LeadJourney for SaaS

The complete setup for SaaS companies – connect your ad platforms, track every lifecycle stage from sign-up to paying customer, bring purchases and MRR in through Stripe, fold your sales-assisted pipeline in via your CRM, and see true CAC, payback, LTV and ROAS per campaign, ad set and ad.

You sell software on a subscription, your funnel runs over days or weeks, and most of the moments that matter – trial started, user activated, plan upgraded – happen inside your product, not on a marketing page. This is the end-to-end playbook for SaaS companies: connect your ad platforms, track every lifecycle stage, bring revenue in through Stripe, fold in your sales-assisted pipeline, and let LeadJourney calculate CAC, payback, LTV and ROAS down to the individual ad.

What you'll be able to see

For every channel → campaign → ad set → ad: clicks, cost, sign-ups, trials, paying customers, revenue / MRR, CAC, ROAS and payback – so you know which campaign brings trials that convert and stay, and which one quietly fills your funnel with churn.

Two motions, one workspace

Most SaaS run two go-to-market motions at once: a self-serve / product-led flow (sign-up → trial → self-checkout) and a sales-assisted flow (demo booked → opportunity → closed deal). LeadJourney tracks both in the same workspace, so paid spend is measured against all the revenue it produces – not just the self-serve half.

The chain you're building

LeadJourney stitches together the click you paid for, the in-product behaviour it caused, and the recurring revenue it eventually produced:

Ad click → tracked visitor → free sign-up → trial → paying customer → MRR.

The catch that's unique to SaaS: the later stages fire server-side, days later, long after the browser is gone. The fix is one idea you'll set up in step 3 – capture the click ID once at sign-up, store it on the user, and replay it on every later event. If you want the concept first, read How attribution works.

What you'll set up

Step	Covers	Why it matters
1. The advertiser foundation	Ad platforms, tracking domain, script	Syncs spend and tracks every click – nothing attributes without it.
2. Map your funnel	Self-serve vs sales-assisted stages	Decides which events you send and what your reports show.
3. In-product lifecycle events	Sign-up, trial, activation, upgrade	Ties stages that fire days later, server-side, to the original ad.
4. Connect Stripe	Purchases & MRR	Revenue attributes itself – unlocks ROAS, CAC payback and LTV.
5. CRM & scheduler	Sales-assisted deals & demos	Brings the human-touch pipeline into the same reports.
6. SaaS reporting	CAC, payback, LTV, ROAS	The numbers a SaaS team actually steers on.

Build the advertiser foundation

Connect the ad platforms you spend on so cost syncs automatically, add a first-party tracking domain, and install the tracking script so every click and page view is recorded. This is the same base every workspace needs – the Advertiser playbook walks through it once, then come back here for the SaaS-specific parts.

Advertiser playbook

The foundation: connect ad platforms, set up a tracking domain, install the script.

Connect Google Ads · Meta · LinkedIn · Bing
Set up a custom tracking domain and install the tracking script

B2B SaaS leans on LinkedIn

If LinkedIn is a core channel for you, Connect LinkedIn Ads so its cost syncs and clicks are tagged – the same way Meta and Google are.

Map your SaaS funnel

Decide which stages exist in your product and name each event after what your team already says. Pick from the two motions – most SaaS use a mix:

Motion	Typical stages → events
Self-serve / PLG	Free sign-up (`FreeSignup`) → Trial started (`TrialStarted`) → Trial ended (`TrialEnded`) → Purchase (`WonClient`)
Sales-assisted	Demo booked (`BookedCall`) → Showed up (`ShowedUp`) → Qualified (`QualifiedLead`) → Won deal (`WonClient`)

Track your full SaaS funnel

The complete event-by-event guide for the self-serve lifecycle, with code.

You don't need every stage on day one

Two or three well-chosen stages already give a usable funnel. Start with sign-up and purchase, then add trials and activation once those are flowing.

Wire your in-product lifecycle events

Here's the SaaS twist: Trial Started, Activated and Upgraded happen inside your app, often in a webhook or a nightly cron with no browser in sight – so you can't read the click ID again when they fire. The fix is the single most important idea in SaaS tracking:

Capture the click ID once, store it on the user, replay it forever

At sign-up, read localStorage.getItem('clickId') and save it on the user record (a column like lj_click_id). Every later event reads that stored value back and sends it along – one capture, reused for the whole customer journey. Always send the user's email too, as a durable backup match key.

