaching complex process
- A free trial gives them hands-on experience of your SaaS product solving their problem
- Case studies outline how you solved the problem for another customer
- White papers build authority and earn their trust through your expertise.
Content marketing essentially gives away valuable information for free, which is a cornerstone of building trust, authority, and customer loyalty.
4. Run Retargeting and Remarketing Campaigns
Even if your product seems perfect to your lead, it can take them some time to feel confident enough in your solution to invest. Retargeting and remarketing help keep your product top of mind when they’re finally ready to buy.
Both Google Ads and Adroll can help you run remarketing and retargeting campaigns to capture interested buyers.
- Retargeting with Adroll: When a lead visits your website, Adroll drops a cookie in their browser that allows you to target them after they leave your site, across various channels and even browsers. Adroll shows display ads and even emails with the same product your visitor viewed, increasing the chances of conversion.
- Remarketing with Google Ads: To increase the LTV of a customer, you can use Google Ads to target existing customers to renew or purchase a product they previously showed interest in. It’s a great opportunity to upsell or cross sell your SaaS product.
5. Use Freemium Models and Free Offers to Attract Leads
The SaaS subscription model has a lower barrier of entry than on-prem software: there’s nothing to download and setup is relatively easy. Offering a freemium trial of your product makes it even easier to attract leads to your product because you offer the best parts of your software for free.
Giving away access for free increases familiarity with your product and gives leads a chance to sample your product before they buy. Once they realize the value it provides, then they’ll definitely want to buy. Groove HQ, for example, used a free trial to funnel leads into their product — priced at a flat fee — and experienced a 350% increase in conversions and 25% increase in overall revenue.
Get leads more familiar with and excited about your SaaS product with these tactics:
- Use free trials to give your ideal customer access to your product for a certain amount of time
- Make limited features available indefinitely so they have as much time as they need to play around with it
- Provide onboarding consultations so you can frame their expectations with the product and set them up for the best experience.
6. Develop a Rewards-Based Referral System
Rewards-based referrals are a budget-friendly way to generate interest in your product and attract new clients. Even better, it boosts your CAC:LTV ratio, as referrals increase the overall profitability of a single customer. This means you can bring on more people with a lower acquisition cost, thereby helping you scale more efficiently.
For example, V. Frank Sondors, founder of Salesforge AI, introduced a tiered incentive program where existing customers earn progressively higher rewards for each successful referral, including discounts on future subscriptions and exclusive access to their newest features. Within the first quarter of implementation, they had a 23.68% boost in new sign-ups directly linked to referrals, and a retention rate almost 15% above average.
Some examples of incentives you could use are:
- Account credits
- Exclusive features
- Partner benefits
- Discounts on future subscriptions
7. Strategically Target Competitors’ Customers
Your competitors already have the customers you want, so optimize your lead generation by strategically targeting them and converting them to your product.
Tools like Gmail Ads allow you target your competitors’ audiences and bring them over to the dark side. Using lead gen tools like these, you can effectively target people who have browsed specific websites (including your competitors’) and bring them to your site.
Then, strengthen your messages by identifying gaps in your competitors’ offers and boosting the perceived value of your product through retargeting.
Some quick and dirty ways to find your competitors’ customers include:
- Bidding on competitor keywords
- Leveraging comparison pages where you spell out the differences
- Targeting competitor audiences on LinkedIn with better, more valuable content.
8. Engage Customers with Live Chat (and AI)
The best time to engage and convert visitors is when they are already showing interest in your product. According to Forrester, 44% of customers say that having someone answer their questions in the middle of a purchase is a key feature of any website.
Seventy-nine percent of companies say that live chat has had a positive impact on their sales, revenue, and customer loyalty. And 52% of customers say they are more likely to remain loyal to a company that has live chat. One Zendesk client says their live chat feature boosted their conversions by 29%.
Well-trained AI tools allow you to reach website visitors at scale. With tools like Drift and Intercom, you can talk to leads without having to increase your workforce, answering their questions at crucial moments in their buyer journey. This also allows you to provide a more personalized experience — which SaaS customers have come to expect — at scale.
9. Create High-Impact PPC Ads
When done well, ad copy is a creative way to persuade your target audience to engage with your product and eventually buy from you. A sprinkle of copywriting magic on the platforms where your customers frequent to create irresistibly clickable copy that moves them further down the funnel.
