Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
OK, so here's something most SaaS founders get completely backwards. You know how everyone talks about building acquisition funnels? Testing Facebook ads, optimizing Google campaigns, tweaking landing pages until your eyes bleed?
I used to think the same way. When I started working with B2B SaaS clients, I'd dive straight into the "acquisition" part – setting up ads, building landing pages, optimizing for conversions. Classic mistake.
But here's what I discovered working with one particular B2B SaaS client: their best converting leads weren't coming from any paid channel. They were coming from people who had been following the founder's personal content on LinkedIn for months.
That's when it clicked. We were so focused on "acquiring" users that we forgot about the step before that – getting their attention in the first place. And in the SaaS world, attention doesn't work like e-commerce. You're not selling a $30 impulse buy. You're asking someone to integrate your solution into their daily workflow.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why traditional SaaS funnels fail before they even start
How I discovered the real source of quality leads for my B2B client
The distribution strategy that actually builds trust
A step-by-step framework for building attention before acquisition
Why most SaaS acquisition strategies miss the mark
Industry Reality
What everyone gets wrong about SaaS funnels
Let me tell you what every growth consultant and marketing guru will tell you about SaaS funnels. They'll show you these beautiful diagrams with awareness at the top, consideration in the middle, and conversion at the bottom. Clean, logical, makes perfect sense.
The typical advice goes like this:
Drive traffic through paid ads or SEO
Capture leads with compelling landing pages
Nurture through email sequences and product demos
Convert to trials with optimized signup flows
Turn trials into paid through onboarding and activation
This framework exists because it's borrowed from e-commerce and B2C marketing, where it actually works. Buy a Facebook ad, drive someone to a product page, they purchase within minutes. Simple.
But here's where this falls apart for SaaS: you're not selling a product, you're selling a service that requires trust. When someone buys a $50 gadget online, the worst that happens is they waste $50. When someone adopts your SaaS, they're potentially changing their entire workflow, training their team, and betting their productivity on you.
The traditional funnel assumes people are ready to evaluate solutions. But what if they don't even know they have a problem? What if they've never heard of your category? What if they need to trust you as a person before they'll trust your product?
That's where the attention gap exists – and it's massive.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I started working with this B2B SaaS client, their setup looked textbook perfect. Multiple acquisition channels running, decent traffic numbers, trial signups coming in regularly. But their conversion from trial to paid was terrible, and nobody could figure out why.
The founder was frustrated. "We're getting users," he told me, "but they sign up, use the product once, and disappear." Classic symptoms of what I now call the "cold traffic curse."
My first instinct was to dive into the usual suspects – landing page optimization, email sequences, onboarding flows. Standard conversion rate optimization stuff. We tested headlines, simplified the signup process, added social proof. Modest improvements, nothing revolutionary.
But then I dug deeper into their analytics, and that's when I found something weird. They had this massive chunk of "direct" traffic that was converting at nearly 3x the rate of their paid channels. Direct traffic is usually a small percentage for most SaaS companies, but for them, it was significant.
"Direct" traffic is often a mystery in analytics – it could mean anything. People typing your URL directly, clicking from emails without UTM parameters, or coming from sources that don't pass referrer data. Most marketers just accept it and move on.
But I'm stubborn. I started digging into user behavior, conducting interviews with customers who converted. And that's when the pattern emerged: a huge percentage of their best customers had been following the founder's LinkedIn content for months before signing up.
These weren't "direct" visits at all. They were people who had been consuming the founder's insights, building trust through his personal brand, then typing the URL directly when they were ready to try the solution.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Once I understood what was actually driving conversions, everything changed. We weren't building an acquisition funnel – we were building an attention funnel that prioritized trust-building over traffic volume.
Here's the exact framework we developed:
Step 1: Audit Your Real Traffic Sources
Don't trust your analytics at face value. That "direct" traffic might be your goldmine. We set up proper attribution tracking and started surveying new users about how they first heard about the company. The results were eye-opening – nearly 40% had discovered them through the founder's LinkedIn content.
