Ultimate Guide to Hiring a SaaS Digital Marketing Agency

"Your shortcut to not wasting time, money, or your last nerve."

If you're here, chances are you're trying to grow your SaaS company without blowing your budget, burning your team out, or getting ghosted by yet another “results-driven” agency.

We’ve been in hundreds of conversations with founders, marketers, and growth leads trying to figure out who to trust with their paid strategy. It’s tricky—especially in B2B SaaS where buying cycles are long, CAC targets are tight, and the pressure to show pipeline impact is constant.

So we asked Aidana, our Business Development Manager at Aimers, to break it down. What do the successful teams do before hiring an agency? What should you absolutely ask about on a discovery call? And where do even experienced marketers trip up?

Let’s get into it.

Step 1: Get Clear on Your Goals and Data Before Talking to Agencies

Before you even draft your outreach email, pause.

What does success look like for you in the next 3–6 months? Is it:

• More qualified demo bookings from a specific ICP?
  
  
• Increasing the free-to-paid conversion rate?
  
  
• Expanding your paid reach into new geos?
  
  
• Testing new pricing tiers or packages?
  
  

Having a clear and specific goal helps weed out agencies who can’t speak your language. It also makes it easier to distinguish between those pitching shiny tactics versus those who will help you build a repeatable growth engine.

And don’t worry if your data is messy (most companies’ is). What matters is having direction. Pull what you can from:

• CRM reports
  
  
• Product analytics
  
  
• Google Ads history
  
  
• Anything your RevOps team has been quietly tracking.
  
  

Bringing this context to your agency shortlist will instantly make your conversations sharper—and way more productive.

Step 2: What to Look for in a SaaS Marketing Partner

There are thousands of agencies. Here's how to narrow it down fast:

1. Relevant Experience with SaaS Models

SaaS is not ecom. It's not local lead gen. And it’s definitely not just about impressions.

Look for agencies that have worked with SaaS companies at your stage (startup, Series A, post-product-market fit, etc.). They should understand long CAC paybacks, LTV modeling, multi-touch attribution, and demand capture nuances.

Ask for:

• Case studies from SaaS clients
  
  
• Specific funnel metrics they’ve impacted (e.g. MQL → SQL)
  
  
• Familiarity with your martech stack (e.g. HubSpot, Segment, GA4, etc.).
  
  

See how Aimers supports SaaS brands of all sizes on our Services page.

2. Workflow and Communication Fit

This one gets overlooked—but it’s often why partnerships break.
Do they run weekly syncs or async reporting?
Will you have a dedicated strategist, or be routed through project managers?

Clarity here matters more than price or even platform expertise. Ask:

• “Who will I be talking to regularly?”
  
  
• “How do you prioritize and test campaigns?”
  
  
• “How do you report impact beyond vanity metrics?”
  
  

And gut-check their energy. Are they collaborative? Strategic? Responsive? You’ll be working with them weekly.

3. Transparency and Realistic Planning

The best agencies aren’t selling miracles. They’re walking you through probable outcomes, based on real constraints.

Look for red flags like:

• "We guarantee X leads" (without explaining the CPL)
  
  
• Hand-wavy answers about platform strategy
  
  
• No plan for experimentation or optimization cadence.
  
  

At Aimers, we’re brutally clear on where results will come from, how long they’ll take, and what tradeoffs exist. That’s how we’ve built partnerships that last 1–6+ years with SaaS and tech clients.

Step 3: Tips for a Smarter, Faster Agency Search

Mini Checklist from Aidana

Quick tips before you send that first agency email:

Checklist to find your perfect marketing agency

• Check their site’s blog or case studies — do they speak SaaS?
• Avoid agencies with vague services like “digital growth for all industries”
• Ask who owns strategy vs execution
• Clarify their pricing model — fixed, retainer, rev share?
• Request references or testimonials from other SaaS clients
• Look at client tenure: do people stick around?
• Test the first call — are they asking good questions or just selling?

You’d be surprised how much you can learn in 30 minutes.

FAQ

Q: Can’t we just hire in-house?
Maybe! But consider ramp time, hiring cost, platform expertise, and bandwidth. Agencies give you speed and seniority—without the overhead.

Q: What if we already have a growth team?
That’s ideal. Agencies like Aimers plug into existing workflows and act as your paid media engine, freeing your team to focus on product marketing, lifecycle, or outbound.

Q: Do agencies actually care about pipeline or just leads?
If they don’t ask about your sales cycle or close rates, that’s your answer. Look for partners who think past the click.

Q: What platforms should an agency be fluent in?
Depends on your goals, but for SaaS: Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Meta (for top of funnel), and possibly Reddit or YouTube. Attribution setup via tools like Segment or Triple Whale helps too.

Q: How do we know if it's working?
Simple. You’ll see it in revenue. And a good agency will tie paid spend directly to SQLs, opps, and ARR—not just CTRs or impressions.

Takeaways

Hiring a SaaS-focused agency can shorten your ramp time, reduce CAC, and finally bring structure to your paid strategy. But only if you treat the selection process like building a long-term partnership—not a vendor contract.

Start with clear goals. Prioritize experience, workflow fit, and transparency. And trust your gut when someone feels like the right kind of sharp, strategic, and honest.

Work with Aimers

If you’re serious about growing your SaaS pipeline through paid media—and want a team that knows how to make every dollar work harder—we’d love to chat.

At Aimers, we work as an extension of your in-house team, combining data-driven strategy with hands-on execution across Google, LinkedIn, Meta, and more. We’ve helped B2B SaaS brands reduce CAC, scale into new regions, and increase qualified leads by 3–5x—all without adding headcount.

Book a call with us and let’s see if we’re a fit.