Track your full SaaS funnel

The capture-and-replay pattern, the server route, and each lifecycle event with code.

The deep dive on the sign-up event – including carrying the click ID through Google / Microsoft SSO – is in Track sign-ups in your app.

Connect Stripe for revenue and MRR

Purchases carry real money, so let the Stripe integration attribute them with no code: map a payment succeeded (or subscription created) Stripe event onto your WonClient conversion and revenue is attributed automatically. The tracking script even decorates your Stripe Payment Links with the click ID, so payments tie back to the right campaign on their own.

Connect Stripe

Bring purchases and subscription revenue in automatically – no code.

Decide how recurring revenue shows up

A subscription pays every month. Set WonClient to Edit conversion with new data for current MRR / plan value, or Keep original data, increment payout for total collected. Net out cancellations with a negative revenue on a Stripe refund, or a Churned event. Full detail in Events & the Events Manager and the SaaS funnel guide.

Bring in your sales-assisted pipeline

If prospects book a demo and a rep closes the deal, fold that motion in so paid spend is measured against closed revenue, not just self-serve checkouts. Connect your scheduler so demo bookings attribute to the ad, and your CRM so opportunities and won deals flow back automatically.

Connect your CRM

Sync opportunities and won deals from HubSpot, Pipedrive, Close or Attio.

Schedulers: Calendly · Cal.com – a BookedCall the moment a demo is booked.
CRMs: HubSpot · Pipedrive · Close · Attio.
The full booking-to-deal pattern is the Sales Call Funnel.

Build SaaS reporting

With spend on one side and revenue/MRR on the other, the CAC, payback, LTV and ROAS views fall out of the data. Use the Report Builder to slice cost ÷ paying customers per campaign (CAC) and revenue per campaign (LTV/ROAS), then pin the views your team watches to a Dashboard. Add any non-API spend (SEO, content, tooling) under Channel Costs so CAC isn't flattering.

Report Builder

Build CAC, payback and LTV views per campaign and save them to a dashboard.

See your results

Once sign-ups, trials, Stripe revenue and CRM deals are flowing, the reports answer the questions a SaaS team lives on:

Traffic Channel Report – every source side by side: clicks, cost, leads, paying customers, revenue, ROAS and profit. Your "where should the budget go?" view.
Campaign Report – drill campaign → ad set → ad, then sort by trials, paying customers or revenue to find what to scale and what to cut.
Lead Overview – the real accounts behind the numbers, each with its full journey from first click through trial to paying customer.
Report Builder & Dashboards – build CAC, payback and LTV views and pin them where the team will see them.

Just ask

Don't want to build a report? Ask in plain English with Ask Atlas – "Which campaign had the lowest cost per paying customer last quarter?"

Attribution for long SaaS sales cycles

A SaaS buyer often clicks an ad, disappears for weeks, then signs up via a brand search or a direct visit. With last click that revenue lands on Direct and the ad that started everything looks worthless. For longer journeys, switch the report's Attribution dropdown to first click so the channel that created the customer gets the credit – and make sure your attribution window covers your real sales cycle (B2B SaaS often needs 60–90 days, not the default). It only changes the view, never the data. See Attribution models.

Tips for clean SaaS data

Store the click ID at sign-up – this is the whole game. Without it, trials and purchases that fire days later, server-side, can't attribute to the ad that earned them. Email is your backup, not your primary key.
Always send a revenue value on WonClient. Without it you get paying-customer counts but no ROAS, CAC payback or LTV.
Keep TrialEnded out of ad optimisation. It's a drop-off signal for spotting leaky campaigns – turn Send back to Ads off so platforms don't optimise toward expired trials.
De-dupe in-product events. Webhooks retry and crons re-scan, so set FreeSignup, TrialStarted and TrialEnded to Ignore duplicate postbacks to keep funnel counts honest.
Add non-API spend. SEO, content and tooling won't sync from an ad platform – add them under Channel Costs so blended CAC is real.

Running a team – or several products?

Invite colleagues and control exactly what each person sees with Add users to your workspace. Selling more than one product or brand? Keep each in its own workspace via Manage multiple workspaces.

LeadJourney for SaaS

Advertiser playbook

Track your full SaaS funnel

Track your full SaaS funnel

Connect Stripe

Connect your CRM

Report Builder

Track your full SaaS funnel

Connect Stripe

Advertiser playbook

Events & the Events Manager

Attribution models

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