Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
When I started working with a B2B SaaS client, they had what looked like a solid acquisition strategy on paper. Multiple channels, decent traffic, trial signups coming in. But here's what was broken: their conversion funnel was a mystery, and worse, they were completely invisible where it actually mattered.
My first move? Diving deep into their analytics. What I found was a classic case of misleading data - tons of "direct" conversions with no clear attribution. Most companies would have started throwing money at paid ads or doubling down on SEO. Instead, I dug deeper and discovered something that changed everything.
After analyzing the data more carefully, my hypothesis became clear: a significant portion of quality leads were actually coming from the founder's personal branding on LinkedIn. The direct conversions weren't really "direct" - they were people who had been following the founder's content, building trust over time, then typing the URL directly when they were ready to buy.
This discovery led me to completely rethink SaaS product visibility. Here's what you'll learn from this playbook:
Why traditional SaaS visibility strategies are broken in 2025
The hidden growth engine that most companies miss completely
My framework for building authentic visibility that converts
Specific tactics I used to transform a struggling SaaS into a visible authority
How to measure real visibility impact beyond vanity metrics
This isn't about growth hacking or quick wins. It's about building sustainable visibility that actually drives revenue. Let me show you how I learned this the hard way, and how you can apply these insights to your own SaaS.
Industry Reality
What every SaaS founder gets told about visibility
Walk into any SaaS accelerator or marketing conference, and you'll hear the same visibility playbook repeated like gospel. The conventional wisdom goes something like this:
Content Marketing: Blog consistently, create valuable content, and SEO will bring you organic traffic
Paid Advertising: Facebook ads, Google ads, LinkedIn ads - throw money at targeting and optimize for conversions
Product-Led Growth: Build viral loops, referral programs, and let the product sell itself
Social Media Presence: Post regularly across all platforms, engage with your audience, build a following
PR and Outreach: Get featured in tech publications, podcast appearances, industry awards
Here's why this conventional approach exists: it's measurable. CMOs love showing dashboards with blog traffic, ad spend ROI, social media followers, and press mentions. These metrics make great board presentations.
The problem? Most of this advice treats SaaS like e-commerce. You're not selling a one-time purchase; you're asking someone to integrate your solution into their daily workflow. They need to trust you enough not just to sign up, but to stick around long enough to experience that "WoW effect."
Cold traffic from paid ads might convert to trials, but they typically use the service only on their first day, then abandon it. Why? Because they haven't built the trust and understanding necessary to commit to changing their workflow.
The traditional visibility playbook fails because it focuses on awareness instead of trust. And in B2B SaaS, trust is everything.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
Let me tell you about the moment everything clicked. I was working with a B2B SaaS client who was frustrated with their acquisition strategy. On paper, everything looked reasonable - they had multiple channels running, decent traffic numbers, and trial signups were coming in regularly.
But when I dove into their analytics, I found something strange. A huge chunk of their conversions were marked as "direct" traffic. Now, most marketers would celebrate this - direct traffic means people are typing your URL directly, right? Brand awareness success!
Except it felt wrong. This wasn't a household name SaaS. They weren't getting featured in major publications. So where were these direct visits really coming from?
I started digging deeper, analyzing user behavior, tracking customer journeys, and interviewing recent customers about how they first heard about the company. That's when the pattern emerged.
The founder had been consistently sharing insights and expertise on LinkedIn for months. He wasn't selling - he was teaching. Sharing lessons learned, industry observations, even failures and challenges. People were following his content, building a relationship with him and the company over time.
When these prospects were ready to evaluate solutions, they didn't Google "best SaaS for X" - they remembered that helpful founder who'd been sharing valuable insights. They'd go directly to the website, which analytics counted as "direct" traffic.
Meanwhile, the paid ads they were running were bringing in cold traffic that would trial the product but rarely convert to paid plans. The economics simply didn't work. Cold users from ads showed completely different engagement patterns - they'd use the service once, get confused or overwhelmed, and never return.
This was my "aha" moment: We were treating SaaS like an e-commerce product when it's actually a trust-based service. The visibility that mattered wasn't getting seen by more people - it was building trust with the right people.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Based on this insight, I restructured their entire approach to visibility. Instead of trying to be seen everywhere, we focused on being genuinely helpful in the right places. Here's the framework I developed:
The Trust-First Visibility Framework
Step 1: Identify Your Trust Channels
Not all channels are equal for building trust. I analyzed where their target customers actually spent time seeking advice and insights. For this B2B SaaS, LinkedIn was the clear winner - their prospects were active there, engaging with industry content and looking for solutions to real problems.
We audited their founder's existing LinkedIn presence and discovered he already had credibility in the space, but wasn't leveraging it strategically. Instead of random posts, we developed a content strategy focused on documenting real experiences and sharing practical insights.
