2025 is just around the corner, and plans to boost demand for SaaS platforms are already taking shape. To help you stay ahead in the coming year, this article delves into key SaaS content marketing trends, offering fresh ideas and practical insights to fuel your business growth through content marketing.
We’ve gathered insights from reliable data and kept a close eye on what’s buzzing in professional groups and among industry influencers. The result? A clear and approachable look at the trends that matter most for SaaS marketing success.
Key SaaS Content Marketing Trends for 2025 and Beyond
#1 Paid media costing more and converting less
While this piece emphasizes content marketing trends for SaaS, paid advertising claims the spotlight—stay with me.
A recent Gartner study with 390 CMOs revealed that marketing budgets have decreased compared to the past two years—a period Gartner calls “the Era of Less,” with 73% of executives reporting increased pressure to do more with less.
There’s been a shift in priorities across media channels in 2024, with a stronger focus on paid media, which now claims a bigger slice of the pie.
This increased focus is reflected in the 7.8% year-over-year revenue growth for media companies, according to Statista.
However, despite this increased investment, the return on investment (ROI) from paid media has been declining. Gartner data reveals that during the same period, paid media accounted for a smaller percentage of revenue.
A performance marketing company managing $4 billion in digital media analyzed its Google search ad data, revealing that cost-per-click is rising while fewer people are clicking on ads.
Another recent study analyzing the cost-per-click on Facebook confirms the upward trend in paid media costs, with 2024 showing significantly higher rates compared to previous years.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
Content has always been an effective way to offset the costs of client acquisition, since leads acquired through organic search tend to deliver superior long-term ROI.
However, with the recent sharp increases in these costs, a high-quality content stack that addresses all stages of the customer journey has become an even more strategic asset and one of the most important SaaS content marketing trends to watch.
Beyond that, content designed around truly strategic keywords that align perfectly with your persona helps create warmer audiences for your ad campaigns—whether by targeting visitors directly or building lookalike audiences, ultimately optimizing costs over time.
#2 AI Search is taking over traditional search
As of March 2024, the World Bank reported that the top 40 generative AI tools collectively drew nearly three billion monthly visits from hundreds of millions of users.
68% of U.S. adults reported relying on generative AI to answer questions, and Statista projects nearly 600% growth in this figure by 2027. Consequently, the online search industry is expected to be among the most profoundly impacted by the rise of AI-powered search trends.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
While the disruption caused by generative AI is still unfolding, AI-powered platforms are increasingly showcasing source links, complete with visual references like favicons. This trend has the potential to drive significant traffic in 2025 and beyond.
While ChatGPT, which accounts for 82.5% of generative AI usage, doesn’t typically provide linked references unless prompted, OpenAI is preparing to launch SearchGPT, a new model designed to link, read, and organize references.
Perplexity is the platform leading the way bringing sources up and front in the results page, and a sidebar with images that also link to pages.
In Google Search, creating unique images to explain concepts is already a valuable ranking opportunity—you might rank an image sooner and higher than the article it’s hosted on. However, users need to click the “Images” tab to see it. On Perplexity, image results appear directly on the first page, above the fold.
To adapt to SaaS content marketing trends, focus on creating long-form, state-of-the-art content that addresses your persona’s challenges and opportunities while aligning with your offering.
#3 SEM (Search Engine Marketing) strategy embracing AI Search
While generative AI numbers are impressive, it’s important to note that ChatGPT numbers represent less than two percent of Google’s daily traffic. The good news is that your SaaS content strategy can be tailored to engage both Google Search and generative AI platforms.
Ultimately, both search mechanisms aim to deliver a superior knowledge acquisition experience, and the guiding principles remain the same.
As Google stated in its core update: “showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on search”.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
A test with 500 search queries was conducted to understand which types of content are most frequently referenced by platforms like Perplexity, offering valuable insights into best practices for appearing in AI-driven search results.
For general searches, classic formats like lists, guides, and how-tos performed the best, with the average word count for these queries around 1,500 words.
Since the knowledge acquisition experience with generative AI tends to be more conversational, starting with a prompt and often leading to follow-up questions (many suggested by the platform itself), it’s a good practice to structure content as question-and-answer conversations. Use clear headings, bullet points, and cite your sources to enhance readability and relevance.
To capitalize on this trend, consider repurposing your content into explanatory images and engaging infographics. This strategy can drive more traffic from generative AI searches.
#4 Adjusting the content mix
As we’ve observed, a growing portion of knowledge seeking is migrating from Google searches to generative AI platforms and these platforms are increasingly providing more attribution and credit to sources through direct links.
However, it’s important to recognize that, similar to how Google search results now display answers and FAQs without requiring users to access websites, AI search platforms often provide the necessary information directly on the search page, organized and personalized leveraging past interaction.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
With CMOs under pressure to do more with less and marketing teams becoming leaner, before continuing to allocate the same percentage of content to the top of the funnel in 2025, it’s a good idea to conduct a content audit.