Show up in places where SaaS customers are more likely to hang out. For example, LinkedIn is a go-to platform for tech executives, and most of the world searches for answers on Google. Create ads that speak your audience’s language and meet their expectations. Optimize your copy for your dream audience by
- Tailoring the tone of voice to one that your customers identify with and trust (i.e. authoritative yet relatable)
- Creating messages that highlight the benefits of your product (not just the features)
- Including keywords that your audience is most likely to use (i.e. keywords that are relevant to their problem and your solution)
- Using SaaS specific CTAs (like request a demo, book a meeting, and sign up for a free trial)
10. Host Webinars and Virtual Events
Improve your lead generation strategies by providing opportunities for your audience to learn from and become acquainted with you through free webinars and virtual events. Webinars retain 40% of viewers’ attention, and up to 5% of attendees will ultimately buy from you.
Webinars and virtual events have low startup costs, but also provide you with a pool of leads who are already familiar with you and what you have to offer. Use their contact information to drop them into a nurture sequence where you continue to address their problems and position yourself as the ideal solution.
Webinars are a strong way to:
- Educate your ideal audience
- Provide valuable information that they need to do their jobs well
- Showcase your expert knowledge on their specific problems.
Through free events, you start to build awareness of your product — and more importantly, teach your audience not only that they have a problem, but that you can solve it. It keeps you top of mind and positions you as the go-to expert in your field.
Tips To Improve Lead Generation
Your SaaS lead generation strategy shouldn’t be “set it and forget it.” As the market and your customers’ needs change over time, you’ll need to continuously optimize your strategy to ensure you’re using the right combination of tools and tactics.
Here are some tips to ensure your process is as effective as possible:
Use AI and Automation for Smarter Campaigns
AI and marketing automation allow you to scale your lead generation efforts by taking care of the time-intensive minutiae that would slow down sales reps and marketers. By taking care of the small stuff, it frees you up to focus on more strategic inputs and reduces your chances of error.
Tools like HubSpot’s marketing automation platform and Salesforce CRM, for example, can handle the essential but tedious tasks of a successful campaign. You can automate outreach, track and manage lead activity, and trigger email sends based on different criteria, which saves more time than if a human were to do it.
Continuously Test and Optimize
Given the speed of modern business, your lead generation strategies require consistent and continuous updates until they’re just right. Use A/B testing tools like Optimizely to test different elements of your page and track which ones perform the best.
For example, you can test:
- CTA copy to see which one gets clicked most often
- Email subject lines to see which ones have a higher open rate
- Landing page headlines to see which one gets more engagement.
Integrate Lead Management Tools
Since there are hundreds of touchpoints in a single buyer journey and multiple instances of direct communication, lead management tools are essential for keeping track of all the activity that takes place on a single account.
When integrated, these tools help you keep track of customer touch points so your sales reps can avoid duplicating their effort and instead build off the previous contact, enabling more efficient outreach.
Essential Saas Metrics to Track Your Lead Generation Strategies
To ensure your strategies are working as anticipated, set and track the right lead gen KPIs to measure your progress. Four key metrics to always know the numbers for are: LTV, CAC, and MRR.
Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)
Simply put, your CAC is how much it costs to acquire a single customer. These costs can include sales campaigns, marketing ads, and promotional costs — anything you spend to get the customer in the door. CAC is often calculated in comparison to LTV to measure the profitability of a customer.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Customer lifetime value (LTV) measures the overall value a customer brings over the lifetime of their engagement with you. The longer a customer stays with your company, the more they spend, and the more business they refer to you, the higher their LTV. Ideally, your LTV is significantly higher than your CAC, which will allow you to scale growth more efficiently.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) measures your revenue your business anticipates each month. For subscription-based businesses like SaaS companies, MRR is an important indication of business growth month over month.
Ramp Up Your Lead Generation
Implementing and refining your lead generation strategies is key to sustainably scaling your SaaS startup. Customer acquisition costs can sometimes be higher for SaaS startups just getting started. But strategies like optimizing your opt-ins, PPC ads, freemium models, and content marketing won’t break the bank while helping you build trust and establish authority.
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