Step 2: Identify Where Trust Gets Built
For this client, LinkedIn was the trust-building channel. The founder was sharing tactical insights about their industry, helping people solve problems for free, demonstrating expertise without pitching. People weren't just learning about the product – they were learning to trust the person behind it.
Step 3: Align Content Strategy With Business Objectives
We shifted from generic "brand awareness" content to what I call "expertise demonstration." Instead of posting about company updates or industry news, the founder started sharing real problems they'd solved, specific insights from building the product, and contrarian takes on industry best practices.
Step 4: Create Multiple Trust Touchpoints
We expanded beyond just LinkedIn posts. The founder started writing detailed case studies, sharing behind-the-scenes product development stories, and being transparent about challenges they were facing. Each piece of content was another opportunity to build trust.
Step 5: Design for the Long Game
This isn't about going viral or getting immediate signups. We tracked engagement, saved posts, and connection requests as leading indicators. The goal was building an audience of people who knew, liked, and trusted the founder – knowing that a percentage would eventually need the solution.
The key insight: Cold users need significantly more nurturing before they're ready to commit to a SaaS product. Traditional funnels assume people are ready to evaluate solutions. The attention funnel assumes people need to trust you first.
We also implemented what I call "warm handoffs" – when people did express interest, they weren't just sent to a generic landing page. They got personal responses from the founder, customized demos, and continued the relationship that started on LinkedIn.
Content Strategy
Focus on expertise demonstration rather than product features. Share specific problems you've solved and contrarian industry insights.
Trust Indicators
Track engagement, saves, and connection requests as leading indicators. These predict future conversions better than immediate clicks.
Attribution Tracking
Set up proper tracking to identify your real traffic sources. Your "direct" traffic might be your biggest growth driver.
Long-term Thinking
Plan for 3-6 month nurture cycles instead of immediate conversions. SaaS buyers need time to build trust.
The results weren't immediate – and that was actually a good sign. Unlike the quick spikes and crashes of paid ad campaigns, this approach built steady, compound growth.
Within six months, we saw remarkable changes:
Trial-to-paid conversion rate increased by 180% for users who came through the founder's content
Customer acquisition cost dropped as more high-quality leads came through organic channels
Sales cycle shortened because prospects already trusted the founder before the first sales call
Customer lifetime value improved as these users had higher engagement and lower churn
But the most interesting result was qualitative: sales conversations completely changed. Instead of convincing skeptical prospects, the founder was having consultative conversations with people who already believed in his expertise.
The attention funnel had flipped the traditional sales dynamic. Instead of chasing leads, qualified prospects were reaching out to them.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key insights from building attention funnels for SaaS:
Attribution is broken for trust-based sales. Your best leads might show up as "direct" traffic, hiding the real source of growth.
Personal branding beats company branding in early-stage SaaS. People buy from people, especially for business tools.
Content should demonstrate expertise, not explain features. Show you understand their problems better than they do.
Patience pays compound returns. While competitors burn budget on paid ads, you're building an asset that appreciates over time.
Quality beats quantity for B2B SaaS. 100 people who trust you are worth more than 10,000 cold impressions.
The best funnel is no funnel. Focus on building relationships, and conversions happen naturally.
Distribution strategy is your moat. Competitors can copy your product, but they can't copy your audience relationships.
The biggest mistake I see SaaS founders make is optimizing for metrics that don't matter. Impressions, clicks, even signups – none of these predict long-term success if the underlying trust isn't there.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups, implement this by:
Having founders share technical insights and problem-solving approaches on LinkedIn
Creating detailed case studies showing real customer problems and solutions
Building personal relationships before pitching products
Tracking engagement metrics alongside conversion metrics
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce, adapt this approach by:
Focusing on product education and styling inspiration rather than direct sales
Building community around your product category or lifestyle
Using social proof and user-generated content to build trust
Creating content that helps customers use products better