This will ensure that the middle and bottom of the funnel—where the persona is already aware of the problem or opportunity and is gathering information and exploring potential solutions—are supported by high-quality content that simplifies buying decisions while helping the sales team nurture pipelines and engage in social selling.
Research shows that 70% of people educate themselves about their problems and potential solutions before reaching out to a company. Additionally, Gartner found that 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience.
HubSpot reports a similar trend, with 71% of people wanting to do their own buying research.
Based on personal experience, many companies still use the “hard to get” approach, withholding product screenshots and demo videos, details, and pricing until a meeting is scheduled – a chance to explain the complicated pricing.
But this outdated practice needs to change to meet the needs of today’s consumers, who value the ability to educate themselves independently.
As the SaaS market becomes increasingly crowded, the depth, uniqueness and quality of information a brand shares about its industry, the challenges and opportunities it addresses, and how its solution effectively resolves them can become a critical differentiator for its business.
To ensure your business stays ahead with the most effective SaaS content marketing trends in 2025 and beyond, focus on quality over quantity. Create state-of-the-art content that stands out and delivers lasting value. These content pieces should:
- Have a clear objective tied to a larger strategic vision
- Be evergreen, maintaining relevance over time
- Explore topics in-depth with a well-structured and engaging outline
- Be regularly updated to reflect the latest insights and trends
#5 Quality assurance for AI-powered content
The rise of generative AI makes it easier to produce content quickly, but companies must resist the temptation to flood their channels with low-quality, repetitive, or inaccurate material. This overload of “thin content” risks pushing your strategy into the territory of the Dead Internet Theory—a world flooded with meaningless, machine-generated noise.
This ties closely to the concept of the uncanny valley: when content feels slightly “off,” consumers instinctively distrust it.
One study found that using the term “Artificial Intelligence” in product descriptions actually reduced purchase intent. Similarly, Google’s odd AI-generated answers and Coca-Cola’s AI-created Christmas ad both faced public backlash, highlighting a growing resistance to overly mechanized experiences.
These missteps demonstrate a critical point: consumers crave authenticity and emotional trust in the buying process. In a world where AI’s influence is expanding, successful brands must strike the right balance—leveraging AI for efficiency without losing the human touch that resonates with audiences.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
Companies need to establish robust processes to maintain high standards for AI-generated or AI-influenced content, focusing on authenticity, readability, and SEO. Key considerations for your process can include:
- Is the content well-structured, with clear headings and subheadings?
- Are all facts, data, and statistics thoroughly verified against credible sources?
- Does the content stand out as unique, avoiding generic or repetitive AI-generated phrasing?
- Does it offer actionable insights, real-world examples, or compelling case studies?
- Has the content been reviewed by a subject matter expert or editor to ensure accuracy and relevance?
Addressing these and other elements, businesses can harness the efficiency of AI while maintaining the quality and credibility that can really build trust and authority with their audience.
#6 Content UVP
This trend mirrors a core marketing strategy concept within content strategy: the unique value proposition.
Investing in the creation of content that provides valuable or intriguing insights—content that keeps your audience eagerly anticipating the next edition—has long been a powerful tool for lead generation, brand awareness, and brand authority.
This content strategy has been successfully applied in B2C, exemplified by Spotify’s year-end recaps (launched in 2016) and YouTube Music’s similar feature, introduced later, likely inspired by its competitor’s success.
With a significant portion of knowledge-seeking shifting to AI platforms, creating content that truly captivates requires delivering what AI cannot: benchmarking, compelling statistics, engaging testimonials, and expert opinions—all wrapped in a polished, enjoyable, and insightful experience.
These insights can come from customer and stakeholder research or your first-party data, as seen in the annual editions of the Duolingo Language Report.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
Creating a unique piece of content that firmly establishes your brand in the minds of your target personas offers several advantages for SaaS platforms:
- Audience segmentation: it allows you to create highly specific content tailored to key personas. For example, a website-building platform might develop one piece of content aimed at marketing professionals and another for agency owners.
- Paid traffic qualification: it’s an excellent way to qualify paid audiences by generating remarketing ads for those who engaged with the content or creating ads targeting lookalike audiences.
- SEO traction: annual content often gains significant SEO momentum, such as releasing a trend report for the upcoming year at the start of Q4.
To gate or to ungate? SaaS platforms often gate content behind forms and pass the resulting lead lists to SDRs. However, reaching out to leads during their problem-and-solution research phase can result in poor timing. It’s crucial to align expectations and carefully plan the material’s title, subject, and objectives.
Some companies, like 6Sense, skip gated content entirely, offering ungated resources with a prominently visible “Request a Demo” button instead.