Step 2: Document, Don't Create
Rather than trying to come up with clever content ideas, we focused on documenting what was already happening in the business. Client challenges, product development decisions, industry observations - all of this became content.
The key insight: People don't want to be sold to, they want to learn from someone who's been where they're trying to go. The founder started sharing behind-the-scenes insights about building the product, lessons learned from customer conversations, and honest takes on industry trends.
Step 3: Create Educational Content That Demonstrates Expertise
Instead of feature-focused content, we created educational material that showed deep understanding of customer problems. This included detailed case studies (anonymized), step-by-step process guides, and analysis of industry trends.
Each piece of content had two goals: provide immediate value to the reader, and demonstrate that this company truly understood the problem space.
Step 4: Shift Away From Expensive Paid Channels
We gradually reduced spend on paid ads that were bringing in cold, low-intent users. Instead, we invested that budget into content creation, founder time on LinkedIn, and tools to better track and nurture the warm leads coming through trust-based channels.
Step 5: Warm Up Leads Before Product Contact
Instead of driving cold traffic directly to trial signups, we created a nurture sequence. Prospects would first engage with educational content, join an email list for industry insights, and build familiarity with the company's approach before ever seeing a product demo.
This fundamentally changed the dynamic. By the time someone requested a trial, they already understood the problem space, trusted the company's expertise, and had a clear idea of how the solution would fit their workflow.
Personal Branding ROI
LinkedIn founder content drove 67% more qualified leads than paid ads, with significantly higher conversion rates to paid plans.
Trust-Based Attribution
Implemented UTM tracking and customer surveys to properly attribute "direct" traffic to LinkedIn content engagement over time.
Educational Content Hub
Created industry insight hub that became the primary nurture mechanism, with prospects engaging for weeks before requesting trials.
Paid Channel Reallocation
Redirected ad spend to content creation and founder thought leadership, improving overall acquisition cost efficiency.
The transformation didn't happen overnight, but the metrics were undeniable. Within three months of implementing this trust-first approach to visibility:
Qualified Lead Quality Improved Dramatically
The leads coming through the founder's LinkedIn content were fundamentally different. They came pre-educated about the problem space, already understood the company's approach, and were much more likely to convert from trial to paid.
While the total volume of trials initially decreased (we were no longer driving unqualified cold traffic), the conversion rate from trial to paid customer increased significantly. More importantly, these customers had higher engagement scores and better retention.
True Attribution Finally Emerged
We implemented better tracking to understand the real customer journey. What we discovered was that most "direct" conversions had a 2-4 week relationship with the founder's content before converting. This visibility was building trust over time, not driving immediate action.
Sustainable Growth Engine
Unlike paid ads that require constant feeding, this approach created a compounding effect. Each piece of valuable content continued to build trust and authority. The founder's network grew, and referrals started coming naturally from satisfied customers who had originally discovered the company through LinkedIn.
The most surprising result? Customer acquisition cost decreased while customer lifetime value increased. We were attracting better-fit customers who understood the product's value proposition before they even started their trial.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experience taught me seven critical lessons about SaaS visibility that go against conventional marketing wisdom:
Attribution is more complex than most tools can track. The real customer journey often spans weeks or months across multiple touchpoints. Don't trust "direct" traffic at face value.
Trust beats awareness in B2B SaaS. It's better to be deeply trusted by 100 prospects than vaguely known by 10,000.
Cold traffic needs significantly more nurturing before they're ready to commit to changing their workflow. Most SaaS companies underestimate this.
Founder-led content outperforms corporate content when done authentically. People buy from people, especially in B2B.
Distribution beats product quality when it comes to initial visibility, but trust beats distribution for sustainable growth.
The most effective visibility strategies can't be easily replicated by competitors because they're based on authentic expertise and relationships.
Measuring visibility requires looking beyond vanity metrics to focus on lead quality, customer lifetime value, and retention.
The biggest shift in my thinking: Stop treating your SaaS like a product you can push through ads. Start treating it like what it really is - a service that requires trust, expertise demonstration, and relationship building.
This approach takes longer to scale than paid advertising, but it creates more sustainable and profitable growth in the long run.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups looking to improve product visibility:
Audit your attribution: Look beyond surface metrics to understand real conversion paths
Identify trust channels: Find where your prospects seek advice, not just information
Document founder expertise: Share real experiences and insights, not promotional content
Create educational content: Demonstrate understanding of customer problems
Nurture before selling: Build relationships before pushing trials
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores adapting these visibility principles:
Focus on founder story: Share the authentic story behind your products
Create buying guides: Help customers understand products, not just sell them
Build community: Create spaces where customers can connect around shared interests
Showcase customer success: Feature real customer stories and use cases
Develop expertise content: Position yourself as an authority in your product category