SaaS Marketing in 2026: What Works, What's Dead, What's Overrated

I've tried everything: paid ads, SEO, content marketing, influencer partnerships, cold outreach, community marketing. Some worked. Most didn't. Here's the honest breakdown.

• Generic content marketing: 500-word blog posts that say nothing. Nobody reads them, Google ignores them.
• Facebook ads for B2B: CPCs are insane, targeting is broken. Maybe 5% of use cases work.
• Webinars nobody asked for: People are zoomed out. Attendance rates are at all-time lows.
• Mass cold email: Everyone uses the same templates. Response rates are sub-1%.
• Influencer sponsorships: Unless they're deeply in your niche, ROI is terrible.

• LinkedIn organic: Works, but time-intensive. Good for personal brand, weak for direct acquisition.
• SEO for competitive keywords: Takes 12+ months. Most startups can't wait that long.
• Product Hunt: Great for one-day spike. Rarely sustains momentum.
• Twitter ads: Expensive for what you get. Better for awareness than conversion.

• Community marketing (Reddit, Discord): High trust, low cost, compounds over time. Our Reddit guide.
• Long-form SEO content: 3,000+ word pieces that dominate niches. Hard to replicate.
• Personal founder brand: People buy from people. Share your journey publicly.
• Cold email with extreme personalization: 5 emails that took 30 minutes each > 500 generic blasts.
• Customer referrals: Build referral into your product. Best CAC possible.

• Reddit organic: $0 CAC, 2.3x higher LTV than average
• Google Ads: $47 CAC, 1.1x LTV (barely profitable)
• SEO: $12 CAC (amortized content cost), 1.8x LTV
• Cold email: $23 CAC (time cost), 1.5x LTV
• Referrals: $8 CAC (incentive cost), 2.5x LTV

If you're bootstrapped, start with Reddit and referrals. They're the only channels where you can compete with funded companies.