Don’t underestimate the effort required to produce such content. Beyond creation and production, you’ll need to craft meaningful questions, secure enough respondents for statistical relevance, tabulate the data, and deliver insightful analyses.
For lean teams, creating something straightforward and repeatable—annually or even biannually—may yield better results than attempting multiple different types of content.
Tools like calculators and simulators also remain highly effective for engaging target audiences and driving meaningful interactions.
#7 More marketing budget dedicated to B2B influencers
If fewer people are discovering your brand through Google Search, how can you increase your visibility? Investing in content through influencers could be a highly effective strategy to get your brand in front of a larger audience.
The global influencer marketing market has tripled in size over the past five years, with many brands now positioning influencer marketing as a key pillar of their strategies. But does this approach translate effectively to B2B audiences?
A recent survey of B2B marketing professionals revealed that 49% identified the integration of influencer content into a broader marketing mix as the top trend for 2025. Additionally, 53% of respondents stated they are already investing in influencer initiatives and plan to increase their budgets in 2025.
In the current landscape of shrinking budgets and rising media costs, influencer marketing presents a cost-effective alternative. Gartner’s research with CMOs highlights influencers as one of the lower-cost options for marketing investments.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
In a world flooded with AI-generated content, leveraging real humans who recommend your product because they genuinely use it and like it could be the key to driving sustainable growth for a SaaS platform.
Here are a few ways to collaborate with influencers to align your brand with expertise and authority in the problem you solve:
- Comprehensive product courses, like this full course on ActiveCampaign, including an affiliate link that provides discounts for users who purchase.
- Co-creation of content, like blog articles, videos for the platform’s YouTube channel, or participation in webinars to share expertise.
- Content for paid campaigns, similar to Dell’s global campaigns promoting influencers videos (though not SaaS, this model can be adapted).
- Featuring in influencers newsletters, like Lenny Rachitsky’s newsletter for project management professionals. His influence spans beyond Substack into platforms like LinkedIn (Top Voice) and his highly ranked technology podcast.
- Live events, beyond content pieces, influencers can participate in events, attracting their audience for live interactions at your booth (live events rank as the second most effective content format with influencers according to marketing professionals).
When planned effectively, influencer-generated content can seamlessly extend your content and social media marketing strategy.
#8 Wider SEO pool with scalable localization
If leads are becoming more expensive, in some countries, they are becoming significantly more costly.
For SaaS platforms considering global expansion, tools now make it easier to automatically localize pages and blog articles, opening access to a broader pool of leads.
Additionally, the competition and difficulty of ranking for your primary SEO keywords are often lower in languages like Portuguese, Spanish and Italian.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
Before localizing content to seize these opportunities, it’s essential to assess whether your company is equipped to handle these leads, convert them into customers, manage accounts, and provide support effectively.
#9 Community-Led Growth
Community-led growth taps into the power of word-of-mouth (that influences 90% of buying decisions) and the strength of a supportive community to influence buying decisions while lowering customer acquisition costs (CAC) and boosting customer retention and lifetime value (LTV).
With AI making it easier to scale content and outreach, the personal touch that comes from real human connections through communities and peer recommendations is more valuable than ever.
Today’s shoppers want more than just a transaction—they’re looking for an experience. They often rely on peers for honest opinions, advice, and insights about products, which makes a strong community even more important.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
Community led growth is one of the most relevant SaaS content marketing trends because it offers unique opportunities to enhance both product and customer experience.
Actively engaging with your community allows you to gather valuable feedback that can directly shape your product development, helping you create solutions that better align with user needs.
Establishing a strong community identity is also key—creating a memorable name and weaving it consistently throughout your messaging helps foster a sense of belonging and loyalty among members.
Be ready to embrace criticism about your product, support, and other aspects—ActiveCampaign’s community on Reddit, for example, often highlights user feedback. Having team members from product and support actively involved in the community helps address concerns quickly, fostering trust and deepening connections with your users.
#10 Performance content
The impact of trust-building content grows over time, enhancing your paid strategies. As attribution models become more sophisticated, CMOs can now directly link content efforts to revenue.
To measure content ROI effectively, focus on key metrics like:
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
- Lifetime Value (LTV)
- Content-Assisted Conversions
Performance content—combining data-driven insights with lead-gen-focused CTAs—is outperforming traditional “purely educational” content.
What’s in it for SaaS platforms?
Invest in evergreen content like guides and how-tos that maintain relevance over time. Complement this with campaign-specific content that responds to seasonal trends or new product launches.
SaaS content marketing trends for 2025 indicate that content will gain ground in the market to offset the rising cost of media acquisition. To deliver value to people who want to gather the most information before contacting the sales team, it makes sense to invest in content that is more focused on the middle and bottom of the funnel.
