Paid search and paid social: when to turn on the tap

Paid channels are the volume dial you turn up once you know your conversion rates and your offer is proven. They are not the place to discover product-market fit, and they are not the place to start when you have a limited budget and an unvalidated message. But when the fundamentals are right — a clear ICP, a proven offer, a working landing page, and a known cost-per-meeting target — paid channels compress the feedback loop and scale what is already working.

Paid search (SEA). Google Ads in B2B captures buyers who are actively searching for a solution — the highest intent signal available in paid channels. A buyer typing "best revenue operations software for startups" is ready to evaluate. The economics: B2B SaaS cost-per-click on competitive terms runs £5–£30; cost-per-lead runs £80–£200 at typical conversion rates. The channel works best when you are targeting high-intent terms where your competitors are already spending, which tells you the demand exists and converts. The playbook for running this without an agency is in Paid search.

LinkedIn Ads. The unique value of LinkedIn paid is the targeting precision: you can reach VP of Finance at Series B SaaS companies who are members of specific groups and who are actively engaging with competitor content. No other platform offers that combination. The cost is high — CPL of £60–£120 is common for B2B SaaS in the UK/EU — but the match quality justifies it when the ICP is tight. LinkedIn advertising covers the formats and the bidding mechanics that make the economics work.

AI in paid channels. Google's Performance Max and Meta's Advantage+ are both AI-driven campaign types that automate creative testing, audience expansion, and bid optimisation. The data is clear that PMax outperforms manual campaigns on cost-per-conversion for most B2B advertisers once it has enough conversion data (roughly 30 conversions per month) to optimise against. Below that threshold, manual campaigns with tight targeting typically outperform. The practical implication for a solo founder: start manual, feed the algorithm conversions, then expand to AI-driven formats when the data volume is there.

What paid channels cannot do. They cannot fix a weak offer, a broken landing page, or a misaligned ICP. A campaign that is burning budget is almost always a targeting or an offer problem, not a bidding problem. Optimise the conversion rate of what you have before increasing spend. The connection between paid traffic and pipeline conversion is in speed-to-lead — the five-minute window that most founders let close before they reply.