TLDR;
- Stop looking for a "LinkedIn ads agency in Cardiff" and start looking for a "B2B growth partner with proven LinkedIn expertise". Expertise trumps postcode every time.
- Before you speak to anyone, you MUST calculate your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). If you don't know what a customer is worth, you can't know what you can afford to pay for one. Use the LTV calculator below.
- The best agencies don't sell ads, they solve expensive problems. Judge them on the quality of their questions and their case studies, not their sales pitch. Look for results in niches like yours, ideally B2B SaaS or high-ticket services.
- Your offer is probably wrong. "Request a Demo" is a conversion killer. A top agency will help you build a low-friction offer that provides instant value, like a free audit or a custom report.
- Below, you’ll find an interactive LTV calculator, a flowchart for vetting agencies, and UK-specific CPL benchmarks to help you understand what to realistically expect from your campaigns.
So, you’re a business in Cardiff and you're thinking about LinkedIn Ads. You're probably looking around for a local agency to manage it all for you. It's a logical step. But it's also the first mistake most businesses make, and it can be a very expensive one.
The truth is, finding the right partner to manage your paid advertising has very little to do with their physical address and everything to do with their specific, demonstrated expertise. The Cardiff business landscape, from the growing tech scene at places like Tramshed Tech to the established financial and professional services firms in the city centre, has unique needs. Throwing money at LinkedIn without a rock-solid strategy is the fastest way to burn through your marketing budget with absolutely nothing to show for it. This isn't like running a few Facebook ads for a local shop; this is a high-stakes game for high-value clients.
Rather than providing a list of agencies in South Wales, the goal here is to give you the framework to identify a true expert partner who can deliver results, whether they’re based in Pontcanna or Penzance. We'll cover the uncomfortable maths you need to do first, the questions that separate the experts from the pretenders, and what a genuinely effective LinkedIn strategy actually looks like.
Why Are You Really Considering LinkedIn Ads?
Let's get one thing straight. LinkedIn is not a platform for cheap leads. It’s not a place to get hundreds of sign-ups for a fiver each. If that’s what you want, you’re in the wrong place entirely. The cost per click can easily be £5, £10, or even more. The reason for this is simple: you're paying for unparalleled access to specific, high-value decision-makers in their professional environment.
The biggest reason businesses in Cardiff, or anywhere for that matter, fail on LinkedIn is a total mismatch between the platform's purpose and their own expectations. They treat it like any other social channel, putting up a generic ad with a "brand awareness" objective and hoping for the best. When you do this, you're literally telling the algorithm to find you the cheapest possible impressions, which almost always means finding people inside your target audience who are least likely to ever engage or buy anything. It's a fast track to failure.
You should only be on LinkedIn if your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is there and the value of that customer justifies the high cost of acquisition. For a B2B software company in the Capital Quarter targeting CTOs in London, it's perfect. For a high-end legal firm in Cathedral Road looking to connect with General Counsels at FTSE 250 companies, it's a goldmine. For a new coffee shop on Albany Road, it's a complete waste of money.
Before you even think about hiring an agency, you need to get brutally honest about your customer. And I don't mean "SMEs with 50-200 employees". That's a useless demographic. You need to define them by their nightmare. What is the urgent, expensive, career-threatening problem that keeps them awake at night? Your Head of Sales client isn't just a job title; she's terrified of missing her quarterly target and having to explain it to the board. Your Head of Operations is stressed about a key process breaking and bringing production to a halt. That *pain* is what you're selling a solution to. An agency that doesn't start the conversation here doesn't understand B2B marketing.
Can You Actually Afford to Succeed on LinkedIn?
This is the most important question, and you need to answer it before you spend a single penny. The success of a LinkedIn campaign isn't measured by a low Cost Per Lead (CPL). It's measured by the relationship between your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) and your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). If an agency tries to sell you on "cheap leads" from LinkedIn, run away. They are either inexperienced or being dishonest. You need to know your numbers so you can have an intelligent conversation.
A good agency will want to know this on the first call. They need to understand the economics of your business to build a strategy that’s actually profitable. Here's how you work it out:
Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's the average a client pays you per month? Let's say you're a Cardiff-based SaaS firm and it's £750/month.
Gross Margin %: What's your profit on that revenue after costs of service? Let's say it's 75%.
Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? A 3% churn is pretty good for SaaS.
The calculation is: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
So, LTV = (£750 * 0.75) / 0.03
LTV = £562.50 / 0.03 = £18,750
In this example, each new customer is worth £18,750 in gross margin over their lifetime. A healthy LTV:CAC ratio is at least 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to £6,250 to acquire that customer. Suddenly, a £50 or even £150 lead from LinkedIn doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like an incredible investment. This is the maths that unlocks scalable growth.
Use this calculator to figure out your own LTV. Play around with the numbers. This is your single most powerful tool in assessing whether LinkedIn Ads are right for you and in holding any agency you hire to account.
What Questions Should You Be Asking a Cardiff Agency?
Once you've done your homework, you're ready to start talking to agencies. Your goal now is to vet their expertise, not just listen to a sales pitch. Forget asking "have you worked with other businesses in Cardiff?". It’s a pointless question. Ask them things that actually reveal their competence.
"Can I see a case study for a B2B company with a similar business model to ours?"
This is non-negotiable. You need to see proof they can get results for businesses like yours. For instance, in one of our campaigns for a B2B software client, we achieved a cost per lead of around £18 for decision-makers using only LinkedIn Ads. In another campaign for a client in the environmental controls space, we reduced their lead cost by 84%. An agency should be able to show you similar, tangible results. If all they have are e-commerce or local service case studies, they are not the right fit for a complex B2B campaign on LinkedIn. Their experience simply isn't relevant.
"Based on what you know about our business, what would you say our biggest challenge will be on LinkedIn?"
A great agency will give you an honest, direct answer. They might say you're market is incredibly competitive, that your offer is too weak, or that your price point makes the unit economics difficult. A bad agency will just tell you what you want to hear: "No problem, we can get you loads of leads!". The expert partner will act like a consultant, not a yes-man.
"What do you think of our current offer? How would you improve it?"
This is a killer question. Most B2B offers are terrible. The standard "Request a Demo" button is arrogant and high-friction. It screams "let me waste an hour of your time selling to you". A top-tier agency will challenge this immediately. They'll suggest creating a high-value, low-friction 'lead magnet' or offer. Instead of a demo, could you offer a free, automated audit? A bespoke report? A short video course that solves a small, specific problem for your ICP? For our agency, it's a free, no-obligation strategy session where we audit failing ad accounts. We give away value first to earn trust. An agency that just accepts your weak offer without question isn't thinking strategically.
This whole vetting process can be mapped out. Follow these steps, and you'll avoid the vast majority of time-wasters.
Calculate LTV
Check B2B Case Studies
Do they ask about your business model?
What Should Your First 90 Days With an Agency Look Like?
A professional agency operates on a clear, structured plan. They don't just 'boost' posts. A typical engagement for a new client in a B2B space should follow a logical progression of testing and optimisation.
Month 1: Foundation & Audience Testing
The first month is all about data gathering. The agency should work with you to deeply define your ICPs and build multiple ad sets targeting them. For instance, if you're that Cardiff cybersecurity firm targeting London finance, they wouldn't just target "Job Title: CTO". They would build layered audiences:
- -> Seniority: C-Suite, Director, VP
- -> AND Industry: Financial Services, Investment Banking
- -> AND Company Size: 500-5000 employees
- -> AND Location: Greater London
They'd also test different angles, like targeting members of specific industry groups, or followers of competitor company pages. Alongside this, they should be split testing different creatives based on the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework, and testing different low-friction offers to see what resonates. The goal is not immediate profit, but to find a promising signal: which audience and message combination gets the lowest cost-per-click and highest click-through-rate.
Month 2: Optimisation & Scaling Winners
By month two, you should have some early data. Let's say the ads speaking to the 'fear of a data breach' are outperforming the ones talking about 'efficiency gains'. The agency should now double down on the winning message, reallocating budget from the poor performers. They should also start building retargeting audiences – people who visited your landing page but didn't convert. These are warm leads and should be shown a different set of ads, perhaps a case study or a testimonial, to build more trust.
Month 3: Lead Quality & Funnel Analysis
Now the leads should be coming in. The conversation shifts from CPL to lead *quality*. The agency should be having regular calls with you or your sales team asking: "Were the leads from Campaign A better than Campaign B? Did the people who downloaded the whitepaper book a meeting?". This feedback loop is essential. It allows the agency to refine the targeting even further, excluding industries or job titles that produce poor-quality leads. This is how you go from just getting "leads" to building a predictable pipeline of potential customers. The cost per lead may even go up, but if the cost per *qualified meeting* goes down, that's a massive win.
It's important to have realistic expectations for costs. Below is a rough guide for what we typically see for Cost Per Lead (CPL) in the UK market on LinkedIn. If an agency promises you something drastically lower, be very sceptical.
Your Action Plan for Hiring Your Cardiff LinkedIn Ads Agency
This all might seem like a lot of work, and it is. But getting this decision right is one of the most important you can make for your business's growth. Hiring the wrong agency won't just waste your ad spend; it will waste months of your time and opportunity. To bring it all together, here is the exact process and checklist I would use if I were in your position, looking to hire a true partner for growth.
This table summarises the entire process, outlining what you should do, what a good agency will do (a green flag), and what a poor agency will do (a red flag). Use it as your guide during the selection process.
| Step | Your Action | Green Flag (Expert Partner) | Red Flag (Time Waster) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Internal Prep | Calculate your LTV and determine a target CAC. Define your ICP based on their "nightmare" problem. | N/A | N/A |
| 2. Agency Vetting | Review their website and case studies. Shortlist only those with clear, relevant B2B experience. | They showcase detailed B2B case studies with real metrics (CPL, ROAS, pipeline influenced). | Their case studies are all for e-commerce, local businesses, or are vague and lack numbers. |
| 3. The First Call | Ask them tough questions about strategy, challenges, and your offer. Listen more than you talk. | They ask about your LTV, sales cycle, and lead quality. They challenge your assumptions. | They launch into a sales pitch, promise cheap leads, and agree with everything you say. |
| 4. Reviewing the Proposal | Analyse their proposed strategy. Is it tailored to you or a generic template? | The proposal outlines a custom 90-day plan based on your ICP, with clear testing phases. | You recieve a boilerplate document focused on deliverables (e.g., "4 ads per month") not strategy. |
| 5. The Offer | Present your current primary Call-to-Action (e.g. "Request a Demo"). | They immediately question the friction of your offer and suggest higher-value, lower-commitment alternatives. | They accept your "Request a Demo" offer without question and build a plan around it. |
Ultimately, the goal is to find a strategic partner, not just a pair of hands to click buttons in Ads Manager. The right agency for your Cardiff-based business might be just down the road, but they could also be anywhere in the UK. Their value is in their thinking, their experience, and their ability to translate your business goals into a profitable advertising strategy. Focus on finding that deep expertise, and you'll give yourself the best possible chance of success.
If this approach to B2B ads has made you realise that getting them right is more complex than you thought, that's because it is. If you'd like an expert second opinion on your current strategy, or want to discuss how a specialised approach could work for your specific business, feel free to get in touch for a free, no-obligation consultation. We can dig into your numbers and figure out a clear path forward.
